Duck & Raspberry Pen

 So, thought I'd do a bit more about the new tunnel as there was quite a few questions. 

The 60 raspberry canes turned up early last week and I got them in the ground within an hour of them turning up!

Planting 40 Plum Trees!

It's not been ideal conditions for planting trees, really the ground is too wet - but as they say time waits for no man so I decided we'd get them in and see what happened. 

Helpers - my eldest was poorly. 

To start with we planted up a new hedge between us and the neighbours. For this we used cherry plum trees, just little whips, and every 10ft put in a Victoria plum (they were £5) as a standard. Not sure how this will turn out but it should be interesting. I've read lots of people saying it makes a good edible hedge but when asked no one seems to have tried it!

Japanese Wineberries

Japanese wineberrys are a relatively new joy I look forward to each year.

I didn't realise how much the kids look forward to them each year as well until today.

Strawberry Beds

Although I've moved the main soft fruit garden into a new place, the area left behind is a great place for growing with full sun. 

So down there I've divided it up into 11 new beds plus a bed for the rhubarb and some herbs (sweet cicely). One thing I was keen to get into the new beds was some strawberries.

Permaculture Soft Fruit?

I've been toying with an idea in my head for a few years now and wanted to experiment.

I garden with many different methods and never really stick to one, but if you're into organic gardening then sooner or later you're going to come across permaculture.

The wikipidia definition of permaculture is:-
"Permaculture is a set of design principles centered around whole systems thinking simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and resilient features observed in natural ecosystems. It uses these principles in a growing number of fields from regenerative agriculture, rewilding, community, and organizational design and development."

Balloon Berry

 I'm always trying to find new and exciting things to grow. 

Over the years I've discovered some that we really like growing and eating. We grow Cucamelons every year now, along with Peruvian Black Mint, Quillquina, Electric Daisies, wine berries and more.

New fruit, I think, is something to get excited about. Maybe it's just my sweet tooth but I love to try out anything like that. I remember going to Asia for the first time and being blown away by the choice of tropical fruit, but I love our temperate fruit even more. 

When I stumbled upon a fruit I hadn't heard of, a balloon berry, I just had to buy some and plant them. Latin name Rubus illecebrosus if you want to goggle it. 

When they came they were far smaller than advertised and smashed to pieces, I got some money back and set about trying to keep them alive. 18 months later I've had my first fruits from them.

They're bigger than a raspberry, growing on a tall strawberry like plant. They look beautiful, like three raspberries fused together, but all the little bubbles are somehow finer.

And how do they taste I hear you ask?

INSIPID I think would be the best word to describe it. 

They tasted of very little, even the long wait and anticipation couldn't improve the taste. Don't get me wrong, they didn't taste bad, they just didn't taste of anything really, just sweetness and a little sour. 

I'll keep these two plants growing as a bit of an oddity in my garden, who knows when they crop heavy they might make a great preserve. But if I was short on space I'd rip them out and plant some more Japanese wine berries instead. I might even move them out to the coppice and add them to the forest garden area as they will tolerate shade.

Maybe with some plant breeding these berries could be the next big thing, but they need some work before then!

Have you heard of or grown these berries before? 

What did you think to them?

What unusual fruit, veg or herb do you think i should try to grow next?

Early July Harvests

Things are picking up pace in the garden at the moment, lots of things are ready or nearly ready to harvest.

 Lots of berries, potatoes and beans at the moment - all very healthy! There's raspberries as well but we always eat them in the garden! 

Pretty sure the picture above is how I started out. Hulling gooseberries and currents was always a family job. I remember doing it as a child as a job to help, but I always remember my sister being so much faster than me at it (even though she's six years younger)! 

There's lots of nasturtiums and marigolds growing as well which always makes the garden look nice and they bring their own set of benefits to the area as well. A bonus is they're all self set as well. I tend to plant some every few years to add to the gene pool but otherwise they're left to their own devices! 

What are you eating out of the garden at the moment?

Barberries

Another unusual fruit this week! Barberries (Berberis thunbergii)

Grown as hedging and small decorative shrubs in gardens across Britain, many people don't realise these are edible. The berries are used a lot in Iranian and middle eastern cooking cooking, chucked into rice to give it a sharp pop when you eat them.

 My friend has a massive tree sized bush growing on his grounds, covered in berries, so I decided to do a bit of scrumping (with permission) to get some to try.

 I like the berries straight off the bush and so did both my children, but I can see they'd be a bit tart for some, they taste like a sweetened cranberry. I picked a small tub full and set about sorting out the berries so I could preserve them.

 They are quite a fiddly berry to pick and in the end I just picked a few bunches and then sorted them out at home, whilst trying to stop Ev from eating them all. 

I then put them in my little dehydrator and set them to dry for a few hours. It was tricky as they kept falling through the slats so I had to do it in two goes, I could do with getting some gause to lay them on as they'd dry a lot quicker if they wouldn't keep falling through. 

I managed to dry a small jar full.

When dried they taste even better, they'd be a good substitute for raisins (if you don't mind a much tarter flavour) or dried cranberries and much easier to grow as you largely leave the bush alone and the birds don't seem to affect it much. I'm looking forward to trying these in some rice and maybe scattered over my breakfast.

Anyone else eat these or have them growing in their garden?

Strawberry Tree

As you know from previous posts I have somewhat of an obsession with unusual fruit and veg. Normally I have to plant a young tree or plant and wait years before I get to sample the fruits. 

 Luckily I have a friend in the village who lives on an old estate with lots of unusual, mature trees. One of these happens to be the strawberry tree. And when I went round on Thursday last week they had a fruit waiting for me to try. 

 The fruits themselves look gorgeous, exotic even. Like a red lychees dotted all over the tree, picked out against the sun. The tree is beautiful as well, having lovely flowers and white leaves in spring and a great structure to it. 

The tree is quite beautiful though.

And how does it taste?

One word.

Disappointing. 

I don't think I'll ever bother to try one again put it that way. 

Tasteless, but the skin leaves an almost bitter taste in your mouth. Maybe there is some value as a survive food, but at this time of year there is so much else to eat I can't see why you'd choose this.

Bland tasteless flesh and a horrible skin

It does make an attractive tree in the garden and the birds love eating the fruit so I can see why people plant them but I don't think it's going on my grow list any time soon. Good job I didn't have to wait ten years to find that out!

Anyone else ever had to wait years to try something they've been growing and then been really disappointed by it?

Strawberry Growing

I'm pretty good at growing most things but I suck at growing strawberries. I'm not sure what I do wrong but they never seem to do very well. 

Working at a friends house today I think I saw the answer. 

Strawberries in guttering

 I know growing plants in guttering isn't new but I thought this was a great use of space and at "toddler" hight a great way for children to pick their own. 

Great use of space

There were loads of strawberries ready to eat and I imagine it's far easier to control any runners or weeds and watering would be straight forward! 

I might have to try this on our fence at the front of the house next year and see if we can grow a few more berries this way. I've got some old guttering saved from a job back in the winter that would be ideal for it.

Anyone else been growing in this way or similar?

Mulching With Wood Chip

I've managed to stay somewhere near on top of my veg garden this year with weeds, but the soft fruit garden is another matter. It's full of nettles and docks. And I mean full 

There is a fruit garden here somewhere! Honest!

 So this week I've made it my job to tackle it before it all goes to seed. After a few people recommending a video I watched one over an hour long on the "back of Eden" system of gardening, I thought I'd try a lesser version of it and mulch the soft fruit garden with wood chip from my tree surgeon of a brother.

Laying newspaper down first once I've pulled the big weeds

 I laid a layer of newspaper or cardboard down first to try to suppress the weeds and then a good 4 inches or so of wood chip. I always thought that wood chip was meant to remove the nitrogen from the soil but apparently that's more when you dig it in, also you're meant to counteract it by adding manure to the surface when it's needed. Anyway I doubt it could use up more goodness that all the weeds!

Mulching the blueberries

Blueberries mulched and netted

I can now see what is fruit bushes instead of trying to find them in the weeds.

I'm about a third of the way there with the fruit garden now. There is another couple of loads of wood chip at the farm that I'm going to bring up and lay down on the rest of it. I could also do with finding a source of cardboard as I'm thinking the same system would be good with my willow coppice to keep the grass down.

Anyone else been mulching with wood chip?

Planting Chilean Guavas "Kapow"

I've been quite interested in  James Wong's "Home Grown Revolution" range from Sutton seeds. Lots of interesting and usual fruit and veg to try and grow. The other day I was feeling a little rash and ordered some things they had on special offer, one was 6 Chilean Guava plants for £10 (reduced down from £47.86). 

Well packaged delivery

 They're meant to taste like a cross between a blueberry and a strawberry and grow much like a blueberry bush with berries that are meant to be good for eating fresh as well as drying and preserving. The plants turned up looking healthy and strong (although the delivery driver had left them in full sun so it was lucky I wasn't out for too long as they'd all be dead).

Already the potential for berries this autumn.

How to ruin a perfectly good bucket... Er I mean pot

Drainage holes drilled

My mix for the plants 50-50 soil and compost with some wood ash and blood, fish and bone added for good measure

Rocks and pebbles in the bottom of each "pot" for drainage

Six "pots" ready to go

Instructions

Good roots on each plant, a little teasing of the roots out before they were planted, but I'm never sure if it makes much difference.

Placed at the front of the house where there's a slight micro climate due to the south facing wall.

I decided to plant them in pots as after dong some research on the plants, Suttons claim of them being tolerant down to minus 10 might be a little optimistic, so for the first few years they will over winter in the greenhouse to give them a little more protection, although I might leave one plant out and see how it fairs.

And as for the buckets rather than pots, it works out much cheaper than big pots (these were only one pound each) and they seem to last much longer than some pots you buy, as well as having carrying handles (compost womans suggestion from a while ago and it seems like a good idea).

Anyone else been trying new fruit or veg this year? There seems to be lots of interesting things about at the moment and I'm keen to try as many as possible.

My Old Veg Garden - Raised Beds

Here are some pictures of the garden from our first house. The soil was what my dad would call "boys soil" so easy to work and grew everything really well, a light sandy loam. We decided that raised beds would landscape the garden nicely and make it easy to use. Mum drew a design that I liked and I built it in the evenings after work over a few weeks during March and April 2008.

The soon to be veg garden as we bought it in 2007

Clearing the area to build my raised beds

Goofy picture of me building them. I can't believe how much I've aged in 6 years!

First two beds built and planted up!

The finished veg garden. 

The right hand side of the garden had a greenhouse and strawberry beds

Growing during the first year

How it looked when we sold the house and left. below the veg garden was the chicken pen and I had another greenhouse by then as well.

It was a great little veg garden and we produced loads from it, in the summer we hardly had to buy any veg at all. I really liked growing in beds and I think it's one of the reasons that I've divided my current garden up into beds now. It makes it easier to plan and easier to break the weeding up into achievable amounts. 

Anyone else love their first veg garden?

Picking Raspberries

Our Autumn fruiting raspberries are just starting to produce a lot of fruit. This means that I get dragged down the garden by my little girl every night to pick them.

Telling me which ones she wants

 They've only been planted here just over a year (as I moved them from our old allotment) but they've grown so much that they take some controlling. They do seem to be like the gift that keeps on giving!

Loads more to come yet

Serving suggestions anyone?

From now on I should get around a bowl full a night from our 20ft row (mind you it is 5ft thick!). I dread to think how much this would cost from the shops, I just wish we had room for our big chest freezer here so we could use them through the winter.