Once or twice a year, I like to step back and look at how things are going overall in the garden.
I’ve had some wins and some losses since the last time I gave an update. But things are moving and growing so I thought it would be a good time to catch up.
Berry house
The annual berry house tidying up has begun. Per usual, this is not something I want to be doing with my time at all and it’s actually worse than usual too because I’m trying to clear this general space for a human house.
The original plan was to move the whole thing down the hill. But in clearing stuff up, I’ve discovered good chunks of the base have rusted away entirely.
So now we’re thinking about scrapping the metal frame and just building a better one down the hill. Which is a much larger project, but not unachievable.
I do not like the shape of the current berry house because access to one side of the rows is quite the squeeze. So the idea of building something more rectangular, and perhaps a little wider and longer, is appealing.
Either way, the bed frames, climbing wires, and plants themselves need moving.
It got pretty messy by the end of summer, and this is always a big job that takes most of the winter. This year, I’m finding 30 minutes each day to just do what I can. A little bit at a time always adds up.
So far, I’ve moved the worm farm (which I’d already done by the time I thought to take some ‘before’ photos); organised the pots; lifted many berry canes that were growing outside the walls; begun weeding my plant collection; and have found a way into the structure, past the weeds.
There’s still a lot to do (not least of all potentially building a berry house!), but I’m reminding myself while it’s best to move the plants while they’re dormant in winter; the actual house isn’t required until the berries begin to ripen in December.
Peas
Last summer’s plans for my garden arch dripping with plants did not work out. The bitter melon seedlings I grew died of windburn. Then I popped in some watermelon seeds and they did pretty well, but did not grow very tall.
So this winter and spring I’m trying another round of Alderman peas. It’s been a few years since I last grew them, but I purchased a pack in 2018, and we’ve been eating our own saved seed ever since.
Because it’s been a few years, I decided to plant them mostly to refresh my seed stock. But I’ve also never managed to build a structure tall enough for them, so fingers are firmly crossed they’ll do what they usually do on my arch!
I direct-sowed the first round in May, and they’re really starting to take off now. I’ll plant another round on the other side soon to keep the harvest going into late spring.
Alliums
It’s been a few weeks since I planted my crop of garlic for the year.
It’s all germinated successfully—so far, so good.
I’ve also found a rogue from last year popped up, so I gave it a bit of a feed and cleared the weeds from around it. I’ll just let it do whatever it’s going to do.
In the bed next door, the shallots are starting to take off. This is the hardest crop to not get carried away with—they’re easy to plant, and they proliferate reliably.
Last year I planted way too many. I’ve given away a few strings, and I’ve completely replaced onions in our cooking with shallots, but we still have plenty to take us through the next few months.
So this year I’ve reined myself in and planted 10. That should give us a manageable harvest come summer.
The volunteers
I have now firmly established a range of crops which just self-seed and grow with very little input from myself throughout the garden.
Cilantro, rocket, dill, parsley, leek, tomato, potatoes, chamomile, calendula and—of course—catnip just kind of plant themselves. Occasionally I’ll shake a branch of seeds around a bit, or transplant a seedling; but mostly I just need to harvest them.
The leeks have been a wonderful surprise. The batch I planted over summer got shredded by chickens, and I thought I was going to be out of luck this year. So it’s fortunate I never bothered to remove last year’s leeks.
Colour me surprised when two baby leeks popped up for every leek I hadn’t harvested last season!
Additionally, because I never pulled out the flowers, thousands of seedlings have sprouted in patches too.
The truth is I just really like leek flowers, and so do the bees, which is why I leave them there. But this has been a fortunate bonus!
Seedlings to plant
I popped into the garden centre this week to grab some seedlings to go in next week when I get a chance.
I grabbed some pak choi, because the chickens keep eating the self-sown ones, and I really love them. They’ll be joined under a bird net by spinach. I don’t usually grow spinach, but I think I need to start eating more of it and I certainly can’t stomach the idea of paying for it when it shouldn’t be too difficult to grow.
There’s also a second round of mixed brassica (broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage). I’m getting some great results from my first crop, but I’m keen to see if I can get a spring crop too. So far the weather this year has been very mild, so worth a shot.
Finally, I got a punnet of ‘drunken woman’ lettuce. There’s heaps of rocket in our garden, but the lettuces seem to have gone extinct, so I’m trying to find something to replace the ‘michelle’ lettuces that used to grow themselves.
Spring is coming
It kind of feels like I’m still waiting for winter, but I can also feel spring approaching.
Seed catalogues are landing in my mailbox and I’m thinking forward to how next summer might look. I think there’s going to be some new crops this year.
But for now, at least the winter garden is doing nicely.
