I got a lot of peas with successive plantings, not enough at any one time to cook for a meal, but enough that I got to graze on them fresh off the plant nearly every day. Not bad for growing them in pots. The root crops in the wading pool never got very big, I need to pull them up and see if there’s anything edible in there, but if there is it’s tiny. Need something much deeper if I’m going to attempt that again. The beans didn’t do much, and we weren’t keen on eating them anyway, so I probably won’t bother next year.
Sunflowers of various kinds haven’t finished blooming yet, the Russian Giants went first and have huge heavy heads full of seeds, while some of the other smaller varieties are still in the bud stage. I don’t know if they’ll bloom before the first frost. I’ll leave the stalks in the pots and plant morning glories next to them in the spring, so they have something to climb. They didn’t do well this year because I got too eager and planted them on a warm day early in the season, then it got cold again. Next year I’ll start them indoors and wait until it’s properly spring before putting them out. I got a tomato plant from one of my volunteers, which has a nice cluster of green tomatoes on it which show no signs of ripening. You really can’t grow tomatoes here outside of a greenhouse.
The two blueberry bushes I’ve got in pots did really well, I got some nice berries off them, again not enough at once to do anything major with them, but enough to enjoy as I went along. Two different varieties, so slightly different size and flavour. The first redcurrant bush I planted grew like gangbusters and then died back at the tips, probably overwatered. The second one didn’t really grow at all, but it’s still alive. I think it needs better soil than the ‘cheap compost and coir’ mix I made, so next year I’ll pot it up into something with a better texture and some fertilizer. They didn’t produce fruit this year, but I didn’t expect them to the first year. I should get some fruit off at least the big one next year, I hope.
I’ve also got a few raspberries in a large pot donated by a client, they fruit on last year’s canes, so should produce at least a little bit next year. They had been in small pots for I don’t know how many years, and had like one berry each when I got them, which the birds promptly ate. I’ll have to put bird mesh around any fruits if I want to keep them for myself. They got at my blueberries and strawberries until I meshed them up this year. I’ll have to find a good way to cover them while still allowing me access. I got a cheap greenhouse frame that’s meant to have plastic film put over it, but it says ‘situate it out of strong wind’, which means ‘not Scotland’, so I might just put bird mesh over it and use it to protect the fruit instead of as a greenhouse. We’ll see what I can come up with by next year. If I can get it set up with the plastic film, I might be able to get some tomatoes.
I kept forgetting about the greens, spring onions, parsley, etc. other than watering them, so they mostly went to waste. The onions have died back and would probably be good to eat as bulbs, except the ones that have already sprouted again. I’ll let the sprouting ones go and see what they do. Might get some seeds out of them, dunno. The herbs are still tiny, again probably due to the crappy soil mix, so I’ll pot them up into a better soil and see how they do.
The pansies did fairly well, were very pretty and seeded all over the place, including in my houseplants when I brought in some unopened pods to save the seeds and they popped all over the place when they opened. I got some nice hollyhocks and lupines from seed, the hollyhocks went into pots and along the fence on the sunny side, and the lupines went into a cleared bit of the back flowerbed where I dug out a shedload of monbrecia, largeish rocks and gravel. Someone apparently thought they were building a rockery, but failed. Once I’ve got the rocks dug out of the rest of the bed I’ll have enough to build something, perhaps a herb spiral. I’ve also found lots of snail shells in varying states of wear, some of which I will incorporate into crafty things once I’m done building the dollhouse which is my current obsession and taking up all my spare time.
I’ve got lots of photos on Instagram, though you have to scroll through a lot of others to see them all, going back to the beginning of the gardening season. I wish they’d let you sort them into albums.
There’s also a fruiting passionfruit I pass daily, got my eye on the first green fruit… My vine at home had its first flowers this week, but nothing’s set yet.