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

Clearing more veg beds.

I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to see the polytunnel area so tidy and organised, I still couldn't help smiling to myself when I went round there this morning.
Todays agenda was to make a start on the greenhouse area and veg beds - it's a smaller area than the polytunnel but has much more weeds and the grass was going to take a lot of mowing.
I maybe didn't get as much done as I had hoped but I didn't berate myself because I was a little stiff from yesterdays weeding and because I went out for quite a hard run last night - don't know if I've mentioned before that I run? I talk about it on my running blog but basically I have 2 10k's this month and I've even roped Mr TG in to running them with me and Leanne, in fact he's my trainer because I don't like running! I want to like it and I want to be good at it like I was when I was younger but my joints and age make it quite difficult!
Anyway I digress, back to the gardening. The veg beds are currently in this state

Poor old Bob the mannequin, he's become quite undressed and lost a few limbs from the wind. I think I may have to make him new snazzy clothes and maybe some kind of straw hat, his builder clothes have about had it now

But look what I did find among the weeds, a few climbing french beans on plants that I thought had given up the ghost weeks ago because they never grew and I basically deserted them

I also found a few potato plants thriving, though I haven't actually grown potatoes in this bed for the past 3 years

And this is an Apple tree that was grown from a pip, it's a few years old now

Here's evidence of just how little rain we have had this year. This is a natural pond and we've never seen the water level this low  in all the 10 years we've been here. Please excuse the fact that Mr TG put a formal fountain in a natural pond, I really don't know what goes on in his head sometimes (it's not even centred) but just to give you an idea of the lack of water, it usually covers that fountain right up to the bottom layer. In fact in winter that far wooden bridge is usually covered right up to about 3" from the top - we seem to have lost a serious amount of water this year, I'm just hoping it's the dry weather (though it's usually dry in the summer) and there's not something else going on (like all the willow I planted at the side of the pond sucking up all the water before it drains into the pond).
BTW that fountain is coming out next year and it's going to be filled with succulents to give a waterfall effect and have pride of place on the patio I intend to build. Mr TG still needs to be talked into helping me with this though because it will take 2 of us to move it and he isn't keen on fountains being used as plant holders.

Having done all that weeding yesterday at the PT veg beds I was quite pleased to see that the Cabbages are actually doing better than I've ever managed before and there's no sign of caterpillars despite them growing outside and uncovered.

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?