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

Somethings got to give!

A few years ago (and I'm talking as little as perhaps 3) had I wandered round to the polytunnel and been faced with this

I would have simply rolled my sleeves up, got the fork out and the lawn mower and set about clearing it all up before losing what little crops are left.
However when I was faced with this yesterday I could muster the energy to do little more than stare at it and the more I stared at it the more despondent I became, the more despondent I became the less I cared - vicious circle. The parcel of cat droppings so nicely deposited right in the center of this first bed was just the final straw - the blinkin cats haven't even bothered to cover this one! Mind you that's something to be grateful for I guess.
For a wee while I sat on the wooden sides of the bed figuring out (or trying to) what I really wanted to do, do I even enjoy this gardening lark anymore? If I did then surely the areas wouldn't get so neglected? or at least I'd be more enthused about clearing them?
This particular area won't take much more than a day or so to clear if I'm honest, it's a fairly big area but it just needs mowing, tidying and the beds weeding but move on into the adjacent veg plot and it just gets worse - this is the bridge that takes me to the next plot

Looks a picture of health huh! NOT!
The gorse can be cut back obviously, the dead stuff can all be raked away - simples, but it gets worse - this is the path that leads one veg area to the next

The path is no longer there and it's now too long for the mower - it's gonna have to be strimmed, then I'm going to have to chop alot of plants back to get through that gate, all doable I know.
But the real heartache has got to be the second veg area. Before I had a garden (when the house was being built) this area was my haven, it was kept spotless, weed free, well manicured and the veg beds were lovingly cared for, in fact I spent as much time round here as I possibly could.
Now though it could only be classed as a haven for insects and weeds

A few years ago I would have scoffed at anyone suggesting it could end up looking like that and I've been seriously questioning whether this is just a blip or whether I need to take a break from veggie gardening. In all honesty I do not enjoy vegetable gardening, I only started it because I was a stay at home mum and felt obliged to do it with all this land available and once we got the polytunnel it seemed a crime not to fill it with veg. The problem is not the growing of the veg though it's the upkeep of such large areas. I've always tried to manage my Narcolepsy and Fibromyalgia to enable me to do the hard tasks outside, I'm aware that if I sit down next to the pond I could fall asleep and end up in it or that if I do too much one day I will be useless for the following 3 but it's getting harder to cope mentally as well as physically.
Yep, I'm thinking I may shut the tunnel down and close the gates to the veg areas at the end of the year and concentrate solely on my garden for a while.

Bad, bad gardener!

I've been a bad gardener lately! For some reason I'm going through a Meh stage and have avoided going anywhere near the polytunnel or the greenhouse except to water the contents (done with blinkered eyes so that I don't have to look at the suffering plants or growing weeds) and picked the odd bit of veg.
It all started when I couldn't get out there because of the slipped disc and then when I could get out there - but not do anything - I fretted and worried about the abundance of weeds that needed clearing and fruit / veg that needed picking. I did ask Mr TG to help me weed at one point but that just resulted in the loss of all my Parsnips so after that I avoided looking around.
Yesterday I just had to go to both the PT and the greenhouse in pursuit of some bolt croppers (that ended up being in Mr TG's work van anyways) - I put it off as long as I could but when I sauntered round there I was suddenly seeing it all with clear eyes and let me just say.....O....M....G!

This is the veg beds next to the greenhouse. The French beans have amounted to nothing - probably strangled and starved by the weeds - and I had intended to use this area for winter veg as it's sheltered here. Don't think that will be happening, not unless I get in some serious weeding beforehand.

Even Bob the mannequin has become neglected and lost a leg.
Bad isn't it!
Both beds are being covered in weed suppressant asap.

The PT area was no better. The outside raised beds were full of Horse tail and bolted veggies. The carrots finally appear to have got their act together, the problem is that although the raised beds are supposed to be easier to tend they're not when you're recovering from a slipped disc so the carrots aint getting thinned, at the moment I simply cannot bend across to thin them.
The inside of the PT was just as bad as the outside - so much neglect!

This apple tree had fallen over from the weight of the fruit. I need to have some kind of support system erected.

This is what greeted me as I walked in the PT and it's much worse than it looks. Cosmos flourish in the hot conditions of the PT but I won't be growing them again. I initially grew them for cut flowers but I've only ever cut them twice as I'm not particularly fond of them. I would cut them all back now but the bees love them so they'll stay, despite their thuggish behaviour, until they die off!

My poor Tomatoes! I had such high hopes this year for Tomatoes and have been quite pleased with 'Black Russian', a new variety for me. If I had tended these carefully and had tied them in, fed them regular etc etc (that bucket of comfrey tea still sits in the PT smelling like a cesspit) they would not look so forlorn and poorly as they do now.
Next year i am going to have a better support system in place.

It doesn't end there either.
The sweetcorn is seriously competing with weeds, luckily I'm coming to the end of the cutting of them anyway. Next year I'll be using black polythene in the Corn bed.
The Cucumbers are growing rampant like never before and the Courgettes have become Marrows which has encouraged the plants to stop producing more fruits.
The sweetpea hasn't been cut in weeks so has set seed which means no more flowers and to top it off there are huge Raspberry canes growing in the Sweetpea - at least I'm assuming they're Raspberries as I grew some in the PT a few years back, but they could just as easily be Tayberry or Loganberry which grows wild all over here.

I don't very often buy plants on a whim but Mr TG and I popped into Homebase the other day and I bought a veronica plant for £6 - it just looked so pretty.
When I saw the plant yesterday I was really annoyed with myself. I hadn't potted it up and it had completely dried out and looked half dead. I rectified it straightaway and it now looks 100% healthy again but this picture shows how neglected it was and this picture was taken an hour or so after it had been sitting in water - poor thing!

So, like I said I've been a very neglectful gardener of late. The house garden hasn't fared much better, I weeded a couple of the beds yesterday but I have to admit it was painful. The big bed still needs weeding but it is going to have to wait until there is a serious decline of wasps on the plants because no way am I purposefully going near them.

Today I will probably be attempting to salvage the PT and the PT outdoor veg beds, of course that depends on the temperature today as yesterday it was impossible to spend more than 5 minutes in there it was so hot.

Next year will be different - I'm going to weed suppress everything, I'm not going to waste another years hard work because of illness.

There has been a couple of lovely flowers come out of the PT though. I planted these Gladioli bulbs without realising that's what they were and it was lovely to see their flouncy, blousy blooms.

Gladioli 'Spic and span'

Unknown Gladioli

Veg from the polytunnel

It's so nice to be able to pop out to the polytunnel and freshly pick veggies for an evening meal, last night we had friends over for a grill and the fresh picked Corn on the cob went down a treat with a smidgin of butter and plenty of black pepper

The Black Russian Tomatoes are currently huge, they're real beefsteak in size. The only problem I have is that it's kind of hard to tell visually when they're ripe because they retain some of the green to the top of them, in fact I only had an inkling they were ready because they were soft rather than hard. This was the first time I've grown Black Russian and while I wouldn't say the taste was anything terribly amazing I think I will grow them again purely for the fact that they are ripe when the 'Roma' and 'Gardeners delight' are showing no signs of relinquishing their green cover.

The Cabbages are proving popular too. I usually love to do Cabbage and Leek steamed together but these ones are particularly nice with Garlic, Onion and Red pepper all sauteed together.

As for the rest of the garden, it's holding up. There's still alot of weeds taking over that I haven't got around to tackling just yet and there's plenty of forgotten areas in the part of the garden that I haven't made a start on renovating yet - such as this Butler sink planter.
I'm not entirely sure what's actually a deliberate planting and what's weed as it's so overgrown but it's on my list of garden chores to bring it back to glory.

This hardy Geranium - G'Phaeum' Somobor - is treating us to a second flush of flowers due to me cutting it right back to the ground a few weeks ago after it had finished its first flourish.

Here in Caithness the weather can be very windy and decidedly cold even in the height of summer (made worse by the fact we live next to the coast and are very exposed)  so it's really hit and miss as to what will survive even in sheltered areas, so whenever I manage to successfully grow pretty flowers I make sure they're photographed for posterity.
This Orange Dahlia is flourishing in a tub alongside a red one - both of unknown names.

I've posted a photo of climbing rose 'Compassion' before but I just couldn't resist a new one. This rose is doing amazingly well, the blooms still look fabulous after heavy rain and the scent just has you constantly returning to stuff your nose in it. I'm definitely going to have a go at propagating this one.

Finally the Fuchsia 'Hawkshead' is getting to full bloom. This particular Fuchsia is very hardy and I have a few of them planted out in the beds all year round with fabulous success.

Landfill or Upcycle?

Thought I'd post an update while I wait for the rain to stop and I can get something productive done outside - not that I have much to update as I'm still recovering from a slipped disc, the garden is still full of weeds and I'm still losing veg by the day.

Still I have been managing to cut a record number of Cucumbers, yay! I don't usually have success with cucumbers and last years efforts resulted in a grand total of nil and unfortunately I can't remember the name of this variety - usually I record all this info but I fear that in my pessimism I didn't bother and now I haven't a clue what they are. I guess I'm going to have go way back in my blog and hope I recorded it on here all those months ago.

Also my onion crop has done fantastically and I'll definitely be growing loads more 'stuttgarter' next year, this is another first for me as Onions have always failed.

All this rest from gardening has left me with little else to do out there but take pictures, the problem is you can only take so many pictures of the same things before it gets tedious and anyway I still can't manoeuvre into proper positions for decent pictures.
Yesterday I was wandering around and found myself taking piccies of 'stuff' laying around that I thought I could put to good use, like these

My first idea was to use this as the top for my potting bench but I've changed my mind about that so I have to come up with another use for it before Mr TG makes a trip to landfill with it.

Mr TG came back with these the other day, he was supposed to be taking them to landfill on our next trip for our upholsterer friend. No way are these going to landfill, I am brimming with ideas for them.

This is another part of an old metal bunk bed. I've already used one bit as a trellis for a climbing Fuchsia and another part to make a trellis for a climbing Rose. My initial thought was to use it as a back for a potting bench but I'm not too sure now.

I cannot get enough of these rocks and we're unearthing loads of them. They're way bigger than they look on the photo and will be hard to shift but they're definitely going to be used in the second half of the garden - when I can manage to start it of course.

We managed to aquire alot of these sleepers for no more expense than petrol and time collecting them. I've used most of the good long ones but I still have a pile left (and more in the future I hope) and I have ideas to make vertical columns with them in the garden - I saw the idea on Beechgrove garden.

BUT the best pieces I found are these that I unearthed in Mr TG's shed. You would think I'd have claimed them before now because they've been there years but you'd need to understand the dynamics of Mr TG's shed to understand why I haven't. Basically his shed is huge - about 60ft by 30ft and it is filled to the brim, it's also a veeeeery untidy shed and a person should really take out a life insurance policy before entering, however I spied these yeaterday when we were making a start on clearing said shed.

Haven't actually got a clue what I'll use them for, I'll probably scour 'Pinterest' and get some inspiration.

Now the sun has appeared so I guess the rain has stopped which means I can make a start on my potting bench.

Garden overhaul

The Cauli's and Cabbages planted in the polytunnel are still getting eaten by slugs (I haven't got around to putting down cardboard yet) so I was quite surprised to find that the ones outside in the raised bed haven't been touched at all.
I do keep them covered with fleece to keep the butterflys off them but surely that wouldn't deter slugs?

Here's a glimpse of the extra land to the side of the house that we're thinking of adding to the existing garden. There's as much of it as I need but as you can see it needs a whole lot of work and extends way out to the right and far behind me.

That ground is about 3ft deep of hardcore so any planting would have to be in raised beds, grass would be viable if we lay a good layer of top soil first.
The back fence does have a line of Willow trees, these are usually shallow rooted and don't last very long in our winds so we dug out a trench all the way along the fence first approx 3 ft deep to the soil below. The 6ft willow were then planted into that and the trenches filled in with soil, this means that at least 3ft of the trees are underground and should therefore stay upright.
Still that's gonna be a lot of work if we go ahead.

Remember when I said in my last post that Mr TG and I were discussing what water feature to add in the pond? Well I was thinking along the lines of this

http://www.retaildisplaysandprops.com/custom_nature-themed_environments.htm

Ok more realistically this

http://www.waterfeatures.co.uk/nh.html

Basically I would have liked us to build something where the water runs off slate.
Today though I left Mr TG to his own devices and I thought he was working on "his" patch of land that he's been clearing but nope he'd been erecting this

Excuse the foreground mess it's waiting for decking to be erected but that piddly fountain is everything I hate about garden water features. Some people can make them look great but the wind we get here makes that kind of 3 tier fountain pretty pointless.
I'm currently convincing Mr TG that we need to collect some of the humongous rocks we have and make it look nicer than just an oblong with rocks round it - hard work though, bless him he thinks a water feature is a water feature is a water feature so it could take some time.

With the first half of the garden requiring only minimal work now - mainly decking - I can get onto to the second half once the dogs have their own area finished.
This is the current state of some of the bit to do

It's full of weed and it's been made worse by the fabric we put down under the gravel. The weeds had no problem growing through it and even self seeded in the gravel itself, this image only shows the grass weed but honestly, it's a mess.
All the Pink and Blue is Aquilegia, one plant that self seeded over and over again and is now more of a weed than a plant - but it's a pretty weed so it gets to survive one more year.
There are some nice plants in there such as a Rhodi, Hosta, a hardy Fuchsia, Dogwood, Cranesbill etc but I'm looking forward to getting to grips with this second half later in the year.