Potato harvest

On Saturday I dug up one of the four potato pots I have been growing this spring. There was no indication from the leaves on top that anything was going on below the surface, and only a week ago a stuck my hand in the soil to try a find a potato. On that occasion I found something, something small, but something none the less. It gave me some optimism.

Anyway, I could not wait any longer. So this weekend I dug up one pot with the best foliage and as you can see from the photos, this is what I found. This large pot had 3 seed potato plants and from those 3 plants I harvested 4lb of potatoes. Wow. Big wow. I never thought I would get so much.

The Saturday harvest became the Sunday dinner. The skins fell off beautifully to reveal pale white flesh and they boiled quicker than the new potatoes I have been buying.

And the taste - beautiful, creamy and light. Well worth the effort and wait.

I have 3 more pots to harvest over the next few weeks. I am never going to be self sufficient growing in pots as I am now but perhaps now I have experienced this small taste of success I might feel a bit more confident if I ever got an allotment in the future.

Potato leaf spots

I have notice brown spots on some of the potato leaves in the last few days. It seems to be in localised areas at the moment. I've checked the books and the closest thing I can find that might be the cause is a beetle type thing.

The only beetle type thing I can find in the leaves is a strange light brown/green thing that jumps incredibly fast when you poke it. I imagine that this is the thing causing the brown spots.

Thankfully these spots should not mean the potatoes are in danger or diseased.

I shall harvest the largest of the potato pots this weekend and will report back on what I find.

Insect mystery

I noticed a strange mass of web attached to the underside of a leaf on my Sedum plant. Its about 2 inch's long and must contain some kind of insect or insects. I shall keep a close watch over it to see if I can spot what is growing inside.

The potato plants are getting really big and bushy. I've been thinking that maybe I should be harvesting these 'earlies'. So I excavated a bit of soil from around one of the plants to see if any potatoes had grown. It took a while but eventually I did find a very small potato. I left it where it was to grow some more and will leave it for a couple more weeks. Ive started to water the plants twice a day now as I have noticed the big pots always seem to be dry.

Soggy June

The headline does not come close to describing the weekend weather. After a scorching start to June there was a months worth of rain (52mm) over the weekend, most of which fell on Saturday in the form of torrential rain, hail and thunder. At times the garden was a mass of inch deep puddles as the clay soil is so slow to drain.

So no gardening done this weekend but the garden is bursting with energy now its had a much needed soaking. I did manage a on Saturday morning, but came back after 4 miles wet through to the skin.

Salad days

I have been enjoying the first fruits (or should I say salads) of my labour. Yes, the lettuce is ready for picking. I've grown cut-and-come-again varieties, so I only pick a leaf or two off each lettuce. That's plenty for my plate. The leaves seem stronger and larger that last years crop. Perhaps its due to the great sunny weather we have been enjoying.

This year has seen a huge amount of greenfly on almost all plants. You can see loads of them in this photo. I have been trying to control them by squashing them, but there is now too many to do this to. I had also hope the other insects like spiders, wasps and others would be feasting on the aphids but am surprised by how few they seem to consume.

Its getting to the point where I bring in the chemical control. I might try a washing up liquid solution first before getting too aggressive. However, I don't fancy the taste of that in my salad.

The race to grow

On Saturday I sowed a number of seeds including corn flower, marigold, sweet pea and cabbage. I had not had much luck with the seed sown earlier in the year so I thought I would try again, although I thought it might be too late in the year for some.

However, I looked in on the seed trays yesterday afternoon and to my amazement the marigolds and corn flower have germinated. That is only four days for germination. At that rate I should have a good autumn display.

The garden in June

This is how the garden looks in June 2009. In the foregrond is an old frying pan which has been very effective as a bird bath. When its full its too deep for the sparrows to bath in, but once the starlings have had a splash the water level soon reduces.

This year the Hostas have grow very well. Almost all have doubled in size since last year and have produced tall shoots which will give way to flowers and then seeds.

Last year I managed to get seeds from a number of flowers in the garden, sweet peas, hosta, heuchera, day lily and love in the mist. So far I have only used the sweet peas seeds this year. I intend to sown some of the others this weekend.

Garden starting to bloom

With the hottest days so far this year the garden is now starting to bloom. The sweet peas are starting to flower on all of the plants which have now reached about 5 feet tall.


One iris bulb has just started to flower. There are more bulbs in the garden but the growth is very weak on all the others. This may be due to the bulbs needing to be split. This needs further investigation.


The Eschscholzia is also flowering. The flowers are such a wonderful yellow and develop from a strange spear shape. This plant has been in a pot for a year or so now, which is a mistake as it grows a long tap root. When I picked it up this weekend I snapped the root off which had grown though the gravel and into the ground. I shall re-plant the Eschscholzia in the front garden instead.

I must admit I have not made much of an effort with flowers this year, apart from the sweet peas, tulips, daffodils and violas. My only other flowers were going to be marigolds but only one out of a tray of thirty survived. That was a combination of over watering and slug destruction.


I have sown some more seed this weekend - marigold, corn flower, Eschscholzia and cabbage. It may be a little late in the year for the flowers but the cabbage should be all right for an autumn crop (if it germinates). All the seeds have been sown in peat free compost and placed in the green house. There is very little in the green house now as most plants have been put out into the garden to harden off.


One strange occurrence this weekend was the movement of some small pots. I few weeks ago when the weather was cold and wet I put some bird seed mixed with used cooking fat into a small pot for the birds. The birds loved it and it was empty within days. More recently I was potting on my seedlings and needed a pot, so I used this empty bird seed pot. This pot along with another six was placed on a tray, on the patio. This Saturday morning, the bird seed pot has been moved off the tray, to the middle of the patio with the soil and seedling spilt. I suspect that a magpie has smelt the remnants of the bird seed and fat and thought there was more beneath the soil. So the soil was brushed up and the pot put in the shed. Sunday morning the same thing happen to another pot on the tray. Thankfully this time the seedling was not spilt. It seems that the magpie was looking for that pot. I must admit that I did not clean the pot after it had the bird seed and fat, but it was empty when I re-potted the tomato.