| Well OK, more like three or four strawberries at the moment, from three strawberry plants in the back garden (pictured) and three big containers in the front, each containing 3 – 4 plants. They are delicious. I wish I’d remembered (if I ever knew in the first place) what variety they are. Most of them came from a charity shop and I don’t think they were labelled in any way. The strawberries would be even more delicious if I waited till they were fully ripe before I picked them, but (a) I’m impatient and (b) the snails would get to them. I don’t use slug pellets but I have developed quite a good overarm throw, which usually ensures that the offending molluscs land in the alleyway between our back fence and the courtyard of the block of flats that backs onto us. If only there weren’t so many of the bloody things. The snails are why I have to put our runner beans in the front garden – there are so many snails in the back that the beans would have no chance of survival there. Even more robust plants, like spring onions and chives, end up covered with trails of slime. |
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What follows isn’t going to be pretty. It consists of a “before” and “after” picture, the “after” being my sorrel after experiencing the most incredible thunder/hailstorm I’ve ever seen at first hand. (Think three inch deep rainwater and hailstones the size of large peas.) If you’re of a sensitive disposition, look away now.
 My sorrel a few days ago |
 ...and after |
Scary, huh? But the thing I really threw a wobbly over was my tomatoes – there are snapped stalks and broken off leaves everywhere, although I think some of them will survive.
and
By the time I thought of sheltering the tomatoes under a sheet of plastic (the detached roof off one of my greenhouses), it was too late – the damage had been done.
These are the very tomatoes I spent three hours lovingly potting up during the first weekend in May, before potting them on last week into their final containers, using a 50/50 mix of home-made and shop-bought compost. I will be gutted if I don’t at least have some surviving ones.
| On Saturday I went into town and bought a black dustbin (price: £12.99). I cut a hole in the lid. After transferring about a foot of water from the water butt to the dustbin, I was able to cut another hole in the side of the water butt, about six inches below the top. Then I connected the water butt and the dustbin with a length of hose pipe. Hey presto – massive transfer of rainwater from the former to the latter. I realised that there was a bit of leakage at the water butt end of the hose pipe, so I plugged it with an old plastic bag. Being able to fill my watering can by scooping water from the dustbin rather than opening the tap of the water butt will be an enormous time saver. And the lid will stop bits and pieces of detritus from accumulating in there. |
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Our landlords (who left us our previous, now defunct water butt), had got as far as drilling a hole in the butt and attaching a hose pipe, but they hadn’t thought of using anything bigger than a bucket to catch the overflow of water. Speaking of detritus, the picture above right shows the high tech filtration device that I use for the water butt, aka a 50p tea strainer.
The picture immediately below shows this year’s tomato seedlings as they were on April 8th, one week ago. The picture at the bottom shows them yesterday, after I’d spent a large part of the afternoon potting on the Brandywines. All the Brandywine seeds I saved came up, and there were over forty of them. I only threw a few of them away – as there’s no way I will have the room in the garden to grow forty Brandywine tomato plants (to say nothing of the three other varieties I’ve planted), I will have to find some willing recipients among the neighbours. First in line is the guy from round the corner who gave me an envelope filled with sunflower seeds a couple of weeks back. One good turn deserves another! They’re the sort of sunflowers that grow to enormous heights, and they will cheer up the front garden no end. I have planted half a dozen of the seeds in little pots in our mini greenhouse. Not the conventional way of doing it, but I know that if I put them straight in the ground the birds will have them in no time.
The planks of wood you can see outside in the second picture are the remains of our barrel, after which this blog is named. Sadly the wood finally rotted so much that it started to crumble away, and the barrel was a bit of an eyesore. Its place may at some point be taken over by our dustbin, which is no longer needed for storing rubbish since Thanet Council so generously gave us a wheelie bin. Don’t think I’ll be changing the name of the blog though… somehow “Beans in a Dustbin” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
In keeping with my resolution from last year, I held off planting any tomato seeds until today, April 1st. Hopefully I won’t thus be stuck with a load of indoor seedlings that have gone leggy due to lack of sunlight. Although we’re getting some nice sunny days, it’s still quite cool and I’ve noticed that my spring onions (planted a good couple of weeks ago) still haven’t come up, presumably due to low temperatures. Well, I hope it’s due to low temperatures and not seed failure lol.
Anyway, tomato varieties planted today were: Gardener’s Delight (of course), Mamande, Moneymaker and the Brandywine seeds that I saved last year. Fingers crossed that they come up, because I’m already salivating at the thought of Brandywine tomato, mozzarella and basil salad. Long wait for that though. I will be splashing out on some more Tumbling Tom hanging basket tomato seeds, because they were so gorgeous last time.
Haven’t done any other gardening other than a massive tidy-up a couple of weeks back (and planting of the aforementioned spring onion seeds). The next project will be to transfer the contents of the barrel in our front garden into a galvanised dustbin, which is no longer needed for its original purpose because dear old Thanet Council has given us wheelie bins. The barrel has come to the end of its life – its wooden bits are rotting and it’s no longer an attractive thing at all. Maybe I will have more success at producing a viable courgette crop using the dustbin than I did with the barrel.
…happened yesterday, when I turned over our compost heap. Which involved lifting the Dalek away, taking the top, virtually unrotted, layer off and putting it in a temporary container (a polystyrene fish crate), then transferring the more decomposed stuff underneath to the hole next to the Dalek. Then covering the hole and its contents with empty compost bags, and weighing them down with rocks. (This last step is vital, to prevent the compost from being used as a litter tray by cats – ours and our neighbours’.) All in all a very messy job, but a satisfying one.
In a month’s time, I’ll be able to use the compost in the hole to plant my first salad leaves, rocket and spring onions. In milder winters I’d consider doing this about now but it’s still mid-February and we’re not out of the woods yet as far as snow and sub-zero temperatures are concerned.
Speaking of sub-zero temperatures, I think these are what was responsible for the leak in our water butt. The water inside froze when we had our cold snap a couple of weeks back. Now whenever it rains, any water that collects in the bottom of the butt has leaked out within a few hours. Is it (a) possible and (b) worthwhile to repair a water butt, I wonder? Or shall I just get the credit card out and buy another one?
Planted eight normal-sized garlic cloves at the weekend – I looked up in this blog to remind myself when I planted them last year, and FWIW, I am two weeks later with them this year – Nov. 6th as opposed to October 24th. Am in two minds about whether to bother with elephant garlic again. Though the elephant garlic I planted last year tasted fab, it wasn’t, er, elephant sized like I expected. Though according to my other half, that might be because I didn’t leave the garlic in the container for long enough. Apparently according to him, the bulbs keep on growing, even when the stalks/leaves have wilted.
After a mini heatwave over the last week or so, my tomatoes are still ripening outside. The Gardener’s Delights and Gardener’s Pearl are pretty much over, although there are still some green ones left. We’re just waiting for a consignment of pickling vinegar to arrive at our local greengrocer – when it does, my other half is going to get to work on some green tomato & apple chutney! He made some last year and it was delicious.
I am still picking semi-ripe (well, quarter-ripe) Brandywine tomatoes and putting them on the windowsill – there are about half a dozen of them still left on the vine outside our front window. When the weather breaks, they’re all coming inside to take their chances – if they ripen, all well and good; if they don’t, it’s chutney time for them too.
Speaking of Brandywine tomatoes, I notice that the seed company I bought them from isn’t doing them this year, so I’ve had a go at saving the seeds. I put them in a little dish of water for a few days and when the water had gone all scummy, I washed the seeds gently in a strainer to get rid of the pulp, then placed them to dry on a coffee filter paper. That’s where they’ll stay for another week, until I put them in a ziplock bag and store them in the fridge till next April. Fingers crossed that the seeds come up, ‘cos Brandywine is a delicious beef tomato that tastes fab in sandwiches, with fry-ups and (my favourite way of eating them) chopped up with mozarella cheese, basil and olives, and sprinkled with extra virgin olive oil, freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt. Nom nom nom…
| This is the very first of my brandywine tomatoes, picked exactly a week ago and eaten with mozzarella and fresh basil, lightly drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. It was lovely – the taste wasn’t intense (but then again you don’t expect it with tomatoes of this size/type), but it was very pleasant and the texture of the flesh was lovely and velvety. In other words, not at all like the beefsteak tomatoes you often get in the shops. As well as being an out-there shape, this specimen was an out-there size, too – about five inches across the bottom! It will be a while before any of its fellows are ripe enough to pick so int the meantime we’ll have to content ourselves with the Gardener’s Pearls and Gardener’s Delights, which are coming in a steady stream at the moment! |
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Most of the rest of the country seems to be experiencing a total meltdown at the moment, with rioting, looting etc. So here is something nice to look at: what I picked from the containers in our front garden this morning:
The tomatoes are the first of the Gardener’s Delights (there were a couple before these but now they’re starting for real), plus there’s a small One Ball courgette.
