First apple harvest

Stormy weather and apples looking like they will be windfalls soon, so I picked the harvest off my James Grieve tree.

Seventeen good apples this year. Apple crumble tonight with the four that have small blemishes and the rest into store, wrapped in paper towels and contained in a paper carrier bag. They are in the summer house assuming it's not going to be very hot any more!

The Lord Derby apples were picked a few days later. Its first harvest was 4 apples and one left for the wasps. (They had already started.) The four apples made a good apple pie to go with sausages for an evening meal.

Update: By 26th August the James Grieves were not looking like they store very well so they became a part of this year's chutney. It's apple and blackberry chutney this year with blackberries from the garden and apples from ours and David's gardens. It is already being eaten, going well with cheese sandwiches!

New gardening year again...

...always begins when I plant my elephant garlics. The four "rounds" that I lifted in July went into the plastic bed in the first week of October. The plot was cleaned out after the dwarf beans and a handful of BFB added at the garlic end before planting. The area was topdressed with sieved garden compost too.   (3 came up on 8th December.)

I have nice seedlings of godetia and saved hollyhocks coming along and some anemones from saved seed too. The foxgloves, hesperis and honesty have been planted out at the equinox and are looking good in their beds.

I have prepared a new bed to become my herb garden. It had thyme in already. Lots more to go in.
(Lovage, sage, marjoram, oregano, lemon balm, mint, chives and garlic chives in a few days later.)

Apple trees and greengage have all been mulched with 2014 leafmould and the apple tree bed has been dressed with my spent potato pot composts.

More potting

Yesterday, I put out the rest of my squash/courgette varieties into pots. One of each variety is still waiting to go into the haybale bed. (They went in on 29th) I also potted a "left over" red kitchen potato that had sprouted in the cupboard. This is an experiment to see if that gives decent results, but I don't know the variety. (Maybe Désirée)

The day before, I potted on the eleven tomato plants (right) that are waiting to go into the broad bean bed. We ate broad beans in their pods last night. (They were lovely!) So the tomatoes may not have to wait too long.

The foxgloves (left) sown last June are flowering now, along with the hesperis and putting on a good show. The vipers bugloss are getting enormous and nearly ready to flower. The James Grieve apple tree appears to have set about 200 fruits!

Beans are started

Last week of April. Sow beans my calendar said. So I did. 10 Hestia, dwarf runners; 10 Boby Bianco, dwarf French beans and 6 Meraviglia di Venezia, climbing French beans. They all went into the conservatory and the Hestia are up today. (The others followed in the next couple of days.)

I planted one tomato Principe Borghese out in the plot three days ago and a couple of purple basils went out next to it today. Six garlic chives were potted up, one gardeners' delight tomato went out in a pot next to the conservatory today and one Verde d'Italia courgette went into the squash bed. Broad beans are just beginning to appear and the apples have an enormous amount of flower just opening.

I bought two cucumber plants this week and potted them up into small pots in the greenhouse. Pak choy and salad greens have gone out into the shady plot and chard seedlings are just showing.

Lord Derby takes a trip

I moved my Lord Derby apple tree on Monday. The last couple of leaves were hanging on but we have had a couple of good frosts now so I thought it was a good time. it has moved to a hole in the lawn. I gave it most of a bag of Jack's Magic compost to help it along. There was a good fibrous root system but I had to break the longest deep roots. I'll wait to see how it does next year. I'll leave pruning till January.