Shall I or shall I not?

I've been doing some overdue leaf clearing and digging over the soil before the frosts and really bad weather strike. Not much of a job really in my little space and I don't know why I haven't got round to it before.

Thoughts turned to next year and what to plant as I was working. I had been intending to ditch the space right at the back of the garden where the sun hardly shines. The combination of the leylandii in the neighbouring garden and our shed have combined to make it a dodgy spot for growing anything. The spuds of 2009 were meagre and the beans of this year failed to take off.

My relatively new compost bin now sits in part of this patch, but I was wondering if I should make use of part of the ground. Garlic could go there, I thought. Also, my eye has been caught by a short piece about shallots in the Yorkshire Post gardening column. Both the garlic and shallots could be planted now.

Mmm, I wonder. Should I give this spot another chance? Wouldn't do any harm, I suppose.

And another thing

A person's needs, tastes and wants change over the years and it's the same with us, one example being that we seem to have an uncomfortable night if we eat much after 8pm. 

Susan is trying hard to be gluten-free, staying off bread, cakes and biscuits, as it doesn't seem to be much good for her. Just lately chili also seems to give her a bad time. Now she has announced, and she is quite right in telling me, that she is laying off the garlic.

Garlic happens to have been one of the few things I have grown successfully in the garden and I have a small stock of bulbs in the larder. Bugger.

Our healthy diet

The crops are coming in and we are living on a diet of tomatoes and beans (green, not baked).

The Cherokee Trail of Tears beans which have so intrigued me, pictured above, are now cropping handsomely and tasting very good. To my mind they are better than the runner beans. And to think that I once had grave doubts about them.

I've also dug up the garlic at long last and put it to dry. Some bulbs grew, some didn't. Who knows why?

I'm also getting a healthy amount of tomatoes - the Outdoor Girl first off the mark, followed by the Gartenperle and now one or two of the Bonny Best. Sadly, I have found that something has nibbled at three of the tomatoes I have picked over the last few days or so.

Nothing of the Red Russian tomatoes yet, although the biggest of them all is getting redder by the day. Now that would be a real shame if something got to that before me.

Progress & setback

It has rained at last here and I have had a bit of break from dashing backwards and forwards from the kitchen to water the garden. I don't really mind the trips as I find it strangely relaxing and therapeutic once I get in the rhythm.

Something has destroyed one strong of runner beans. Slugs, I guess. The good news is that the others are climbing well. Fascinating to see how they have curled round the poles all by themselves.

My mate Steve contacts me to say he has lifted their garlic. I must admit I have not looked up the literature to see when this should be done, but Steve tells me the time is when rust is covering the leaves and any green foliage is yellowing. Without going outside to look, I think mine must be near that stage. If that's so, it will be nice to have crops at last. My first.

Present state of affairs

I needn't have been concerned about the garden drying up while we were away on our short road trip - it's been wet for days here in Yorkshire now. Not a lot of gardening has been done in the last three or four days.

Current state is: Potatoes coming on OK, ditto onions, garlic and chives. Lettuce and salad leaves appear to have failed to germinate. Rhubarb which looked as though something had sat on it now perking up somewhat. Runner beans and Cherokee Trail of Tears in the conservatory now ready to go out, I reckon. Must think about transferring tomatoes to growbags.

And - which bloody cat left its poo on the ground where the lettuce and salad leaves are supposed to be?

Things are on the move

Who knows if this is too late, but I have started chitting my potatoes in the conservatory. Arran Piper variety caught my fancy in the shop the other day, so I bought them. They are first early spuds and need to be planted in February or March, the label said. Still haven't dug the ground for them, never mind given time for chitting. Was going to make a start on preparing space yesterday, but the noise from the chainsaws being used to hack the adjacent bungalow's leylandii drove me nuts and I had to retreat. Chitting, I have discovered, is nothing more than putting them in a box and waiting for shoots to come through.

Must start planning ahead a bit more and deciding what I am going to do. Need to remind myself about the Cherokee Trail of Tears my friend Steve sent me. He says, incidentally, that they harvest their garlic come July when the green tops are dry and brown. I bow to superior knowledge. He always strings his, like onions. Don't know if I'll have enough to do that.

Green shoots of recovery

Now that the snow has finally cleared, I have given the vegetable patch a perfunctory inspection. Lo and behold, garlic is sprouting! I'm really pleased as I thought everything had been killed off by the bad weather. They must be resilient little things. My task now is to find out what to do with the garlic, when to pick it etc.

The birds are eating again now that we have changed the seed we put out for them. The stuff they didn't like turned out to have been from Wilkinson's rather than Lidl, as I had said earlier. We have bought Bill Oddie seed instead and they like that fine. The mealworm seems to be a particular favourite.

Next week I shall get out and do some digging. I feel as though spring has come, although I realise there is a long way to go yet.

I've lost that lovin' feelin'

I was trying to retrieve the dog from our snowy garden this morning and discovered we were chasing each other all over the vegetable patch.

How could I? Will the garlic and chives survive or have they had it anyway in this weather?

A winter's musing

It was bitterly cold here last night and we had fully expected snow by the morning. Alas, or hoorah, depending on your view, there was none when I opened the curtains, just evidence that it had rained overnight. Yet talking to folk during the morning I learned that it had snowed in Dunfermline, Kent and Bingley, just a dozen miles from us. Funny how weather works.

I was able to get out and have a brief look at the vegetable patch, clearing it of leaves and other detritus which had blown on to the soil. I strongly suspect something has been into a few of the holes I made for the garlic and has made off with it. Only time will tell.

And what did I spy? A small piece of broken china, just lying on top of the dirt. Where did that come from?

The man who planted garlic

A nice autumn day today, dull but not too chilly or raining. It's windy, though, because that's the nature of where we live. You could have sailing boats becalmed at sea and there would still be gusts of wind at our house.

With the clocks having gone back last weekend, I have been unable to tend to my small plot during the week as it is dark by the time I get back from work. This morning was a time for surveying the scene, rooting out a few weeds that have grown hold and getting rid of leaves that are all over the place.

Took the opportunity to pop in a few cloves of garlic around the edges, probably about a dozen holes altogether. Sadly, they are shop-bought rather than any rare or organic type. I think I might move into that sort of thing later when I've got the hang of this thing.

Anyway, the garlic is in now before the frosts come and I gather I just sit back and wait until they start to appear sometime next year. It was a near run thing that I got them in at all as our dog Dolly decided to come out and help me dig. At least her willingness to be near garlic proves she is devoid of any vampiristic tendencies.

Giving garlic a go

One of the nicest smells around is garlic. It will hit you occasionally while on a walk in woods and it is sublime.

Should I grow it? I recently read an article saying that it is traditional to plant garlic on the shortest day and enjoy it on the longest. More practically, an allotment website tells me the time is now, although the job will easily hold over until November. I'll give it a go.