Mm, what a combination. First: gooseberries. All we did was plant the young bush (autumn), fed with plenty of manure at the roots, and netted it once the berries appeared (not sure it’s necessary). You are supposed to prune to maintain a ‘goblet’ shape, with a space in the middle so you can reach in without getting scratched.
In total, they came to 4oz – enough for 2 crumbles in ramekins. I cooked the berries very gently with 3tbsp homemade elderflower cordial (more on that soon) and topped with Delia’s standard crumble mixture (something like 1tbsp butter, 1tbsp sugar, 2-3 tbsp flour), into hot oven for 15-20 mins. Not much of a crop! But according to the T&M website, ‘Invicta’ should yield 5-6lb (20 times what we picked) when mature. Jam could be a long wait… Still, we won’t go hungry with all this garlic….
It’s not supposed to be ready, really, but it is – look at those yellow old leaves. I lifted one and it was beautifully plump and cloved, so they all came out – replaced with a line of leek seed (horribly, horribly late). (In The Good Life, Tom and Barbara planted 96 leeks. We have about 15, so we need all the leek space we can get.) I think we might actually have enough garlic for the year, now. I planted just one pack (two heads) of garlic and every single blessed clove has fattified and delicified over the cold winter. Aren’t they clever? I continue to be amazed at the magic of growing. I suppose it will wear off soon enough…
A few more things we got done on the weekend:
- Planted courgette plants
- Covered the fruit cage with netting (£30ish from garden centre)
- Watered Nematodes onto the potato, strawberry, salad and runner beds
- Strew straw around the strawberries
- Transplanted squash plants between the runners (1m apart)
- Planted sweetcorn plants (in a block, not a line)
- Planted tomato plantlets in the fruit cage (behind raspberries)
- Built a pond! About 2mx1m with plenty of interesting tubes, shelters and nooks around the edges (for frogs, newts and hedgehogs). This should reverse the bad karma we got for upsetting frogs on the plot. We’re waiting for rain to fill it – pictures to follow.
- Cut back the saladini, hard, and harvested more broad beans.
June 2, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Looking good, I must take some more photos it makes it come alive doesn’t it
My potatoes, onions and shallots are doing really well along with gooseberries and raspberries although the gooseberries are not as advanced as yours.
However all of my seeds are doing badly. Cabbage, beetroot, carrots, broad beans and dwarf beans have either not germinated or have been gobbled by the slugs as soon as they emerged. I think we have about 4 of each!
May 2, 2009 at 6:48 am
Have planted gooseberries (first time) but are unable to determine if the fruit should be left in the papery cup to ripen when harvested or do they ripen on the plant? Also have enormous trouble with red spidery mites that destroys my plant. Very unhappy about that! Are trying to redo garden with plants that produce edible berries. Do not plant large fruit trees as I have a small area in Bloem SA. Also plants greens in pots around other plants with success but still have to contend with lots of insects as I refuse (for more than 20 yrs) to spray plants with any chemicals. Where in South Africa can I find some Blueberry plants? Will come back to this site as email adress is soon to change