Hello again! 👋
Welcome to the this edition of The Anaesthetist’s Allotment. I hope you enjoy it.
Please feel free to follow, like or comment and I look forward to getting some of your feedback.
Disclaimer: I’m a professional anaesthetist, not a professional gardener. I do a bit of gardening and cycling in my spare time. I have grown veggies for many years and have learnt what works for me (sometimes!). These are my ramblings! I would be honoured to be corrected / advised by those with more knowledge than me!
General:
This is the 12th post of 2024 in this year’s series of “The Anaesthetist’s Allotment”. It has been over two months since my last post. Firstly, my apologies for the long silence. It was not a deliberate intention to deprive you of your favourite blog. It was instead a couple of weeks away on holiday, but then came the pre-holiday preparation chaos. Then, on our return, there was the even bigger chaos of dealing with two weeks worth of paperwork, family issues and of course, trying to get the garden back under control. No sooner had I started gaining some control, than the Scottish weather took over. Did someone say that this is summer? OMG 😧! Non-stop cloud, rain and wind, with temperatures at maximums of 14’C, it is more like early spring than summer. The only positive over the last couple of weeks has been the long days and short nights. At this time of year, it does not really get fully dark. The sun sets at about 2330, rises at about 0330 and its a sort of twilight in between the two. That is, of course, if you can see it through the clouds and rain! The bad news, is that we are now past the summer solstice (21st June) and the days progressively shorten each and every day. We are on the downhill slope. “Winter is Coming”.
Enough doom and gloom!
The long and short of the 💩 weather has been that I have been essentially locked inside for the last two weeks. The positive outcome is that I have been forced into some home-maintenance. I have re-varnished all of our internal windows and doors during this “lockdown”, something I have never done before. I must say I am quite pleased with my efforts and they all look pretty good. I might be allowed to take on further home maintenance projects in the future.
Enough about the weather……….
Let’s get back to the garden then……….
In the greenhouse:
The Gemsquash plants are now growing away nicely. They have climbed up the trellis supports and are starting to ramble around them. They have lots of flowers (circled in yellow) and some small Gemsquash are starting to develop (blue circles).
So all looking good, but I did notice that we had been harvesting and eating Gemsquash at a similar time last year. All of the plants are way behind this year, partly as a result of my murderous intentions earlier in the year (see previous blogs), and also the cold rubbish weather has dampened any enthusiasm for growth (pun intended!).
The Gemsquash at the far end of the greenhouse climbing up their trellis’s.
Only one Cucumber (Mini Munch) survived. We have had four or five cucumbers from it so far. The replacement plants, from the second sowing, are now starting to develop cucumbers themselves (yellow circles) and we will be into those in a day or so.
The chilli plant I bought at our local B&Q has also grown up quite nicely. It is now producing several chilli’s with several flowers indicating more to come (yellow circles).
The Fruit Garden:
Apples – “eaters” . Last year, we had a very poor crop of apples, particularly the “eaters”, reason unknown! It’s looking a lot more promising this year. There are loads of eating apples on the tree. The summer fall is occurring at the moment, whereby smaller, overcrowded apples drop off the tree. This is good for the growth of the remaining apples and an entirely normal phenomenon. Hopefully they will not all fall off and we will be left with a good crop for this year.
The Apple – “cookers” are also looking like they will be a great crop this year 🤞
Raspberries – delicious!😋
Redcurrants – ripening despite the lack of heat and sun. Looks like another great crop. My better half will magically turn these into fabulous redcurrant jelly.
Gooseberry – white (top) & red (bottom). They taste very different. Both are delicious eaten fresh as fruit, but the magic in the kitchen will turn these into two of my favourite jams 😋
The two beds of Strawberries have loads of fruit ripening really nicely. We get a huge bowl of them for dessert pretty much every evening at the moment. 😋
I think I might have given them a bit too much nitrogen fertiliser this year as there was a huge over growth of leaves which delayed the fruit ripening (in addition to the weather). I thinned out the leaves, perhaps a bit over vigorously, and the strawberries are now ripening fabulously.
Veggie garden / Allotment:
The Veggie Garden / Allotment has come on leaps and bounds. It is now (left) looking very lush and green compared to my last photo of it in May (right).
The Winter Cabbages – Tundra are growing well. I have given them a bit more spacing between plants this year. They seem to be appreciating it!
The Spring Cabbages – Spring Hero (top half of the bed) were sown in autumn last year and have been in the Veggie Garden / Allotment all the way through winter. There are only two left now. We have eaten the rest. One of my favourite cabbages – the flavour is superb!
The Summer Cabbages – Hispi (bottom half of the bed) . Small hearts are beginning to form. Hopefully they will take over after the Spring Cabbages are finished and continue the supply for my Coleslaw!
The Brussels Sprout are looking great. Again, I have increased the spacing between plants this year.
Kale (right of the bed) is from my Christmas Advent seed calendar. It has grown well. The ragged appearance is because we harvested it heavily yesterday and turned it into delicious crispy kale in the Airfryer 😋
The Chard (right) plants really got hammered this year by either birds or slugs. I have still to determine who the culprit was. Some of the plants have now recovered somewhat. Again, they look a bit bedraggled because we harvested quite a number of the leaves for supper last night.
The same thing happening with my beetroot (left) despite them having a much sturdier cage. 🤷♂️. Some of them might be recovering. Time will tell. We would normally be eating beetroot by now! I have re sown further beetroot. This has germinated, but I suspect that they will not ripen in time before winter returns!
Turnips Again from my Christmas Advent calendar. These have grown very quickly and are now ready for harvesting. We had our first one a few days ago. Very nice too!
Pumpkins have taken off now. Loads of flowers as well. 🤞. I need to get them tied up onto their frames before they wander all over the entire Veggie Garden.
In the foreground of this bed, I have snuck a spare Cucumber – Mini Munch and Tomato – Gardeners Delight. I dont hold much hope for either of these as they are both usually grown inside the greenhouse, but I just couldn’t dump them on the compost heap. So we will see!
In the left background, the rhubarb has recovered and is now ready for another harvest. Ahh! More Rhubarb Crumble. Yessss!
The Potatoes – Winston are looking good.
The Courgettes – yellow (right) are looking good. We have had a few small courgettes from them so far.
The Courgettes – green (left) and Butternuts (back of the bed) have both struggled with the cold weather and need some warmth and sun to get them going.
The Onions look good. They are now starting to bulk up.
The Carrots I planted between them, however, are a disaster. They are growing very poorly. I don’t think we will get any of them!
The Leeks are looking fabulous. They obviously love this weather!
The Runner Beans – St George have reached the tops of their cane supports. They are now flowering away like mad. Delicious Runner Beans to follow 🤞
The outside Gemsquash are looking great. Lots of flowers and even one Gemsquash on the way already.
The Broadbeans – Sutton are also looking good. The broadbeans are forming and we have had some of them for dinner already. They are soooo delicious when young and tender like this.
The first planting of Calabrese (Broccoli) has lovely heads on now. We had one last night. It was delicious.
The second planting is coming along nicely and will give us a second crop in a month or two.
The tomatoes, from the Advent Calendar, are looking good in the Veggie Garden / Allotment.
They have grown quite a lot. There are quite a few tomatoes forming.
Pea (Alderman)
Despite the attack by birds just after planting, these have now grown on well. Lots of flowers and pods beginning to form. It wont be long now until we are getting delicious sweet peas from them.
The second sowing behind them has sprouted well, having been prophylactically protected from the birds and hopefully will provide a longer cropping season for us.
Just prior to going on holiday, my on-line order of Sweetcorn still had not arrived. It had also been delayed by the poor weather.
I managed to buy some seedlings from a local nursery and get them planted before we went away. They are growing fantastically.
It is always a bit touch and go as to whether the sweetcorn will ripen in time here in the far North of Scotland. Let’s hope we get some better weather to help them on a bit.
The Parsnips have germinated well this year, after last year’s disaster. Looking good so far!
The Shallots (Jermour) which were planted out in February are ready for harvesting. I will lift them up to allow them to dry in the next few days.
The Garlic (Solent White & Granny’s) have been in the ground since autumn last year. Their leaves are now starting to turn brown. It wont be long until they get lifted out of the soil to dry out.
Things are starting to move forward at pace now and I look forward to keeping you updated regularly on developments in The Anaesthetists Allotment.
See you next time!
Dr Doug (Douglas) McKendrick 