Garden Diary, 5 December 2005
Broad beans are still cropping very well, to the point where I think I need to harvest all of them very soon. Yates says to harvest up to November if they're planted in April, and they are getting rather big. We've given a fair amount away, but I think I'll freeze the rest.
We're getting a few strawberries now. They're very small - I don't know what you have to do to make them bigger. Very nice, though, and mostly untouched by others with the netting over them..
All the apples came off the braeburn (or whatever it is), maybe in a strong wind we had. Never mind. It'll give the tree a chance to bulk up for next year. The granny smith has a few on it, but I'll need to stake it up 'cos it's so spindly. The apricot is putting on a lot of foliage, no sign of fruit though.
Potatoes are racing away - we'll start to harvest them around Xmas, I think. The tomato plants next to them are going good, lots of flowers. I nipped out some laterals the other day, but I'm not sure if I should have done it earlier. Live and learn.
I've resown the carrots and onions and the carrots seem to be coming up. A few extra onions as well. The peas and carrots went in a few weeks ago and are mostly popping up - a bit hard to tell the peas from the oxalis, unfortunately. A bit of weeding to do there ...
Got a couple of feeds of worm rum out of the worm farm. Slowly ticking along.
Fed the rhubard up a month ago, and have had plenty from it, good for a few crumbles :-). It'll need splitting next season, and I need to find somewhere to put the new plants, maybe by the washing line if I whip that lavender out.
The dwarf beans are still very patchy - only 7 up. Might try planting some later in the summer.
Since we had lots of pumpkin seedlings form the compost, I transplanted some down the side of the house to see what they'd do (see photo), along with a few self-sown tomatoes. They've survived so far, so it will be interesting to see how they do with relatively little direct sun (maybe 3-4 hours a day).
The lemon tree has put on a surprising spurt of growth. Don't know why, maybe the warm winter. I'm not complaining :-) Also, I put a frame around the cherry tomatoes, so it'll be interesting to see what we get out of there.