Perpetual Spinach

I sowed some perpetual spinach in June. The name perpetual spinach almost put me off trying it. It sounds like a condition! "Oh, did you hear, Mr Davies was diagnosed with a bad case of perpetual spinach. Poor soul."

I can't remember exactly whether I left them outside or germinated them inside, but either way it didn't take long. Within 3-5 days the first seedlings were popping through.

I was so impressed with how well it grew. I let it grow to this point before I took any leaves. It looked so beautiful I could hardly bear to cut any off!

 I wasted a lot of seed as I sowed far too many. But I gave some plants away to one of my friends, so it wasn't a total waste. I'll know for next time to sow thinly. I'm learning all the time!

Looking worse for wear

As a result I didn't buy any salad from the shops for the rest of the summer, just from 9 plants. I don't think I'll ever buy salad from Tesco ever again. It was far more fun popping outside to grab a few handfuls whenever I needed some, rather than buying an oversized bag that I've rarely ever managed to finish. By the time salad leaves reach Shetland, they are always a few days older than they would be if you bought the same bag on the mainland. In no time they go soggy. Growing your own salad just makes sense. Plus its stupidly easy.

A plant in the ground for comparison.

Seeds!

I've since let the plants go to seed. They're looking pretty sad now, probably a combination of the plants coming to end of their lives and the fact that I haven't fed them for more than a month. There can't be any goodness left in the soil of the shallow tray they're living in.
I'm hoping I'll get some seeds before the wind blows them away. It would be much more satisfying to grow it next year from my own seed rather than buying them again.

Definitely one of the best successes I had this year.  

Soft fruit progress

Looking back I spent almost all of my expendable wage this summer on buying plants, compost, tools, feed and pots every chance I got.
Ridiculous really, but in my mind I was investing, as next year the plants from this year should hopefully be much more established and producing more next year.

My favourite purchases are my fruit bushes. To add to my original blackcurrant bush, I now have some raspberry canes, a loganberry, strawberries and  a gooseberry bush.

In the mail I have blackberries, pink blueberries and pinkcurrants on the way. The idea of pink blueberries and pinkcurrants makes the little girl in me squeak with excitement.
I'm hoping they don't arrive whilst I'm away on holiday in less than 2 weeks, but knowing my luck they will. Hopefully they will survive in their dehydrated state til I get home 10 days later!

Only 1 of my 4 strawberry plants from 2014 survived in my strawberry planter. I think this was a combination of being blasted by the wind in winter, an infestation of red mites and my planting them too deep in the soil.

The one surviving plant only produced the most pitiful flowers this year. I managed to buy some 3 more strawberry plants late in the season to compensate. They seem to be a different variety and were better planted. They've produced quite a few strawberries and I'm much happier with their size.

Ready to be separated from the mother plant

 They've produced runners too, which my original strawberry plant has never managed, so more strawberries for next year!

Blackcurrants and my first ever sad split strawberry that I kept for posterity

The tub filled to full capacity now

I couldn't believe how much my little blackcurrant bush produced this year. I can't wait for next year to see how it gets on. I've kept everything that didn't get eaten immediately in a storage tub. The plan for them is to be included in my first rhubarb crumble of winter.

Making room for my closh.

Needing a haircut! 

Our summer this year was very late in coming. It rained solidly all May. I heard on SIBC (local radio) that it was the worst summer in 30 years. I can believe it!

For a while, not even the grass would grow. Everything was so sodden that there was no way anything could go outside to be planted. The weather was ridiculous.

Eventually though, the rain did stop. And unfortunately the grass did grow. At this point I had a lot of plug plants that desperately needed to go into the ground.
I had to dig a patch of grass away but couldn't do that until it had been reduced in volume. I decided (despite my horrific hayfever) that I would strim the garden, instead of pawning the job off to my poor partner. It took hours just for our tiny patch on a battery powered strimmer. Eventually I finished, eyes streaming, asthma attack threatening.

Much better. 

Grass and weeds scoured away

Extra digging required

Once the grass was cut, I started digging. I cleared along the fence and left it at that for one day.

A few days later I bought a closh. I'd dug the patch neatly in line with the wall of my garden shed. The closh was of course far wider than the patch I'd already dug. 

Plugs seperated! 

Grass removal. My favourite task...

 I first planted my plugs without separating the plants out. Having realised my mistake a few days later, I had to dig everything back up again. How annoying.

In hindsight, I would have done everything much differently. I didn't add any fertilisers, organic material or any goodness into the soil. I planted directly into it. I could have had much better results if I'd planned ahead better instead of diving in head first.
I also planted everything far too close together. I'll know better for next year. Gardening is very much a learning process.

Closh, and then some. 

My first Turriefield volunteering day

Turriefield is part of the WWOOFing scheme. At any time in the summer they usually have at least 1 full time voluteer working with them. On one saturday of every month, local people in Shetland help out for a morning doing whatever needs doing around the croft.

I set off from Lerwick FAR too early, as on previous runs to Sandness I'd never timed how long it took to drive there. Leaving the house at half 8 on a saturday (strenuous!), I pootled to Sandwick in the car. Being far too early I explored Sandness first and sat on the pier enjoying the still morning near the local toilets (the beach name escapes me!).

I arrived at 10 and met the Alan, Penny and the WWOOFers. We were set to work, hoeing the weeds. I had a fantastic morning. By mid morning there was more than 10 locals helping, doing various tasks from weeding to cutting the grass. The sun came out and I being ever prepared (not), got sunburn.

At 1pm we were fed an amazing lunch of soup and bannocks. The best cullen skink I've ever had in my life. I gave 2 of the WWOOFers a lift back to Lerwick. I'll definitely be back next month.

Where we started weeding. The weeds were pretty established.

A panorama showing some of the folk hard at work

Standing from the same spot I was earlier, look how far we got cleared.

A hen trying her luck for lunch titbits

Turriefield Inspiration

I first came across Transition Turriefield, an organic Shetland croft, on the Shetland food blog. It was around early July on a tuesday in teabreak. I discovered their blog and couldn't believe that anyone else up here was doing the exact thing I wanted to do. Growing primarily vegetables organically, in quantity.

After reading everything I could, I decided my mission was to go and visit them and absorb everything I saw, haha! I took the afternoon off work on a sunny Thursday and had an adventure to Sandness to visit them.

I phoned in advance, but got no answer, but was too chicken to leave a message. So I plucked up my courage and rudely invaded them anyway. Poor folk! I didn't know at the time, but Thursday was their extremely stressful and busy packing day. I'd caught them just after they'd finished and were hoping for a rest.

They very kindly let me wander around their croft and I took photos. They have several large polytunnels full of vegetables that would otherwise never grow in Shetland.

Its heaven on earth.

Beautiful bright salad leaves

Tomato plants

A fence along which grows peas and broad beans, salad in the foreground

Marrows that would grow outdoors in england can only grow inside in Shetland

Far left, brassicas, middle onions, right leeks

Corn growing indoors

I was so inspired. Polytunnels are definitely on my Christmas list! The possibilities are endless with one.

I signed up to become a monthly Turriefield volunteer to help with whatever needs doing. It was the least I could do. And through helping I can only but learn more to apply to my own garden. Its a win win situation. :)

Rhubarb Madness

In mid July I decided I had to harvest Rhubarb.Not much later in the summer, the rhubarb would be too old and starchy to eat.

Its an activity with bittersweet memories for me. For years I picked rhubarb for my ex boyfriend's mother. Rhubarb was one of her favourite foods.I loved nothing more than surprising her with a black bag full of stalks. I would spend hours cutting it up for her into bits, ready for freezing. The first time I arrived with a bag full of stalks she looked at me with astonishment "Oh THANK YOU. How did you KNOW." I'd had no idea rhubarb then was so dear to her. Over the winter she'd delight in taking out a bag and making crumble, sorbet, jam and juice.

I hadn't picked any since my ex's breakup in 2013.
Determined I would do it, this time for ME, I set off with a trug and a knife.

The final haul. Hand for scale

Sitting ready on the freezer

The Rhubarb in Heylor is spread over a few plants in odd locations.
The main Rhubarb patch is at the back of my grandad's house, in a grassy park.

As all the patches do, they seems to thrive on neglect, producing huge stalks year in, year out. As plants and weeds in my neglected granny's garden gets wilder and wilder, it gets more difficult to get to it. After struggling over fences, overgrown gates and through nearly waist high grass, I got to the rhubarb.

There's something deeply satisfying about hauling out rhubarb stalks from the plant base, cutting off the huge (poisonous) leaf and plunking the stalks into a bucket. Listening for the thunk on a quiet summer night with the lapwings pleeping over the hill behind you.

It was a beautiful summer night. Despite the midgies biting, I got a bit trigger happy and took back upwards of 50 stalks. I wish I'd taken pictures! If I remember right, my phone's battery was almost dead.

Borrowing the use my grandad's kitchen, I washed every stalk (removing the odd slug and creepy crawley that had been evicted from its home) and cut up every stalk into cooking ready chunks.

The process took 2 and half hours. By 10:30pm I had 3 bags of 4-5 pounds of rhubarb ready for freezing. Rhubarb is difficult to cut. You have to rotate the stalk as you cut into it. Otherwise long stringy strands peel the length of the stalks, mislooking it. My hands ached.

We're nearly into September and I still haven't yet cooked any of it! I've irritated my partner as I've taken up a good 50% of our tiny freezer with a single bag. I need to get on with it, but I feel like crumble deserves a good stormy winters day before it'll be really appreciated. I'm sure the storms will come soon to set me cooking.

Heylor summer nights

Seedlings galore

Late 2014, my mam was clearing out my grandad's cupboards. She found my late granny's old seed box. She found rocket and a few other things that she gave to me to try. The seed was 15 years old. Not much hope for germination, but it got me thinking, what ELSE could I grow the following year.

Around March/April this year, my mam was starting to propagate her seeds for the coming summer. I was inspired.
A few weeks later I agonized over seeds in the Planticrub at Tingwall. I knew I couldn't try everything at once, as much as I wanted to.

I came away with Kale, Leeks, Corncockle, field cornflower, primroses and strawberries.
My mam decided she was going to try her usual assortment of annuals including pansies, livingston daisies and for the first time, tomatoes.

I sowed my seeds in my garden shed. Unheated, dark, cramped and not much light. Having no shelves, I constructed flat surfaces out of old bird suet boxes on which I laid propagation trays. It was a mess.

After a few weeks some of my seed trays showed life, others none at all. It just wasn't warm enough to make the seeds happy!
In desperation I bunged everything I had in the back of the car and headed north to Heylor with them. I begged my mam to find room for my trays otherwise I'd have a very bare garden.

Being the wonderful mam she is, she squeezed my trays in among hers in the considerably warmer and lighter potting shed.

My granny's potting shed

Old school glass sheets instead of plastic to trap the heat and moisture

Shelves and shelves of plants!

After I handed over my seedlings to her, I had a very lazy few weeks, gardening wise. It was an awful time at work as we were in our busiest period of the year at the same time as having our office refitted with custom built units. Whilst that was going on, I was also working on a huge commission for a children's book.

My mam soldiered on and pricked out all my seedlings and brought them on for weeks by herself. Poor her!
However she did pinch all but 2 of my primroses and strawberries and a kale plant. So it worked out not too badly for her.

I caught the growing bug

I want to make a diary of what I've been doing with my adventures in gardening.
As this year has gone by, it would be easy to forget how I started out. This blog and posts will have to backtrack over this past year, as I'm only starting in the last few days of August 2015

But for now, lets go back in time!

In 2013 I moved in with my boyfriend in Lerwick. We live in a small Hjaltland 1 person, 1 bedroom flat. TINY! We have a small garden, 4 x 3 meters or so. Better than nothing, I refer to it as my post stamp garden.
It looks south east out onto a very uninspiring view. Noisy from the north boat coming and going daily. Currently a new pier is being built nearby. A few times a day, the flat shakes as workers explode rocks a few hundred meters away to create it. In winter, the light barely reaches it, as the sun hardly rises above the surrounding houses to reach us. All year, the sun is extinguished by the hill to our west, cutting out all direct sunlight after 4pm.

All in all, its not all that inspiring.

In late 2014 in a bid to brighten it up, I bought a few plants to decorate the flat patch of grass. I had a total of 3 pots. 1 large pot with a small blackcurrant bush to grow into. 1 large ceramic teacup with chives and mint in it.  And one strawberry planter with 4 strawberry plants in it.
They all lived outside the backdoor and survived the blasting of wind over the long dark Shetland winter.

THEN. As if by magic, a switch seemed to flick on in my brain and I needed to grow more. LOTS more.
I'm not sure what triggered it exactly. I'd grown up with my mam and granny who were avid gardeners. When I was young, I was never really interested in growing things. I helped them sometimes, but it was boooring.

I think the trigger was the satisfaction at seeing my baby blackcurrant bush suddenly putting on lots of new growth in the spring and thinking "Hey, I did that. I made that plant happy enough so it could grow. That is so COOL. Hey, what else could I make grow." I was so proud of my little bush and from then, I was hooked.

The bug doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon!