A squeeze on time and space

If you thought that all my focus on the Gardeners' World show was affecting my planting and growing for the suburban veg plot you wouldn't be far wrong.
I think I've managed to keep up with some things; we have peas and broad beans planted out and flowering already, the potatoes are in and growing vigorously.

Exquisite Aquadulce broad bean flowers

But I've sown only one set of beetroot and carrots and the tomatoes are sulking in their very small pots in a corner of the greenhouse.
It's a matter of space at the moment – the tomatoes are usually potted on into their pots or grow bags in the greenhouse by now, but that space is still needed for my plethora of chard, basil, cucumber and cucamelon plants for at least another two weeks. I spent most of yesterday moving pot after pot of lettuce out to the cold frame, which now being fully glazed is fairly slug-proof.

The cold frame filled to capacity

Chard 'Bright Lights' for my Gardeners' World raised bed

Thankfully, I have a lot of fruit that are perennial - from blueberry bushes to raspberry canes, tayberry plant to wild strawberries, so all of those seems to be taking good care of themselves and seem to need only water from me in order to do their thing.

Apple cordon with lots of buds - sadly, none of them have formed fruits.

And below, raspberry and tayberry flowers respectively. I have high hopes for a good harvest from both of these in 2014.

Hard graft

The last few college days have involved rather a lot of practical work. We've been out in the polytunnel or on the plots doing everything from sowing seeds and collecting propagation material, to planting trees and creating raised beds. (The latter two requiring more bending and spade work than my back was really comfortable with.) But I was very enthusiastic when we got on to grafting fruit trees. The particular form of grafting we carried out is called 'whip and tongue grafting' and refers to the specific angled cuts that need to be made in both the rootstock and scion to ensure that there is good contact of the cambium (the growth tissue) between the two. The technique is described on the RHS website here. Armed with my brand new grafting knife, I set about practising ahead of the timed assessment.

practice graft in the polytunnel using a grafting block

Once I'd got the hang of the intricacies of the cuts, the practice grafts were relatively easy as they're done at bench height using offcuts from apple trees pushed into a grafting block to simulate the rootstock. It is quite a delicate operation though because the most natural way of holding each 'twig' while you're cutting it always seem to be with your non-cutting hand in direct firing line of the blade should it slip... 

And later it was time for the assessment, where we had to complete 3 grafts onto planted rootstock in 20 minutes. Being at ground level is a bit more difficult than bench level - you can either bend right over to work close to the ground (not great once you're over 35, to be honest) or kneel on a grafting block (a bit tough on the knees but bearable for 5 mins at a time). We each had a line of 3 rootstocks and a choice of scion - I decided on Blenheim Orange. I finished my grafts well within the 20 minutes, fully labelled and trimmed to an appropriate height. Suburban Orchard here we come!

My three grafts in line, front to back. 

ID parade

I recently took advantage of a Fruit Identification Day at RHS Wisley in Surrey. Laden with samples from my apple and pear trees, I headed off to meet Jim Arbury, renowned fruit specialist for the RHS. He started with the easy ones first - my long smooth pears were quickly identified as Conference and the apples as Golden Delicious.The latter has produced a very poor harvest this year. In fact, to my inexperienced eyes, the whole tree has been looking a trifle below par all season. We did a bit of pruning last winter, but I'm fairly confident that hasn't caused its current woes. Early in the year it developed powdery mildew on much of the new growth. This could be explained by the early season hot/dry weather, causing water stress to the tree making it susceptible to infection. Then many of the blossoms were hit by the late frosts in May and resulted in only a handful of apples making it through to harvest time.

Conference pears

My second pear variety caused Jim a little further deliberation as reference books were consulted and samples were cut open. He soon identified it as a late pear - which sounds about right given that they've always been hard, even when they're falling off the tree. A few more comparisons later and we had a name - Winter Nelis. A variety with its origins in Belgium in the early 1800s, it's a small squat fruit, heavy with russet and not particularly attractive (a pear only a mother could love). But armed with Jim's advice, I shall be harvesting them at the end of October, putting them into storage and then enjoying beautifully ripe pears at Christmas.
Now, can anyone lend me a dozen apple storage trays??

An occasional mention of fruit

Now, eagle-eyed blog readers will notice that I have used the word fruit here - despite the blog being called the Suburban VEG Plot. Well, I will admit to having a few fruit trees/plants/bushes dotted around the place, however most of them survive despite the lack of attention they are shown.
But I decided to survey the current stock of fruit and report my findings and pictures here.

Firstly, the fruit trees that came with the garden when we bought our house: 2 pear trees - one is a mere shadow of itself due to experiencing a severe pruning the year I sited more raised beds and realised I needed to get in between them (exactly where the tree stands). The other is already showing some buds:



Secondly apple trees. There were 2 but the smaller one bought the farm in year one (It was smack bang in the middle of the veg plot raised beds and I kept turning round sharply into it quite frequently. Thus it was me or the tree.) But the remaining one is a nice size and despite giving us no apples last year, we are hopeful of some kind of crop in 2010 as the new growth is developing nicely.



Next is a blackcurrant bush. This I obtained on one of those 'free with £2.95 postage' gardening magazine offers. Planted it, it took well but it soon became obvious it was overshadowed when the rhubarb got going. Thus I moved it at the beginning of 2010 into a border by the patio - a week before I discovered I'd managed to kill off said rhubarb anyway...



And lastly, a tayberry plant. Obtained with a similar gardening magazine offer, this one arrived in March 09 and went into the greenhouse in his little pot until I found the time to plant him out. I managed to find that time in March 2010!! I was quite prepared for the plant to be dead as a courgette in December, but amazingly the odd watering it received in the greenhouse somehow kept it going and having planted it out along the same border as the blackcurrant, I can already see signs of new growth! The plan is to use the fence behind them to rig up some kind of netting over them both.



So there you go - fruit corner lives on in the Suburban Veg Plot.