Grafting Success and Failures

I grafted more fruit trees this year than the year before and I had a fair few more failures.

This years tree nursery - a little weedy maybe...

 The apples did relatively well although I only had a success rate of around 75%, I think this is down to a number of factors: I used some "grafting pliers" for some for the grafts and the majority of these ones failed compared to the ones I did traditionally with a knife. I also stored the scion wood differently, some in the fridge (this all took well) and some in the shed, as it was much more mild than the year before, I don't think the shed was cold enough and so some of the wood wasn't alive enough to be grafted.

One of the many failed cherry grafts

 Some for the other fruit didn't do so well. Only two cherry grafts took and much the same with the plums and pears, although the two apricots I did as an experiment are both doing well. 

A successful graft with apricot wood

In total I've still got over a hundred fruit trees growing in the nursery with successful grafts and the root stocks that had failed grafts on can be used this next spring so no money lost. Next year I will trying budding some trees in the summer (although there never seems time in August) as I think stone fruit like the cherries and plums do better that way.

Has anyone else been propagating fruit trees or tried their hand at grafting?

Planting Next Years Garlic

One of the great things about blogs is the gentle reminders you get from reading everyone else's. A lot the UK blogs I follow are planting their garlic about now. I'm  never normally this early but I had a spare hour the other morning and a clear spot in the garden, so I decided to get them in.

 I was a little worried as I haven't got any muck to put on the plot at the moment but then I remembered the veg bed I weeded with the chickens - they manured it for me as well - it worked with my planting plan so I decided to plant them there. 

 I broke up three of the biggest bulbs I harvested this year and then picked out the fattest cloves.  I forked over the plot and dug out the last remaining weeds, added some blood, fish and bone and then planted them about 6 inches apart.

Hopefully planting them this early will give me some big cloves next year, if I can stop the birds from pulling them out every day! My mum is off to Malvern show today (without me - I'm too busy) so I've asked her to buy me some Elephant Garlic to experiment with in the same plot, although I need to do a bit of research on it, as last time it was a flop.

Who else has got their garlic in? Anyone else grown Elephant garlic and had much success with it? - I think you have to grow it for two years to get a good harvest off it.

Seed Saving

With my "Blogging Seed Swap" still in my mind I want to make sure I'm saving plenty of seeds this year. I've never been great at it, either leaving it too late or not storing them correctly, so this year I'm making a real effort.

Pepper seeds

On my window sill I currently have lots of pepper seeds drying. Some from my chilli pepper "Cherry Bomb" and the others from either yellow or red "Mini Bell Peppers". These are then being labled up and stored in old cod liver oil tablets containers to keep them dry.

My tiny sweet peppers - perfect for UK growing!

I've also got lots of fennel seeds to collect to use as a spice in the kitchen and some salad seeds to use as micro greens through the winter. 

How does everyone else go about saving seeds and how good are you at it?

Does anyone save seeds from biannual plants and how do you go about keeping plants separate to prevent cross pollination?

Don't forget if you want to be part of the seed swap then start saving your seeds now and in a couple of months we can start to share them out!

A Day Out - Croft Castle

We had a great day out with mum last week to Croft Castle in Herefordshire.

We did our usual thing of not going around the big house, only concentrating on the gardens - in fact when I got back I realised that I haven't even got a picture of the castle, or not the real one at least!

A great play area for the kids - I'd love to make something like this for mine!

Mini Castle!

A vineyard in the walled garden 

The veg area wasn't massive but it was well looked after

It had an old large greenhouse, beautifully restored

Tomatoes inside the greenhouse. It wasn't really very full, in fact I think I've got more tomato plants!

Still lots of untouched areas to the garden, which I really liked. I loved all the old lean-tos and sheds

This insect hotel looked great against the stone wall

We went on a walk around the grounds. Some lovely mature trees and this beautiful avenue planted for another time

It was all too much for one little girl

This one had a sleep but came back fighting!

National trust properties do make a great day out. If I had more time I'd probably become a member, but even without it's not too expensive - especially as we normally just go round the garden and grounds and bring a picnic!

I really enjoy having this shared love & interest in old gardens with my mum, there's no guessing where I got my love of gardening from! 

Is everyone else's love of gardening so easy to trace?

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?