First post in twelve months

First post in 12 months. How time flies.

This is the allotment as of yesterday

beetroot in the foreground going to seed, parsnip at the back, going to seed, an apple tree just to the left

the allotment

at the back of the parsnips are some golden gourmet shallots (down the left of the shot), garlic and some leeks left over from last winter. In the background is a gooseberry bush, well two actually.

This is bottom of the allotment (where the shot was taken of the flowering parsnips, two chairs weighted down and ground that needs clearing. At the back are hawthorn trees, I layered the ones directly behind the chairs in winter as that was just bare soil.

This is common mullen (I am told) Verbascum thapsus. It started growing and I thought it looked nice, so I left it. It apparently can make flower spits 6ft tall in its second year, bring it on.

Verbascum Thapsis

After a very cold and wet April start of May, this was the grape vine in the greenhouse, wilting with the heat!!!

the vine

This is the Victoria plum tree. Last year it was in a pot and produced about 20plus great tasting plums. This winter  it went in the ground and I am hoping for lots more plums

At the base of the plum tree from left to right is strawberries (yellow flower in the middle if a poppy), poached eggs plants and then chives

This is a colony at the bottom of my garden. A rather strange tale in that I picked up the swarm a few weeks ago, I then thought they all died but later were resurrected and now a thriving small colony. I might post a full account later on.

This was yesterday morning, me and Duncan were moving some bees (well this is one of four colonies we moved)

the bees in a box

Weather yesterday in Wakefield, England was very hot and sunny (20 degrees C plus)

The vine is showing some shoots

The grape vine that was in a bucket last year and gave me 3 (I think) bunches of grapes has been sunk in the ground at last. I dug it in during the Winter time whilst it was dormant and very cold. I also split it in two as there were two main stalks coming out of the bucket. Both plants are doing fine now and growing.

This is main vine, shaped in to a V shape so I can have a stem down either side of the greenhouse attached to a wire. During Winter before being split I removed 90% of last years growth back to the main stems.

When I planted it in the ground it got lots of bone, blood and fish meal thrown in and mixed up. The only down side to my greenhouse is that it is in to much shade. no choice about that sadly.

This is a shot of the second vine in a tub. I will find a home for this plant. The variety has no name as the original plant was grown from a seed by my Uncle Peter in the early 1970's. It does produce nice grapes though

Check out my full endeavours with this vine on my wiki

This is my second vine. The variety is "Boskoop Glory" and was developed in the Dutch town of  Boskoop in the early 1900's. This variety is black and recommended for growing outside in the UK. It stands at about may be 4ft tall at the moment as the other 4 ft got removed due to mould growing on it. Seems to have done the trick as it is showing strong shoots.

Check out my wiki entry here on my endeavours so far at growing Boskoop Glory

The long term plan is to grow it along a strong wire towards the house and have it growing along the front of the house on more support wires. Well that's the plan.

the weather is Wakefield today has been warm and sunny

Check out my website here with this blog on there, growing guides and a gardening forum

My Kiwi is blooming, blooming marvelous

Well I have waited 3 years from buying my kiwi  plant "actinidia arguta issai" from Aldi I think and I think it is starting to bloom. it is still in an old Morrisons type flower bucket and I still dont know where I am going to put it this year but I must find some where.

I dont know how many buds there are but I reckon may be 40 plus and the plant is about 8ft tall and growing rapidly.

I have started to feed the plant with a hydroponics solution feed that I had left over from about 3years ago. At the time I tried growing tomatoes in a hydroponics set up with plant feed from the hydroponicum (this is there website) I had mixed results, generally positive but at the time I thought I could have been better. I was inspired at the time because I had been there and it was great fun.


My next plant in flower is the wisteria "prolific" again it is still in a very small plant pot (may be a 2litre pot), Again this need finding a permenent home but I think it has started flowering. Awesome. I love wisteria flowers so they will be good to see.

Both plants are about 3years old, I cannot remember exactly and both are looking healthy.  I need to find them a permanent home the trouble is though that down the side of my garage I currently have a rose, another kiwi, a passion flower, a grape vine and 2 clematis, non very big but all taking up room.

This is the rose. I have been trying to kill it off for the last 4 years with no success. I think it is a wild rose. As I seem to be a total failure on the rose murder front I accepted defeat and put a trellis up, the bird feeder has always been there and I will say the birds seem to appreciate the rose being there for extra cover.

Wakefield today has been cool compared with the last couple of weeks, a short rain shower tonight dampened the ground and over all very pleasant

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Grape in the ground

Last weekend I finally planted my grape plant that had been in the greenhouse. It had been in a pot all Summer but it had been a lot of hard work watering it.

It had 2 stems growing out of the pot so I removed the pot and put the spade down the middle to split the plant in half. The smallest section went back in to the pot, visible in the bottom right hand corner of the picture with some more compost/soil mix. The larger plant went in to the ground. I had already dug a whole and broke it up at the bottom, I added a hand full of bone,blood and fish meal. It went in with no problem and then I filled in the spaces down the side with soil. The plants was already being trained down wires on either side. Fingers crossed for more grapes this year. this variety is unknown and was grown from seed by my uncle in the 70ies. I have a Boskoop Glory planted outside

My wiki on growing this grape during the Summer of 2010

This is a quick shot of a dead Achocha "Fat Baby" plant killed by frost. It produced well but did not grow as well as other years. I need to remove the plant to the compost heap

My wiki on growing Achocha Fat baby from seed

This a "Helens Welsh Siberian Bunching Onion". I grew it last year and it is like a spring onion and you pull it when ready but unlike spring onions as long as you leave one in the ground it will bunch up and grow more at the side of the original plant. Useful. I grew it in pots last year and it grew well but I never got round to trying it. It is already starting to grow again so hopefully some early salad. I will planting some in the ground though this year and I hope it will spread

This is the strawberry patch at around 5pm this evening, still frost on the ground. A very cold day.

The weather in Wakefield today is cold and dry.

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Looking round the garden....

Checking round the garden...

The Achocha "Fat Baby" has grown lots in the last 4 weeks and there are now produce on the vine ready to pick. Will have to take photo and post the little things as they are interesting to look at

I cut down the Jerusalem Artichokes yesterday to the floor as they were hitting 10ft on the door and aiming at falling over. When I dig them up I will post choke pictures. Strawberry runners are in the background and hedge trimming in the fore which I use for mulch

The grapes in the greenhouse are starting to ripen. Wippeee. I was worried that they wouldn't ripen but they are starting to become translucent and I have tried one or two and they have a hint of sweetness about them.

Weather here in Wakefield, England today has been wet and rainy. Nights are cold.

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A big update.....

Havent posted for a few weeks, so here is an update on most plants in the garden and one or two developments


the poached egg plants are growing very well planted underneath the victoria plum tree. it is full flower.

The Achocha plant "fat baby" is growing quickly too up the fence but I thought it would have made more coverage by now so I am a little disappointed.  It does have flower starting to show

The self sown Calendula has lots of growth but only a few flowers. there have been about 6 or 7 so far but there are more buds showing too. It is hard to tell on the photograph. This pot is entirely self sown from I think one plant last year

As I started blogging today, the cat was keeping a close eye. His favourite position is on the desk. nice and in an unmanly fashion quite cute I suppose

This is a shot of the lettuce "Chrystal", it is a nice tasting variety but it is sown as a pick and come again variety, I kind of is but it has started forming very lose heads but I can still pick individual leaves. We are looking after a tortoise at the moment and he or might be a she absolutely loves this stuff!!!! I am feeding the tortoise, lettuce, chard, chives, strawberries (see later entry) and rocket (all from the garden). The lettuce and strawberries win hands down.

 I have 2 plums on the Dennistons superb plum tree and these are 2 of those fruit. They look the part and I cant wait to try them. There are lots more on the Victoria

A little bit of wildlife has appeared in the garden in the last couple of weeks. 2 adult frogs have populated my half barrel pond. I am very happy about this as they eat slugs. On the whole the wildlife with in the garden has been greet this year with lots of different type of hover flies making making an appearance and plenty of birds on the feeders  

These are 4 cuttings I have taken from the red desert gooseberry bush. I took 4 8inch cuttings. stripped the leaves of the bottom 6inch and stuck in the ground. Apparently this is the right time of year for taking this type of cutting and only time will tell if they are successful. watch this space as they say

 The grape vine in the greenhouse is growing nicely. It is still in a flower bucket and I am training it along a wire or two, you can also see the grapes in this shot, which are still very firm. I do not know the variety if the vine as it was a seed grown by my uncle who passed away in 1973 I think before I was even born. This is a cutting from his original vine. I have had the grapes before and they are very nice when ripe

 The kiwano plants are doing nicely. The shot on the left is one plant in the garden. The shot on the right is two plants in the greenhouse. The green house plants have small kiwano on them as can be seen from the bottom shot. I am still very unsure if they will make any sort of fruit or not.

 This is the kiwi plant "Boskoop " i have moved it to a larger pot and it looks great. I think though for it to do really well and produce fruit it needs to go in the ground. I am still pondering that one.

 These are my raspberry canes "glen ample" I have had lots of fruit from them this year and they tasted delicious. I think I enjoyed them more than the strawberries which is saying some thing. They will be getting trimmed back shortly

 This is spare beekeeping equipment I have been aquiring. There is 6 brood boxes here, a lid and 2 floors, 1 solid and 1 varoa, hopfully it will all get used next year. fingers crossed.

 Planted a couple of buckets a couple of weeks back. They were 2 spuds that had sprouted in the bag, so hopefully I will be having new potatoes for Christmas dinner. when it starts to get cold, I will put them in the greenhouse for extra protection

These are an alpine strawberry "Mignonetto" is the variety. I am very impressed with them as they are still producing lots of small tasty strawberries. I love picking them before I go in the house after coming in from work. I have also found that the tortoise loves strawberries.

The june bearing strawberries that I have are producing runners. Any with any roots on are being removed and potted on in the bottom half of 2litre milk carton pots.

This is one of the 5 I think tomato plants I have outside. This variety is called "green Zebra" and get this, they stay green, well they go a little yellow when ripe but still more green than yellow.

Weather in Wakefield, England today. nice, not to warm but not cold and sunny. a great day really.

fruit salad

Havent posted for a while but here goes...

This is the Malus Jonagold apple tree. It is still in the 15litre ex paint pot and has 20plus apples on it and stands at no more than I guess 4 foot. I am very happy with it as long as the apples develop to full size, the soil is always moist and i have been feeding it bone, blood and fish meal

My grape vine is romping away (unknown variety), this is planted in an old flower bucket from a supermarket. It has 3 bunches on it that were nipped out earlier on in the year so there were not to many grapes in each bunch. I have also cleared away any foliage that covered the bunches so they get maximum exposure to sun. I am also growing two branches out. one on either side on to wires, which are hard to see here

2 bunches here

The raspberries have been doing very well this month. I have had loads of fruit from my bucket of rasps and the front garden, the plants are still yielding fruit

Happy gardening

Weather report - pleasant, sunny most of the day but not to hot ,Wakefield, England

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The chokes are coming and the grapes are growing

The Jersusalem artichokes are growing very quickly and must be 3ft plus maybe 4ft already. They seem to be jumping out of the ground. I have some more at my Fathers garden that are not as sheltered and they are not 12inch yet despite being in a much sunnier spot

I have some tomatoes in the greenhouse, this variety is Gardeners Delight, a cherry variety, I love cherry toms, they taste great and can be picked and eaten straight from the plant in summer, the variety in the background is one called latah, that is known for being very early, I usually grow latah and find it produces tomatoes many weeks before anything else is any where near ready

The grape vine is growing nicely. plenty of foliage on, some of the foliage I have nipped back. It has 4-5 bunches of grapes on to. I have cut some of the grape bunches down this week by nipping the ends off

Weather report - wet and raining all day in Wakefield, England

This is the third day I have been unable to access my garden forum.

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Wisteria, Grapes - Boskoop Glory and Kiwi - Boskoop

I bought a wisteria plant last year from Lidl. It is doing very well even though it is still in the pot. I did buy it for the front of the house however I am having second thoughts now and thinking of putting a kiwi there instead. I need to ponder more and may be make a decision, there is no rush. So it may still be in pot next year waiting.

The Boskoop Glory is slowly growing, it is about 10inch now. I still think I am lucky it survived winter, I dont think there will be any grapes this year though

The Boskoop Kiwi plant is going bonkers and I am very happy it is growing so quickly. This plant might be planted at the front of the house or a cutting from it anyway

I have an Actinidia Arguta in a pot next to the Actinidia delicisosa Boskoop, this also has potential to be planted at the front of the house. The Arguta is frost hardy to some thing silly like -30 degrees C but early shoots can be killed off quickly by early frosts

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