A whole load of beetroot

This year's surprise glut has been beetroot. Well, and lettuce, but those went to seed when I was away on holidays, so I never got to eat most of it. And the rest of the crops have been a bit of a wash-out this year (no green tomatos - no tomato plants at all, in fact!, only two courgettes, and the cucumbers are few and far between so I'm keeping up with eating them). The beetroots, however, are perfect for the picking just now. And there's A LOAD of them. I picked three already the other day, boiled them and froze them sliced. I gave three more away to a friend. But this mountain of beetroot is the rest of my crop, and I plan to try roasting (at least a few of them). I think I will leave a few raw ones out, the prettier ones, and see if I can donate them to some other friends! All I need now is to find beetroot recipes that I like, since I'm not a fan of the vegetable myself (yet). 

 La cosecha de remolachas ha sido un exito total, y ahora me salen por las orejas... Es la cosecha mayor de este ano. Ya coci y congele tres, regale otras tres, y el resto lo voy a asar, y probablemente regalare otras cuantas. Lo siguiente que tendre que buscar son recetas con remolacha, porque no es mi vegetal favorito (todavia), pero ahora no me queda mas remedio que aprender!

Tidy up for autumn at the garden and allotment

This weekend I've been mostly tidying up the garden and allotment, which had become a bit overrun with weeds over the summer. And I've been planting a few things that will look good over the next few months - end of summer, autumn and even winter.

Este finde he estado arreglando las malas hierbas y excesos del verano, y plantando cosillas para los proximos meses. En casa, me dedique a quitar malas hierbas de entre los adoquines, transplantar una salvia y un romero de la huerta a casa, reorganizar las macetas (ahora queda mucho mas espacioso), y por ultimo compre en el vivero unas flores para el otono e invierno: una erica con flores rosas, unos pensamientos (violas), e incluso unos alhelies para la primavera.

At home, I was busy clearing the weeds that grow between the bricks in the ground, transplanting a sage and a rosemary from the allotment to the pots at home, rearranging the pots to make it look more spacious, and finally I bought some autumn/winter flowers that I planted: a pink heather, lots of violas, and even a few wallflowers for the spring.

 

Above, big pot planted with violas, wallflower small plants, and a few daffodil bulbs. Below, the herbs transplanted, on the left, and a few colorful violas to brighten up this dark(ish) corner.

La maceta de arriba tiene violas, alhelies y unos bulbos de narciso. Abajo, la salvia y el romero transplantados, a la izquierda, y unos pensamientos para darle color a este rincon.

New garden layout:

New sowings: Rocket, parsley, spring onions, and a cutting of pelargonium. Siembras de: Rucula, pereji, cebolletas, y un esqueje de geranio.

These gladioli are looking good at the back of the allotment, and they only cost me one pound back in the spring! I have planted next to them a clump of crocosmias that weren't doing well at home in a pot. Next to the flowers I have a couple of trailing cucumber plants.

Estos gladiolos los compre en un "todo 100" (£1) en primavera y estan preciosos en flor. Acabo de transplantar unas crocosmias, que tenia en casa en una maceta y se estaban secando, asi, y en este momento en el suelo hay dos plantas de pepino que estan dando fruto.

I cleared this patch of soil of weeds (until recently it had onions), and now I've planted out some tiny plants I bought from the garden centre on Saturda. These should either be ready in the next few months (before the cold), a few lettuce plants and spring onions, or stay in the ground until spring, leeks and purple sprouting broccoli.

Aqui plante unas plantitas que compre el sabado: lechugas y cebolletas (para comer en los proximos dos meses, antes del frio) y puerros y brecol (para la primavera proxima).

Garden plans colour-coded sketch

I keep trying different ways of planning the garden and/or allotment design, and this is my latest attempt. My drawing skills are appalling, but I hope the photo makes some kind of sense (it made sense to me while I sketched it!)

This is the basic shape of my garden. Minus any sense of scale or proportion, unfortunately, but I tried my best and I had to re-draw this several times to get this "good" (believe it or not). The bit at the top of the pic is the bit next to the house, then there's a corridor and the bit at the bottom half of the pic is the bit at the back of the house. The door from the house is to the left at the top (I drew the door step as a black narrow "box"), the shed is along the line at the very bottom of the picture.

What I've done is mark out all the containers (the whole area, except a narrow stretch along the fence in front of the door from the house, is paved). Then I've colour-coded them according to which season they have the most interest: BLUE for winter, YELLOW for spring, PINK for summer, ORANGE for autum, and GREEN is for ever-green perennials that have pretty much all-year interest.

And the second thing I've highlighted, with a blue outline around the container, is which ones have annual plants, so I can get a better idea more quickly of what space I've got available when I'm buying bedding plants at the garden centre... (or sowing seed trays in the spring!).

I always feel the planning of the garden gives me almost as much fun as the actual planting or sitting among the final result. Hopefully this visual plan will help me organise and group the plants that I've got better, stop me from buying the wrong things at the garden centre, and place those things I do buy in the right place.

I am going to try to go for a mediterranean-ish look. Stuff that will survive some heat an sun (not that we get much here) without much damage. Since the space I've got is quite small, I'll stick to small and simple things such as lavenders and other herbs (which I already have), and annuals such as pelargoniums next summer (a bit too late to get new ones this year). If I can keep my one pelargonium of this year through the winter, so much the better, but I expect I'll buy a couple new ones next year, along with some tagetes and the like.

Most of my pots at the moment have perennials, but i think for next year I'll leave all the empty ones (with the blue outline) free for annuals because it's also very interesting to buy new things each year and change the look of the garden - it's like buying a new summer outfit every year, I suppose.

Esto, aunque no lo parezca, es un plano de mi jardin. No esta a escala y las proporciones no son correctas, porque no se me da bien dibujar, pero me sirve para hacerme una idea. La mitad de arriba de la foto es la parte cerca de casa, el escalon junto a la puerta es esa franja negra de la iquierda. La mitad de abajo de la foto es la parte de atras de la casa, junto a la caseta (justo abajo) y el banquito (a la derecha).

Lo primero que hice fue delinear todas las macetas (la unica parte directamente en tierra es la franja enfrente de casa, a la derecha). Lo segundo, he indicado con colores en que estacion del ano tienen mayor interes: AZUL para invierno, AMARILLO para primavera, ROSA para verano, NARANJA para otono, y VERDE para plantas que mantienen el mismo interes practicamente todo el ano.

Lo tercero que he indicado, con un borde azul, es cuales de las macetas van a tener plantas anuales. El resto (la mayoria) tienen plantas perennes, pero quiero dejar tambien espacio libre para anuales que puedo cambiar cada ano, porque es divertido cambiar parte del diseno cada ano, un poco como comprarse un vestido de verano a la moda todos los anos. Con suerte este plan me ayudara a elegir mejor que plantas compro, no comprar lo que no quiero o no pega bien, y agrupar las que ya tengo mejor.

He decidido darle un aire mas “mediterraneo” al jardin, en parte porque me gustan las plantas (algunas huelen de maravilla) y ademas sufren menos con el calor y la sequia del verano (no es que tengamos mucho ni de lo uno ni de lo otro en Londres, pero al estar en macetas se secan mucho antes). Ya tenia algunas lavandas, tomillo, salvia y romero, que son plantas simples (y ademas comestibles), y como no tengo mucho espacio seguramente con esto casi me baste. El verano proximo comprare unos geranios (pelargonios), algunos tagetes, etc para darle color, y posiblemente con eso baste. No creo que el geranio de este ano sobreviva el invierno en la caseta, pero estaria bien!

Va por ellos. This is for them.

No es mucho, pero estas son las mejores flores que tenia en el jardin. Estas son en honor de las victimas del accidente de tren en Santiago, sus familias, y todos los que los ayudaron.

This is not much, but they're the best flowers I had in the garden. These are in honour of the victims of the train crash in Santiago, their families and all who helped them.

Plants that are doing well in the draught

We are having some lovely weather these past two weeks, and my pot plants in the garden at home are struggling with the unexpected heat (i.e. good weather) and lack of constant rain. And also the fact that I don't have a garden hose and I only water the pots once or twice a week if it doesn't rain. However, some plants are doing wonderfully and you can't even tell they notice the extra heat and dryness. The pelargonium is my favourite, it's positively thriving in its little pot, when everything around it is dying a slow death.

The rose is a nice surprise, it even has a second wave of buds about to open! The strawberry tree, azalea rosemary and helichrysum (Mediterranean type of plants, so no big surprise) are also looking healthier than anything else around.

The cornflower looks a bit leggy now but it's been flowering non-stop for weeks and the bees love it. Almost as much as they love lavender, which is also doing well in the sunny(ish) weather but is so small at the moment that it only feeds one bee...

The crocosmia is doing well in its big new pot (each year it gets better, three flowers this one!) and the kniphophia on the small pot on the floor, which isn't flowering yet (too small) but isn't drying up either. No surprises there, as they're both from South Africa.

June away: the aftermath

So, this year I broke a cardinal gardening rule and took a long holiday in the middle of June. Right when the weeds grow at their strongest. I had an amazing holiday in Peru, so I don't regret it, but coming home after three weeks away (we landed on a Sunday and I couldn't go to until the next weekend) I found this:

Asi estaba a la huerta despues de las vacaciones en Peru:

After two weekends of weeding, I have managed to pull most of the weeds and clear the good plants. Y asi esta tras dos fines de semana quitando malas hierbas:

But it's not all bad. The strawberries do better when protected by surrounding plants. Pero no todo son males. Las fresas se dan mejor con proteccion de otras plantas alrededor:

And the raspberries are too tall even for the weeds. A las frambuesas tampoco le afectan:

But the best thing are the lettuces, thanks to my plot neighbours thar watered them while I was away. Lo mejor, las lechugas, gracias a mis vecinos de parcela que las regaron estas semanas:

Best of the garden

It's no Chelsea medal-winner, but these are my favourite views in my garden at the moment:

Estos son mis rincones favoritos en el jardin este mes: