What's growing

I'm quite a negative person - it has to be said! My glass isn't half empty - I have no glass! and if by chance I did have a glass it would have a hole in it!
Negativity is part of who I am and always has been, it never really bothers me until I'm having a fight with the Black dog in which case it can be quite debilitating and when I'm gardening it can turn what should be a pleasant potter in the garden into a full blown mental assault on myself, anxious about all the things I'm not doing and which are getting on top of me - this usually then results in me flouncing about all cheesed off with myself and achieving nothing. Of course that then results in more of the mental attack on myself and so the cycle begins.
I tell you this because it began to happen again over the last few days and so nothing was getting done but instead of wallowing in the 'woe is me' attitude I determined to go to the polytunnel (mess as it is right now) and think about nothing but getting plants planted and seedlings potted on - music is my choice of weapon for those wandering thoughts.

So here is what is growing in my polytunnel just now

I don't grow many onions, certainly not as many as I should - these are Stuttgarter and they seem to love it in this soil.

Sweetcorn grow so well in this soil and last year I had pretty much 100% cob success. I wasn't going to grow in bottomless pots this year but I noticed mice ate the first batch of seedlings so I decided to play it safe with this second batch. The polythene is purely to stop that wretched Horsetail weed.

I am seriously naff at growing salad crops so I only gave up a small area this year. The Spring onion ain't springing it has to be said and the Pak choi has bolted - what the heck is Pak choi anyway? and what do I do with it?. The rocket was waaay to strong flavoured for me but the Spinach is tasty as are the radishes - guess I'm sticking to Radish and Spinach from now on.

First year Strawberry plants. I gave up growing these years ago cos I never got a decent yield but I'm giving it another go and hopefully have better succes over the next few years.

This Conference Pear is still riddled with some kind of pear leaf disease so it's going out in the garden in a sheltered area from the summer on. It may not produce fruit outside but it'll give the birds more cover in the garden.

The Victoria Plum is outgroing the PT so it too will be going to the garden against a sheltered south facing wall. It has 7 fruit this year - a grand improvement on last years one!

Climbing French Beans - I love these. They do so well in here and produce masses of fruits.

Second batch of Cucumber plants after mice ate the first lot. Also Courgettes are growing the other side.

The cut flowers are really romping away and I've already had a few Dianthus flowers.

The one flower I couldn't imagine not growing - sweetpea.

Quite alot of Allium on here, lord knows what I'm going to do with them all. Plus can you see the Thalictrum n the two middle pots on the middle shelf - I have loads of these that I grew form seed this year, I'm really pleased to see the doing well.

More shelving with Sunflower 'Teddybear', Coreopsis plugs and other plug plants from one of the 'Gardeners world' readers offers.

The plants have now overspilled to outside the PT door.

More overspill

Everything is golden.

Oh Lordy I have discovered spray paint!
During a recent trip to Inverness I bought a can of Plasti Kote spray paint in a coppery gold colour to spray some old plastic 10ltr paint tins so I could use them as plant containers, but once I got home I couldn't wait for the buckets to be cleaned and dried enough to spray them so I experimented on some old plastic Terracotta effect pots I had - I never use these pots (or the plastic green ones) because I just don't like the look of them (don't actually understand why I ever bought them to be honest) and let me just say I am now hooked on this spraying lark.
Nothing is now safe from a coat of Plasti Kote and while I haven't a clue as to how long this stuff will last I'm having a blast spraying stuff.

Here's a couple of old terracotta plastic plant pots, an old Green one and a bust that was originally a boring white - all have been glammed up.

Had to add some glamour to the potting bench I recently made. The bust sits perfectly on the ledge, the metal garden find (an axle?) now looks even more like a sun than it did before and just look at the bucket hooked on to the shed!

This is one of those Brass/copper/tin tourist souvenirs that you get from Turkey or Tunisia - I suspect this was from Turkey or maybe even somewhere like Tobruk when my family were stationed there. Originally I'd sprayed it cream but it looked really naff so I gave it a go with the Plasti Kote and I love how it still shows the pattern beneath the colour. I have another one of these buckets and also a funny shaped vase of the same pattern that I may have to spray, in fact I may even feel another whimsy garden ornament coming on.

Unfortunately there's more to do around here than just spray paint everything in sight and top of my list had to be to clear the polytunnel out.
The sweetcorn has finished cropping, the Tomatoes and given way to blight and the Pear tree had to be stripped of its fruit due to scab.
I'd been putting this chore off for days because I cut the Sweetcorn down in a moment of madness a few days previous and had just left everything in a complete mess when I had to stop due to the rising temperature in the tunnel.

Not a pretty sight.

Unfortunately the day I decided to finish the clear up the temperature in the tunnel was still pretty hot and was increasing by the minute despite having both doors open - the only way to do it was to work for 10 minutes then take a breather outside. I'm thinking next year that I'm going to grow a grape vine in the tunnel to add some shading to one end of it.
Got the job done though. The sweetpea to the left is still looking scraggly and naff but I want to harvest the seed so I'm leaving it for now and the Apple tree to the bottom right desperately needs some kind of supporting cage so that's definitely a job for the winter.

Tomato blight and Pear problems

I think I'm going to have to destroy what is left of my Tomato plants because I think they have blight. It's not the first time this has happened, in fact it's happened a few times before, I'm just not 100% sure that it is actually blight they suffer from because they're in a polytunnel.
Are there any other blight sufferers out there who can confirm one way or the other?

The plants are covered in those brown areas and most of the foliage has now died back. The fruits still on the plants don't seem to be affected yet but that's just a matter of time.


I also have other disasters in the polytunnel - the Victoria plum tree has lost most of its leaves after they turned yellow and the very top branches are dying back too. On closer inspection it's infested with the dreaded Red Spidermite so we've had to remove it from the polytunnel. In the future it will over winter in the tunnel but will spend the summer outside.
The Bramley apple tree is suffering a little too. I positioned it next to the sweetcorn and the sweetcorn pollen has left a mess all over the leaves and fruit, the wasps have taken residence in the fruit.
I'll be more on the ball next year, will thin the fruit better and will reposition it.

This Pear tree is a annoying me now though. I posted earlier in the year the problems I was having with it and it was suggested it may have Pear scab. I left the fruit on it just to see what would happen and all of them are suffering from the same ailment, they're not rotting but the skins have gone scaly and split - is this a result of Pear scab?

Success with fruit trees

Yesterday morning the weather looked quite promising and I anticipated a full day outside, it was a little bit breezy but nothing to worry about (I hate, hate, hate wind)

However by the time I had got the housework done the wind had whipped up to near on gale force, the skies had darkened and rain was pelting down and it stayed like that all day.
I know the forecasters claim the weekend is supposed to be dry and sunny but it seems we may have a reprieve today also - it looks fair with no wind.

Back to yesterday though and although I couldn't garden I still have animals that need taking care of and letting out so while the 3 musketeers (Atlas, Huntly & Kasa) played around in between storms I hightailed it to the polytunnel and oh my, was it ever warm in there - toasty!

I took a good look at the fruit trees to see what had pollinated and I was pleasantly surprised.
This Conference Pear had one fruit last year and it rotted and dropped off, it appears plastered in fruit this year so fingers crossed we get some viable fruit from it

I am a complete newbie to fruit growing and have no idea what I'm doing so I assume that all the trees will drop some fruit during June?
Do I leave all the fruit on or do I cut some off to let other fruit develop bigger?

This Bramley Apple also didn't produce much last year but again is plastered this year. I'm guessing the plants were still too young last year - they'd have been only 2 - 3 years old.

This next Golden Delicious Apple produces masses of fruit and was given to me a couple of years ago by a friend who's late father had grown it.

Finally I have a Victoria Plum. This plant is young (bought alongside the young Pear and Apple) and so far has not produced fruit, so I was amazed to see 1 fruit this year - just the one but exciting none the less

I also have a couple of Cherry trees, 2 Fig trees and some more Pear and Apple trees but they've been delegated to outside the polytunnel as they take up too much room. I didn't expect them to survive the winter in their buckets tbh but I had a quick look yesterday and they're all leafing up quite nice, I don't think they'll flower or produce much fruit though.

So what do I do? Do I wait for the June drop and see what fruit I'm left with? Then do I leave all remaining fruit or do I thin them out to encourage bigger fruit?