Strawberries

The end result.

Last season I tried growing strawberries in vertical columns made out of pvc milk bottles, but this wasn't very successful. Not enough soil or space.

This season is more traditional - a few runners planted into tyres along the base of the grape trellis have been doing very well. We've collected a bowl full similar to the above every couple of days for a week or two. The competition is from the thrush.

There's enough space for another row of about 8 to 10 tyres here, but not enough compost.

Update 2016/11/03:

White Genoa fig tree

This White Genoa fig has been sitting in a bag for a season, but finally got planted a couple of weeks back:

At the end of the grape trellis. It's been pretty dry, so not looking too happy.

Update 2017/01/11:

Been getting water, and looks a lot happier. Signs of growth.

Update 2017/02/20:

Transplanted to a pot a few weeks ago:

:

Update 2017/03/26:

They're getting bigger. Will they ripen this season?

Grape trellis and strawberries.

Post from last season.

Second season. Last season they got munched down by cows and looked in a bad way. Seem to have recovered, but not yet at the stage they were when when purchased. It'll take a year or two to catch up.

Surrounded by strawberries, which are doing nicely - started from runners last season.

Update 2016/12/01:

Hanepoot.

Autumn Royal. Antigone in the background.

Update 2017/01/11:

Watsonia

Doing OK in a tyre...

Leeks

Tried a few times in the past, both from seed and transplanted seedlings, with no success. The seeds grew into hair like tiny plants then died. The seedlings, packed into a 12 cell polystyrene tray, were transplanted after rudimentary separation in the expectation that I'd hill them when big enough. They didn't take long to die, either.

A few days ago, I spotted a tray of leek seedlings and couldn't resist them. This time I did the obvious, and Googled "transplanting leek seedlings". This resulted in Youtube videos and good articles on what needs to be done, i.e.:

Soak the contents of a cell in water to rinse out the potting medium, and then carefully separate out the roots. In my case, each cell contained between three and seven seedlings, averaging maybe five.

The next step:

Dib a series of holes, between 10 and 15cm apart, about 15cm deep. I started with a rake handle, but struggled, so ended up using my 1.8m crowbar.. My soil tends to stick to the sides of the dibber, so rocking it backwards and forwards and rotating it helps produce an open hole.

Drop the separated seedlings into each hole, or in the case of those with good root systems, push them in so they bottom out. There'll be a couple of cm of leaf sticking out the top.

Finally, carefully fill each hole with water using the watering can. As the water gets absorbed, the roots at the bottom get covered with some soil from the sides of the hole. If they don't, repeat.

Leave the holes as is - the idea is that as the leeks grow, their stems will fill the hole, which gradually gets covered over with soil.

I got 76 leek seedlings, a bit tedious to plant, but here's hoping.

Update 2016/11/29:

A bit of shrinkage but most doing OK. Looks like it's going to be a crop for the long haul...

Update 2017/01/10:

Parsnips

Planted two seasons ago, and haven't done much. Haven;t died,either.

Raspberries

What can I say?

After struggling for years trying to grow them, they're coming up all over the place.

Update 2016/11/03:

Update 2016/11/16:

Update 2016/12/01:

Come up all by itself in exactly the right place....

Ixia and rhe Ixias

One of our cats and her namesake:

Posing isn't her strong suit.

Update 2017/05/16:

Hales Best sweet melon

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Never been successful with this sort of thing before, but after good results with squash in a tyre last season I'm giving them a go.

Planted 9 seeds, let's see if they come up in 10 to 15 days.

Update 2016/10/29

Update 2016/11/03:

Update 2016/11/29:

Update 2016/12/02:

Salad greens

A few lettuce type things planted in between the tyres:

Red oak lettuce. It's done well in the past and this is about the 4th time I've planted it.

Mazuna. Claims to be a lettuce substiture. Not very well known to Google, unless I'm missing something?

Tastes OK.

 Actually in the tyres are the Contender bush beans that came up. The gaps have been filled.

Update 2016/11/03:

Mainly chard and spinach. And a cat.

Update 2017/01/10:

Portugal quince

Previous season's posting on quince.

This is the second season, and it's still quite spindly, but looks pretty healthy. An attractive tree.

Update 2016/10/25:

I'm going to have to stake the stem to prevent it from collapsing under the weight of the developing fruit. Maybe tie it to the plum tree it will be replacing?

In theory these will ripen in about March next year.

Update 2016/11/03:

Update 2017/02/10:

Anniversary

It's more than a year since I started this blog.

Is it serving any purpose? Maybe - the ability to update posts means you can consolidate information about a particular item, and photograph the progress of certain things. Considered as a diary or log book it has certainly helped me avoid futile activities and to persist in some that didn't seem to be leading anywhere useful.

Could you achieve the same effect differently? I've kept paper diaries about garden activities, but it's not easy to include a visual record, and it's easy to misplace bits of paper.

The activity of actual gardening and blogging about it are loosely coupled. I do a lot more in the garden than  gets written about, so the result is some sort of filtered reflection of what goes on. The question, then, is what makes it into pictures and words? Which gets back to the purpose...

Not sure there's a sensible answer.