Category Archives: The Greenside Up Garden

One little “weed”…

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I referred to my one little “weed” in my last video blog but if you missed it, here it is…

Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea

Any ideas? I hadn’t a clue what it was when I first spotted it growing in my ‘roots’ bed. It was certainly nothing I’d ever planted or seen growing in my veg beds before.

I was intrigued – what could this stray little plant be? I didn’t pull it out as I had been doing all morning with the creeping buttercups and dandelions.

I let it be until it had been identified as a friend or foe.

Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea leavesI racked my brain – what had been growing in this patch in previous years? Nothing we’d ever planted of that I was certain. So I headed indoors with a cup of tea, fired up the PC and spent a half hour or so googling “weed” images but came up a blank. Hmmm dilemma, what to do now? Thank goodness for friendly gardeners – I sent off a picture to a gardening guru friend for some professional help – they were thrown too given it’s location. However, a couple of days later a simple text reply came back and I laughed, as no doubt they had too…

Haha! How could I have missed it? My little ‘weed’ was none other than a foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)! These biannual plants are currently popping up all around our hedgerows but I hadn’t dreamed of or expected to find one in my veg patch and it had me completely thrown.

Foxglove flower

With thanks to www.foxglovelane.com for the lovely image

Foxgloves are such pretty plants, the bees love them and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said

“What is a Weed? A plant who’s virtues have never been discovered”

Well in this case the foxglove’s virtues have most definitely been discovered – both ornamental and medicinally. I have no plans to use it for the later – extracts from it are used to treat heart conditions making it toxic to those of us who aren’t chemists. I love to see flowers growing in vegetable gardens though – from nasturtiums to marigolds, Calendula to borage. They attract insects and give vegetable gardens character and colour. My foxglove will be just another addition – albeit a stunning one.

“A weed is just a flower growing in the wrong place”

So as I’ve decided that all the stray foxgloves are staying exactly where nature intended them to be, that now puts them firmly in the flower category …

Do you have a favourite flower growing in your garden that others might classify as a weed?

The Greenside Up Veg Patch

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My Vegetable Garden (3rd May 2012)

If you missed the first video clip in April I mentioned that the food produced here is for family and friends. We don’t sell the fruit or veg but freeze, preserve, dry or make into wine everything that isn’t eaten. Pretty much all of the planting and sowing is done by myself, though Mr G is great with a fork in the autumn and spring months and builds fabulous sturdy structures.

So what’s been happening over the past month? After a slow start the recent rain and then a bit of warmth over the past couple of days has seen the plants (including the grass & weeds) start to pick up again.

Outside the leaves on the potatoes have broken through the soil so they’ve been earthed up protecting them against blight, frost and the tubers rising to the surface and going green. It’s my first time growing potatoes under a mat so I’m interested to see how they compare with the rest of the crop.

The Brussels sprouts and cauliflowers have been planted out having been sown from seed on the heated bench a few weeks ago. Today I sprinkled some organic slug pellets around them in an attempt to protect their new leaves from the hungry little munchkins. The different kales were all started a bit later so a bed has been prepared ready for them.

Brussels Sprouts

Mange tout pea seeds were sown directly into the soil yesterday against the pea support and a green manure of phacelia sprinkled in between to prevent weeds taking over the empty space. There are some toilet roll pots with mange tout coming up in the polytunnel that will be ready to plant out soon, filling in any gaps and giving an earlier crop than the seeds.

One veg we like to be self-sufficient in are the onions and garlic so have two beds on the go which I’ll be adding some leeks to in the next few weeks. The onions have been planted at different times with a couple of bags of shallots only added to the collection last week so they’re all at different stages.

The last veg bed outside will host the ‘others’ so parsnips, chard, beetroot, radish and spinach have all be sown directly and I’m patiently waiting for the seedlings to appear. Carrots will be sown shortly.

In the polytunnel there’s a bit more action…. the globe artichoke is forming, peas are growing and sweetcorn, lettuce, carrots, rocket and broad beans all coming along. The strawberries have almost finished flowering and the fruits forming. There are lots of seedlings on the bench too. Tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, mange tout, scarlet, Tuscany and curly kale, courgettes, cucumbers and winter squash – am starting to wonder where to put everything!

So that’s it for this month and as you can see May will be a busy month planting everything out. If you have any questions or observations about anything I’m doing in my veg patch feel free to leave a comment or ask.

The Greenside Up Veg Patch

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My Vegetable Garden March 2012

Summer 2010

Hello from my new WordPress Blog! We’re still tweaking bits and pieces to the website and blog but as I’m impatient and shot this video on 31st March, I’m firing away and sharing it with you now before it’s too out of date. (For anyone new to my blog, I’ve just moved here from Blogger.)

To give you an idea of how a vegetable garden can transform in just a few short months I’m planning to add a monthly upload showing you my own garden. At the moment it’s looking a bit bare and overgrown but in a few weeks time I’ll be adding more seeds, supports and transplants. You’ll be viewing the garden highlights and lows (yes we all have those) and if all goes to plan, seeing how much food can be produced in a few beds.

Potatoes & Companion Plants - spring 2011

Over the winter months most of the beds were covered with cardboard or green manures to protect the soil and they’ve recently been removed or dug in. Most beds except the area where the carrots will be sown have had very well rotted manure or compost dug in to improve the drainage of our clayey soil and replenish it with valuable nutrients.

You may notice from the clip that the soil is looking very dry… well it is, though only on the surface at present after the dry winter. This year I’ll be using straw as a mulch to protect it and to help to preserve moisture.

Hungarian Grazing Rye Green Manure Overwintered 2011/12

In case you’re wondering, we don’t sell any of the fruit or veg we grow. We eat it raw, cook it,  store and freeze it, as well as donate some to neighbours who help out with watering occasionally (or give us manure!)

Mr G has done his bit with the digging and manuring and from now on in it will just be me tending to the garden as a working mum with three children (who I hope to bribe to help me…)

So that’s it for now, let me know if it helps which will encourage (or not!) me to update you in the months to come and also ensure that I keep up with it!

What’s growing in the Greenside Up garden mid October 2011?

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Perpetual spinach, rosemary, tarragon, chives and carrots

I’ve been asked a few times this week “what’re you harvesting/growing now in your veggie garden”, so on this misty, rainy late October morning out in the polytunnel having a quick tidy up, I took a few pics…


It mightn’t look like it but we are eating the spinach!  The caterpillars had a good old munch this year but once the worst of the leaves were removed, the not so holey ones have been added to stir fries, curries and accompanying stews and roasts.

Still producing courgettes!

If you’ve been following Greenside Up on Twitter or Facebook  you’ll know that our two indoor and one outdoor courgette plants have been prolific this year! Of the two plants in the polytunnel, one now has a bad dose of powdery mildew but this one is hanging on in there. There are a few recipes using courgettes on the tab above that we’ve enjoyed, the most recent being the courgette, pistachio and chocolate cake.

Strawberries and grapevine

These few strawberry plants that were moved into the tunnel during the early spring produced the sweetest berries. Sadly the magpies ate ALL the grapes!

Chilli peppers

Looking a bit holey now, we’ve had our best crop of chilli’s this year from the couple of plants grown. On advice from a community gardener once harvested they were placed on a tray and individually frozen before bagging up ~ worked a treat!

Great carrot crop!

The carrots were thinned after the picture was taken but this early crop planted a couple of months ago love to grow in the polytunnel where the soil tends to be drier. Beyond them are the winter lettuce and pak choi that were planted today. The big leaf at the front is a globe artichoke that if it survives the winter, I may regret planting inside!

Grown from a saved seed – variety ‘anyonesguessia’

Yet to grow a successful crop of squashes in the Greenside Up garden, but not one to give up this is the best to date. Next year I’m planning to grow smaller varieties.

Gardening’s not for the faint hearted – have learnt to avoid but love and admire these little critters.

Confession here in that outside has been a little neglected of late. Not that I’m a fair weather gardener, more that heading outside in the cold, rain when I’ve a couple of free hours hasn’t especially inspired me. Dry day or not, am going to have to make a date with my garden soon as a couple of beds still need clearing, manuring and covering before the winter months.

Misty and slightly neglected veg patch

I did say squashes don’t grow well here – despite lots of manuring they never reach a good size outside!

This is supposed to be a pumpkin!

The courgette plant’s the same although it did produce lots of very regular sized, healthy fruit…

Courgette and borage

I’m never disappointed by a failure in the veg garden as more can be learnt from observing it than any book can teach you. Aware that I’d planted the runner beans out too late this year (last week in June), they never really took off and most succumbed to the usual mildews before they got to a reasonable size.

Runner beans with sweet peas grown at the end of the poles to
encourage pollinating insects

Bumper crop of swedes these year the size of small footballs. Love these mashed with carrots … yum.

Swede

Still with me?? There’s more….. Note to self – sow more leeks next year! Never have enough of this lovely crop.

Leeks with dill gone to seed

We lost last year’s celery to the winter snow, another note to self ~ pick it!! Our favourite & quickest way to eat the colourful rainbow chard is to steam it and serve it as an accompanying veg.

Parsley, celery and rainbow chard

A veg patch wouldn’t be complete without the odd cabbage or two….

Cabbage plant

Okay, even I’m tiring of this now so the last picture will be of our trusty old kale. Have another bed with kale, cauliflower and cabbage and yet another full of the green manure grazing rye (sorry Mr G, can see already it’s going to be a back breaking job digging that over!).

Green and Scarlet Curly Kale

So, how’ve you got on this year in your veg patch ~ successes, failure, must do next year? Would love to hear how you’re doing.

Trying something different…

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It’s good to grow something different. 


You can observe how plants grow and experience new flavours. 




Whether it’s an unusual vegetable or just another variety we always try to add to the list of tried and tested here in the Greenside Up garden. This year we’re trying a few new ones, starting with a yet unnamed variety of squash.


Squash

We saved the seeds from a squash that was bought from a local farm gate last autumn. Searching through the seed catalogues has us thinking that they might be of the ‘Blue Ballet’ variety but until the plants mature we’ll  just have to wait and see (and if they were F1 seeds they’re unlikely to develop true to type anyway). The two plants sown are romping away in the tunnel, so much so that I cleared away the Phacelia this morning that I’d sown in front of them to attract the pollinating bees in.


Florence Fennel

Next up is Florence Fennel. This is the bulb plant rather than the wispy herb. It was touch and go whether any would survive as the tiny seedlings resembled the weeds growing close by and many were inadvertently pulled up. A few have survived however, and we’re looking forward to cooking the aniseed flavoured veg when it matures.


Fennel growing next to oregano (not new additions)

We’ve grown a couple of different varieties of kale over the years, and always try and sow the hardy curly kale for some winter veg. This year we’ve added red kale to add some variety to our dinner plates…


Red Kale
and some Black Russian just because it’s a different shape.

Black Russian Kale

I’ve been looking forward to sowing some wacky looking Kohl Rabi so this spring added them to the beds too. They’re still pretty small and we lost some due to the rampaging cattle that visited recently but I love them for their individuality and colour…


Kohl Rabi

Last year we grew a tall variety of French beans in the polytunnel. They grew so rapidly we could have climbed up them to meet the giants. They were also full of strange looking spiders and it was therefore left to our 10 year old daughter and a friend (invited around for tea lots that month) to pick them.


Tall French Beans (Three Sister Planting)
This year I’ve chosen a dwarf variety so that I can pick them myself. 
Dwarf French Beans

Lastly we’ve added to the companion plants with the introduction of Poached Egg Plant (Limnanthes) sown directly into the bed in front of the broad beans, which have always suffered with the little pest black bean aphid. This pretty little annual attracts hoverflies whose larvae eat aphids so fingers crossed they’ll arrive in time!

Poached Egg Plant (Limnanthes)

Are you growing anything different this year?