Collecting my own seeds

For a while now, I've been trying to collect some seeds from the plants I've grown this year.
So far, my first attempt was to collect borage seeds. Most of them had already blown away by the time I inspected the plants.

Something that I've learned in doing this, (something that I probably SHOULD have known) not all seeds develop properly. When you buy seeds most have been graded and only the best quality seeds are sold. In DIY seeds, the percentage of bad seeds is easily 30% in the plants I've seen so far.

I have managed to collect a few different seeds and put them in envelopes to dry. Poppies of various varieties and other flowers. I'm still waiting on my perpetual spinach seeds to ripen. I desperately want to grow them again next year.

I'm hoping to try and collect livingston daisies too, before the plants are put in the compost bin.

Not to mention the seeds I've bought for next year. I have rainbow carrots, rainbow beetroot, rainbow chard. I have pink currants ordered and on the way. I have PINK blueberries ordered. I have yams on order, Shetland black tatties. Anything weird and wonderful, I'm going to try it.

I can't wait for next year. 

Continued war on caterpillars and other Saturday shenanigins

Today my partner has the car, so I'm still at home in my pajamas.
Since I can't get to the allotment, I decided it was finally time to do some things in the post-stamp garden this morning. First task. Caterpillars.

I thought I'd rid myself of most of them after last week. But nope. I'd seen a few in passing to the compost bin a few days ago. But its worse than I thought.

I'm going to have to make a daily effort to go out and check that there aren't more fat hairy worms on my poor brussel sprouts. They're not looking happy.

I had less mercy with them this time. I put them in the compost bin. Probably not a good idea, as the bin is basically next to the poor plants BUT, I did do a lot of weeding and tipping out of wet old icky soil on top of the caterpillars, so they should be entombed. Even talking about caterpillars and I can feel them all over me. It makes me itch! Yuck.

Next up was onions. I wanted to dig them up. We're going away on holiday soon and I didn't want to leave them until I got back- although they most likely would have been fine. I have to laugh though as they're only about as big as they were when I put them in the ground.

This is due to the poor soil, the density of planting and the fact they've hardly been watered all summer. AND I pulled them too early. Its my own fault but it was fun to try. They're drying in the shed.
I never expected them to work properly in that location anyway. I'm going to try a lot harder this next year in the allotment with them.

I finally separated out the Rogue Pot and finally repotted my strawberry runners. If they survive, there will be 3 new strawberry plants from runners and 1 tiny strawberry from the rogue pot.

I also separated out the primroses into new compost. I now have 5 pots of primroses from the one rogue pot. Hopefully my rough treatment of them won't hurt them and they'll grow next year.

I repotted my loganberry that was looking very sad in its current pot. It was very root bound and I should have done it months ago. I'm hoping the discoloration isn't due to something more malevolent like vine weevil.

Bees are still visiting the garden. 

Chicken pals and endless weeding

"You left your hand coverings on the ground. I don't like them."

Meet Jemima, the mud-diggin' chicken. ;)

This isn't her official name, only my name for her, as I'm fairly sure she isn't named. Nearly every time I've been out at the allotment recently, she's joined me to help 'dig'.

The routine is, I arrive with my car and collect my tools from the shed adjoining the chicken coop. The cockerels kick up a fuss at the sight of me, to which the entire flock joins in, squawking. I head off to start digging. As they calm down, Jemima sneaks away and quietly appears beside me often making me jump.

The rule is, its my job to turn over a patch of earth, then its her turn to dive in, pecking away the worms and other undesirables. Teamwork. Not so fun for the worms, but I'm sure there will be plenty survivors from her massacre.

She has only eaten one worm from my hand so far, so quite a ways to train her before we're best buddies. In the past I've had chickens so tame they'd hop on my lap and fall asleep. Thats the goal.

However, I'm quite worried that she'll never get used to my voice. Every time so far that I've been out to the allotment so far, I've been listening to an audio book read by Ian McKellen. She knows his voice! Whenever I talk to her, she gets startled and looks at me funny.

To her, I'm a magical digging machine that unearths bugs with the voice of Ian McKellen. There could be worse things than being a Gandalf, the Worm Wizard to a chicken, I suppose.

"No worms?! Work faster human!"

Having a dirt bath with one of the jealous cockerels trying to take her back to the coop

The compost pile is growing. I'm not sure how many barrowloads of weeds are still left in the field, but would easily be upwards of 20.

The worst offenders are chickweed, deaf nettles and creeping buttercup. Creeping buttercup is by far the worst thing to deal with. Their roots hold onto the earth so fiercely. Other weeds taking hold include a few rogue dockens, daisies and thistles. No nettles yet, thankfully. 

Deaf Nettles by the millions

Chickweed

A few weeks ago I went on a mission to acquire some old carpet to lay as a temporary weed killer. Anything to help reduce the workload of the whole area will help.

The plot as a whole is still a long ways from being finished, but its getting there. I'll keep chipping away at it.

Caterpillar Shenaniganary- not for the Entomophobic!

3 weeks ago I was out watering the garden after a few sunny days without rain. I noticed a trapped cabbage white. It couldn't escape for leaves in my box of of brussel sprouts. It only had half a wing on its left side and I felt sorry for it. It looked like it was having a hard day. So I moved the leaves aside so it could fly out.

No more than 3 minutes after its escape, it landed back on the plant, immediately laying eggs. I groaned. How could you butterfly, I thought we were friends, reproducing wasn't part of your release deal!
After it flew away I cut off the offending egg leaf to dump in the compost bin then searched the rest of the plants for more eggs. I found some more and removed them.

On this Friday past, I looked out the back door and found caterpillars on nearly every leaf, all munching away happily on my hard work. I don't know when or how they arrived. But there they were, having a party on my kale and sprouts.

I didn't want to move them until I was sure they were cabbage whites. A google later,  indeed they were. If they were red admirals or any other type of butterfly I would have considered leaving them, but they'd already eaten whole sections away from my plants.

On Sunday I decided enough was enough. I took a cup and a pencil and went about shoogling the caterpillars into the cup. I didn't have the heart to kill them, regardless that they were cabbage whites. They're only trying to survive. The only thing I kill with no mercy are midges. As a general rule, I'm not keen on anything that wants to take blood from me, GPs included!  

I didn't realise that caterpillars were so covered in silk. They were thoroughly stuck to the leaves and it took a lot of careful poking to dislodge them. Some leaves were so infested with them that instead moving them by hand, I snapped the leaf away entirely.

Years ago when I lived in Lerwick with my parents we used to have regular trips removing bucket loads of slugs from the garden.

I couldn't bear to pick them up myself, preferring to bully my poor younger brother into doing it for me. Once we'd (mostly he'd) collected a slimy pile, my parents would drive out to our regular slug depositing spot. It was a walled patch of long grass that was in the middle of a roundabout. No escape.

We only lived 2 minutes away from this spot, regardless, whoever was holding the bucket would panic as the slugs would slither closer and closer to the top of the bucket.
Unfortunately this roundabout no longer exists, otherwise I would have the caterpillars there! But I was about to relive the panic of escaping creepy crawlies.

The caterpillars using the leaf as a climbing frame, started to climb upwards. I poked them back down again, hopping in the car. Of course, like cartoon ants, more caterpillars marched up the leaves replacing the ones I poked down. I didn't have anyone at the house who could have accompanied me as caterpillar container,  I just had to go, QUICKLY. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. I should have put them in a better container. Preferably one with a lid! 

As I was driving, again they were nearly at the top. I nearly went off the road more than once trying to keep them from spilling out into the car. The idea of finding caterpillars in the car for weeks was horrifying. I don't mind bugs, but I certainly don't want them crawling over the gear stick or pupating on the rear mirror. The thought makes me itchy.

As I parked the car, this is where they'd got to! ARGHH. Seconds to spare!

After arriving in an innocuous enough spot away from gardens, I pulled in and RAN carrying the cup. I half dropped, half poured them out onto some grass with the infested leaves as a last supper.

More likely as not they'll starve, or be picked off by birds. But at least they might have a chance.

Next year I'm going to cover my brassicas with netting, prevention rather than cure.

For the rest of the day, every time I closed my eyes I could see imaginary caterpillars crawling around. And writing this whole post has given me the shivers and itches.

Weeding the allotment

After my second day volunteering at Turriefield I made it my mission over the weekend to clear as much as I could.

I visited the allotment several times to weed it before but then I'd mostly been pulling things up by hand. The plot's weeds had a growth spurt after some rain. Deaf nettles, and creeping buttercup infest it.

After 5 hours or so I cleared this patch. It didn't look too bad.

But in the larger context its like a spit in the ocean. 

After a second session things were looking better. But there is still so much to do.

Its my goal to try and get at least HALF of the ground cleared before winter really sets in. Its a slow process though. By far the worst culprit is creeping buttercup.



At the moment this is my most hated weed. Each plant put down an deep tap root. Then it shoots off runners like a strawberry. Each plant can have up to 10 runners or so. Every runner roots and creates a new plant, that creates more runners. Of course if you leave a single root in the ground, it will create a new plant.
Its a nightmare to dig it all up.

I've been given an allotment!

In July, I decided to put myself out there and post an advertisement on one of the Shetland gardening pages.
Currently Lerwick has no allotments. Its stupid really, as there are so many people, like me, living in minute flats with little or no garden to grow anything.

My post was about wanting to meet other people who like me, had no garden and were interested in trying to make the building of allotments happen.

The upshot of this was that I created a facebook group for Shetland gardeners who will, in the future, create a society for allotments when our numbers increase. But that is another post.

The plot. On a slight slope. This is before the lower fence went in.

However, through this exposure I got a message from a lady saying her husband had an allotment that he was willing to give to me and I should contact him. 

The ground had been ploughed earlier in the year so there weren't too many weeds

Stephen's neighbouring free range chickens come to visit often

I did and met Stephen 2 weeks later. He drove me up to the plot, situated in Tingwall. Perfect as it doesn't take more than 10 minutes to get there.
I was given permission to use a HUGE plot of ground for anything I wanted. Trees, vegetables, fruit, buildings, I can even keep animals as it is a registered croft.

I couldn't believe my luck. When I left I squeaked all the way home in the car, and chanting "YES! YES!". Its everything I'd hoped for. A blank slate to do whatever I want with.

Ready installed taps!

A HUGE expanse. So much potential.

The ground is roughly 30 x 25m. The ground slopes to the west. The soil is very good. Best of all there is enough space that I think it will be a long time before I will fill it.

Stephen's plot is next to mine, where he keeps 2 pigs and hens. The hens explore freely and come to peck at my plot often. I miss keeping hens myself, so now I won't need to have my own as I can befriend his.

I'm so lucky. I've fallen on my feet. Stephen is so generous to let me use it.
I think the moral is, if you don't stick your head up and ask, you don't get! Now I have infinite potential for next year and the following years!

The Rogue Pot

Oh really? 

When my mam was making room for more seedlings in her shed, gave me a pot to take home. It was one of my wild primroses she grew for me from seed. She nabbed the rest of them for herself.

I took it home and a few weeks later, it started to look a bit odd and sprouted some other things. I left it to its own devices to see what it would do. Apparently the wild primrose is sharing its house with a strawberry plant (that I nearly pulled out thinking it was a weed!) AND a corncockle.

It certainly wasn't as advertised. I'm not sure what happened in quality control when this one was potted ;) Free strawberries!

2nd Volunteering Saturday at Turriefield

Since my first visit, I'd told my mam all about Turriefield. I recruited her to come and help for the day. I knew she would be inspired by what they were doing. She is much more into growing flowers and isn't keen on vegetables, where as I'm the opposite.

We arrived on another lovely day. Our job for the morning was to weed the chard and beetroot patch. The only annoyance was that the wind fell away entirely. Penny and Allan provided midge repellents which was a lifesaver.

Hard at work.

This is one of my favourite pictures I've ever taken of my mam.

Hundreds upon hundreds of peas and beans. 

One of my relatives said he wouldn't want to be a weed in my presence haha. 

The sun threatening to shine! 

We were fed another amazing lunch including toasted marshmallows to celebrate one of the volunteer's birthday. Ian and Penny are fab hosts. Their bannocks are some of the best I've ever had anywhere. My mouth just waters thinking about it.

I didn't take any photos of them, but my favourite part of the visit this time was seeing the progress of the Turriefield polytunnel pumpkins. They were HUGE. Pumpkins are something I would never have expected would have been able to grow up here, even inside. But its possible!

Now if only I had a polytunnel of my own so I could grow all these wonderful things. Some day!

Some people have fitness goals, I have veg growing goals

Wednesday 12th August was the Cunningsburgh show. I took a half day off work and my mam, brother and I drove down. As the Voe show had been cancelled this year, this was our only agricultural show 'fix' for this year.

Previously I'd never cared about the vegetable and produce displays. In fact, I'd always thought they were the dullest part of the show. I'd drag my poor mam away from it as quickly as possible. Why would you go to look at them when you could spend time with the animals instead. 

How times have changed, haha.

I was so impressed with the variety selection that won. 

My rhubarb at home is more like the one on the right.
Look at the COLOUR of the left selection. Beautiful.

I loved the raspberry display. I could definitely do this.

My leeks are still the size of pencils. I can't believe how badly mine compare, haha

Herb display. This was the only one at the show!

Blue salad potatoes. Another thing I want to try to grow.

The most interesting thing was the presentation of the vegetables. Using sphagnum moss and heather to decorate the containers was a common theme. Wicker baskets and old ceramics was another.

Just LOOK at the olive eggs in the center. To die for.

Someday I'd love my own hens to compete in this too.

I'm going to try my best to compete in the Voe or Cunningsburgh show next year. I can definitely do this.