Windy November

No, Muffin has not been using our patio as her new toilet, this is actually our very first crop of jerusalem artichokes. They are the Fuseau variety and less knobbly than other types so hopefully shouldn't be too difficult to peel. However, we all know what jerusalem artichokes are really famous for, so beware to anyone in our vicinity in the next few days.

Here is what else has been going on in Harbill's Garden:

Our broad beans, planted mid-October so that we can get an early crop in April, have already started coming up:

Bizarrely, despite having trimmed it back, our lavender is insisting on flowering.

And the cornflowers will not give up.

We are also still managing to eat salad throughout the winter; this rocket seems impervious to the cold, windy and sometimes frosty weather.

But - and we are saving the most thrilling news for last - we are hugely excited about our compost heap.

On the right is this year's waste; we have already started another one on the left

Throughout the year, we have been putting all perishable waste excluding meat, fish and citrus fruit (meat & fish attract rats and citrus is too acidic) into a big compost sack at the back of the garden. And look! It has actually turned to mud!!!

We will be using this when we dig up the garden in the spring to prepare for Year 2 of Harbill's Garden. Briwwiant (as they say in Burton).

The End

The sun is now setting on Harbill's Garden and we have reinstated the fortnightly veg box order (put on hold since June! That's £13 a fortnight saved! Although we dread to think how much we have actually spent on Harbill's Garden...). We have harvested all our squash, eaten, frozen or preserved all our runner beans, carrots, lettuces, spinach, cucumbers, courgettes, 3 tomatoes, baby beetroot (babies because they never grew), kohlrabi, borlotti beans (not very nice). All that remain in the veg garden are our Jerusalem artichokes, old runner bean plants and a few patches of rocket leaves.

Runner bean chutney

As we look back over the long and challenging months we have spent nurturing our garden through disaster and grief as well as triumph and joy, the Harbills have learned a number of lessons:

1. Do not plant things out before the last frost if they are not supposed to be planted out until after the last frost.

2. There is no need to manically and obsessively start planting squash in February inside the house; it is better to plant seeds just a month before they need to go outside.

3. Do not plant squash seeds gathered from squash planted the year previously, they are very likely to have cross-pollinated and the result tastes disgusting.

4. Carrots do not grow any bigger if you pull them up, see that they are too small and promptly return them back into the soil.

5. If you put food out for the birds, they will also eat all your blueberries and you will get none for your cereal.

6. Despite being easy to grow, one does not actually get very many broad beans from broad bean plants.

7. Shouting at tomatoes to turn red does not seem to work.

8. Without a greenhouse, there's not much point in bothering with tomatoes. Tomatillos however, are the new tomatoes. They seem to grow happily outside, are plentiful, low maintenance and most importantly, taste lovely.

9. Edemame beans do not grow in our garden

10. Muffin's main purpose in life is to destroy our garden.

"Hmmm, what can I kill next?"

But do not despair, dear Blogsciples, this is not really the end of our blog. We plan to keep you updated with garden activity over the bleak winter months and perhaps even post a few recipes using produce from the garden. If you are very lucky, we might even do a special feature on our compost heap...

Ahhh, summer, it's our favourite day of the year

There is no denying it, the short, cold summer is officially over and most of the garden is beginning to turn brown.

However, there is still a bit of colour in Harbill's garden, mainly created by certain flowering stalwarts such as our beautiful Aster:

The Scabius is still going strong and is perhaps our longest serving flower.

Our garden's attention seeker, the Dahlia, is looking resplendent at this time of year but it is rather lonely (we only have one). Perhaps it should stop showing off and it might make friends.

And the sweet-peas just keep 'buggering on'.

Having looked at all these flowers you might believe it is still summer, until you see what else is going on in the garden.

Most Things Great... are small

This Turks Turban is currently about the size of a football

We have realised this year, that big is not necessarily best. Whilst we are feeling rather proud of our swelling squash:

l-r: Choggio di Marni; Acorn; Turks Turban

and the runner beans taste just as good at any size:

we have found that the cucumbers are at their most succulent picked small, that the courgette are at their best picked at about the size of Billy's finger (not Harriet's) and that the carrots are sweetest as babies.

Purple Haze carrots - these are not quite as nice as Atlas carrots

The Success Stories vs the Un-success stories

Well, August in Harbill's Garden has been something of a rollercoaster ride. For every success, there has been a failure.

Our runner beans and dwarf beans are providing us with veg almost every night.

.. on the other hand, our Chinese Broccoli (or Kailan) has provided someone else with their subsistance. Luckily for them, we have decided that we don't like it very much anyway (it's too bitter).

Can you tell that Harbill have invested in a new camera?

For every red tomato (we have had a mere one), there are eight green tomatoes. And we still have a jar of green tomato chutney left over from last year's unripened tomatoes.

But wait a minute, what is this? Have we actually managed to grow healthy looking carrots?

Ohhhhhhh, no, we actually haven't.

But, we mustn't grumble, our average daily crop often looks like this:

It's a Bit of a Squash in These Tights

Billy would like to point out that these tights do not come from his wardrobe

Well, actually, it's a whole squash. This may not be the most aesthetic way of gardening but it sure is a good way to prevent the swelling squash from breaking the vines and falling to their death.

 And these squash need some help. Up until about three weeks ago, every single squash on our spaghetti squash plants grew up to the size of a thumb, promptly rotted, and fell off. You can imagine how devastating this has been for us (hence no blogs for a while - too depressing).





Much internet research has taken place and we think that we may have found the solution: When the female squash flower closes up again and begins to go brown, a bit like this:

... we manually remove the flowers. What seems to have been happening is that the flower has been rotting, and the rot subsequently spreading to the squash.

Now that our squash are finally beginning to actually grow, they need constant surveillance. As you may recall Muffin is currently doing her community service and we felt guarding the squash bed a suitable punishment to fit her crimes.

Harbill Blog Hacking Scandal

It has been brought to our attention that our gardening blog may have been hacked. See the title of our previous post, published six days before the Telegraph this Saturday:

We will be calling for the resignation of the Gardening Editor.

As if this news wasn't bad enough, it rained all weekend, gardening was postponed and we had to make do with Harry Potter.

Evanesco Rain!!! Ohhhh, it didn't work.

So instead, we'd like to show some photos from our blogsciples' French gardens, thanks to Barbara and to Jane & Conrad.

Barbara & Jim's wild flower garden - where is it Barbara? Billy can't remember.

Grapes = wine (yum) - from Jane & Conrad's garden near Bergerac

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has someone cast the Avifors spell on Jane & Conrad?

Don't be surprised if you see these photographs in the papers next weekend. Harbill don't just break the news, we make the news...

The Butterfly Effect

Whilst in Italy we saw a plethora of butterflies and moths, including a Scarce Swallowtail and our new favourite moth, a Nine-Spotted Tiger Moth:

This inspired us to keep up our efforts with our burgeoning wild flower garden, hopefully enticing in more than just midges and the odd cabbage white.

It has come on leaps and bounds since its inception as a square of mud:

Before

And look at it now!

 

We have even found a caterpillar, could this be our first Swallowtail???

Let it Grow, Let it Grow, Let it Grow

After a week's respite in Italy (more about this in the next blog) from the stress of running a veg garden, we returned to a veritable feast.

Last night's supper consisted of: nasturtium, broad bean and courgette risotto with lettuce and cucumber salad. Tonight's supper also consisted of a salad of lettuce, cucumber and nasturtiums. We are currently enjoying these homegrown suppers; we may not be in a month's time. Does anyone know how to preserve lettuce?

On the right is one of our three lettuce patches

We are so excited about our wild garden, which has been created to entice in the insects and general wildlife, and will therefore be devoting our next blog entry to it. Here is a taster:

Today our blog is 2 months old. Let's see how much has changed in our garden in two months...

Where's Muffin?

King Harbill and the Knights of the Raised Bed

Thanks for your suggestions regarding what we should do about our miscreant cat. We have come to the conclusion that the best way to tackle this problem is with crime prevention. This also applies to the dastardly deeds of various other garden criminals working alongside Muffin the Murderer to slowly destroy our beautiful garden.

We have therefore spent the last week recruiting our team of special garden agents and are proud to introduce:

Sergent Toad - Slug Division 
 The slugs stand no chance against his bionic tongue and if Muffin decides she wants toads legs for supper, his poisonous skin will give her a nasty shock. Toad sleeps in the wild flower section and patrols the veg bed at night.





WPC Ladybird Larvae - Aphid Prevention Squad
 With her insatiable appetite, no aphids will ever get away and if they do, her parents Lord and Ladybird will soon dispatch of them. She is most at home on the broad bean plants and amongst the roses.

Detective Inspector Max
Retired cop Max guards the borders of the garden and one well aimed bark is all it takes to send Muffin cowering back into the house and once again, peace is restored in Harbill's Garden.

NEWSFLASH: Crime Pumpkinelle

Over the last few days, we have noticed that a couple of our favourite plants are either dying or are dead.

Remember the beautiful harlequin squash in the last entry? Well here it is

Murder

Other casualties include one of our Atlantic Pumpkins whose stem has been broken

GBH

And everyday, the plot thickens when our foxglove looses some of its flowers

Theft

Photographic evidence from the crime scene

We have conducted several interviews with our garden fox, a gang of slugs and family of pigeons. We think we have, however, identified our prime suspect, who also has a very long record of previous convictions.