Plot Lines

I’m not very hopeful about the poor broccoli, usually slugs will chew on the leaves but leave the central broccoli head alone. This year the whole plant is being damaged. If I do eventually have some broccoli it will be edible but it won’t be pretty. The purple sprouting broccoli looks more promising. Slugs are less keen on anything purple. I’ve sown some quick broccoli for planting in a less sluggy area so fingers crossed.

In contrast to the poor beleaguered brassicas, the squashes in the Polycrub are growing enthusiastically. The main threat to squash plants are woodlice. Not because they want to eat the fruit, they view a squash as a prime piece of woodlouse real estate. A hollowed out squash makes a nice home for an entire woodlouse civilisation. I planted peppers and aubergine again this year. The aubergines are for chutney, so far the plants have grown a lot of lovely leaves but no aubergines. The pepper plants are smaller but have set some fruit.

I have a few craft fairs in July, but they have reasonable gaps between them – no two in a row or four in a week! This week I have Glendale on Tuesday and Sligachan on Saturday. I’m doing a blackcurrant theme for Glendale – blackcurrant jam, blackcurrant plants and actual blackcurrants. The currants themselves are particularly good this year, the plants must like wild variations in weather and our lack of attention to weeding. I haven’t found another type of fruit that is quite so well adapted to our croft.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – potatoes, Spring onions, French beans, courgettes and blackcurrants.

Medium – potatoes, Spring onions, French beans, courgettes, blackcurrants, onions and beetroot.

Large – potatoes, Spring onions, French beans, courgettes, blackcurrants, kale, beetroot, herbs, chard and onions.

After the week of too many craft fairs I finally had some time for weeding and tomato pruning. The weeds in the net tunnel were horribly out of control, it’s looking a bit tidier now. I also planted some sugar snap peas in there and the rest of the leeks outside. I’ve got some more courgettes to go in the Polycrub and will be sowing Autumn salads in the greenhouse. Salad leaves grow best in the Spring and Autumn. At this time of year there are just too many caterpillars and too much daylight. Mustard leaves and lettuce prefer an even amount of daytime and night time. I assume the green caterpillars are cabbage white, I never see a corresponding number of butterflies though. There are a lot of Red Admiral butterflies about at the moment but I haven’t seen any of their caterpillars. Most of these beasties love a chard or beetroot leaf best. They ignore tomatoes, courgettes and French beans.

A lot of baby Swallows are hanging around the croft just now, hopefully their snack of choice is a green caterpillar.

The French beans have been a bit slow this year but have now reached the roof of the greenhouse and have a decent number of beans for picking. I’ve grown the usual green ones and the yellow flat podded ones from last year.

The first tomatoes have ripened and been eaten! Hopefully there will be more soon. We also have lots of ripe blackcurrants. The blackbirds are hanging around hoping to get in the fruit cage. Most of the blackcurrants will be frozen for jam but there’s always a few portions for the Croft Shares.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – Orla potatoes, Spring onions, courgettes, French beans, kale

Medium – Orla potatoes, Spring onions, courgettes, French beans, kale, garlic and onions

Large – Orla potatoes, Spring onions, courgettes, French beans, kale, garlic, onions, chard and beetroot.

The Orla potatoes have grown very nicely and not many rejected with slug damage. I can’t say the same for the broccoli plants some of which have so much slug damage they look like lace. I think about half of the plants are OK. I shall persevere. Happily the French beans are looking good and starting to produce. The tomato plants have set a lot of fruit and seem healthy, slugs don’t really trouble them. The green caterpillars are back in the Polycrub, their favourite delicacy is chard, but they leave everything else alone. I’ve not seen much sign of red spider mite yet, a bit in the greenhouse but none in the Polycrub.

I’m halfway through my week of craft fairs – so far so good. I’ll be selling plants in Glendale on Tuesday. I sell a range of vegetable and blackcurrant plants, Next year I’d like to expand and do some shrubs, Willow and maybe some apple trees. The apple trees would be more of a long term project as we’d have to buy rootstock. We’d then graft short sticks from our own apple trees onto the rootstock. I’ve done this once successfully so I’m fairly confident. The grafted trees would then have to be grown in large pots for a couple or years before selling. We have several different types of apple tree on the croft, the best one is a fairly common supermarket variety – Discovery. It would be nice to have an ancient Highland apple to graft, but the Discovery has grown so well it’s the obvious choice.

Next week will be a week of weeding and no craft fairs. The weeds have got fairly out of control in some places, I’m looking forward to having some helpers once the school holidays start.

This week’s Croft Shares will have –

Small – potatoes, Spring onions, courgettes, salad leaves, onions and garlic.

Medium – potatoes, Spring onions, courgettes, salad leaves, onions, French beans, beetroot and herbs.

Large – potatoes, Spring onions, courgettes, salad leaves, onions, French beans, beetroot, herbs, kale and garlic.

This week the first batch of potatoes are ready. Strangely I haven’t finished planting all the potatoes yet. I’m nearly there, I’m waiting for some space to become available. The first lot ready are Orla, a good salad potato or just boiled with butter.
I have planted fifteen out of sixteen raised beds, the final bed is for leeks. Usually I sow leeks in medium sized pots before planting out. This year I filled an old fish box with manure and sowed the leeks into that. This worked really well. If you fancy growing leeks but are short on space I think a fish box and manure could produce a few full size leeks.

I’ve planted most of the brassicas in the net tunnel this year, I’m not sure this was the best idea. There’s quite a build up of pests in there – slugs, leather jackets and cabbage aphids. The broccoli is mostly managing to grow past any damage so I do think we’ll have broccoli in July. The cabbage aphids are easy to spot as they leave purple patches on leaves, when I see them I squish them. Squishing is often the most effective approach to pests and no special equipment is required! We do also have fruit trees in the net tunnel and they are looking good.

This year I’m doing my usual selection of Markets and Craft Fairs. Somehow I’ve ended up with four booked in the last week of June. On Friday the 20th I’m in the Gathering Hall, on Monday the 23rd it’s Kilmuir Hall, Tuesday the 24th Glendale Hall and then Thursday the 26th in Skye Bible Church in the middle of Portree. In Kilmuir and Glendale I’ll be selling plants, veg and preserves. The Gathering Hall and Bible Church I’ll have crafts – mainly felt. Just before Christmas I made some wet felted notebook covers, these have turned into a best seller so that’s my rainy day activity for the year. My main Fair for the Summer is in Glendale, this event runs every Tuesday and has a lovely range of crafts, everything from art and photography to bags and jewellery. I’m going there every other week at the moment, I’m pleased to report that most of the pot holes are gone! Skye Bible Church is organised to coincide with cruise ships, the Gathering Hall is once a month on a Friday and I’m not sure about Kilmuir. I also go now and again to Sligachan. Sadly the Armadale monthly market is no more, but something is happening in An Crubh so I might give that a go later in the season.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – potatoes, shallots, Spring onions, courgettes, kale and baby beetroot.

Medium – potatoes, onions, Spring onions, courgettes, kale, garlic, spring greens and salad leaves.

Large – potatoes, onions, Spring onions, courgettes, kale, garlic, spring greens, beetroot, herbs and salad leaves.

Recently my gardening has been done to the soundtrack of “crex crex CREXXXX.” I couldn’t tell if the Crexer was on the croft or just shouting loudly on the common grazing. Then on Saturday I actually saw, for the first time ever, a Corncrake on the croft! He (I think it’s the the boys that do all the yelling) was within metres of where I was working. Really I’m quite offended that for 30 years the Corncrake population has studiously ignored our croft. We’ve put a lot of effort into creating a nature friendly field and until now were shunned by Corncrakes. Next I’d like a family of owls.

I’m trying to count the different species of bird hanging around on the croft, so far we have about a trillion Sparrows, Wrens, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Gold Finches, Wagtails, occasional Great Tits, Swallows, a couple of Doves (yes they were cooing,) Cuckoos, Snipe, Skylarks, they’re more in the field next door, and for one day a year – Redwing. I have in the past almost trodden on a nest of Meadow Pippets. I would love to see some Blue Tits, unfortunately I think the warring Sparrows and squabbling Starlings put them off. Occasionally a Sparrow Hawk appears, obviously attracted to the buffet of small birds. Most years we see Buzzards too. The Buzzard population must be tied to the furry critter population, this year I haven’t seen a single vole which must be bad for the Buzzards, good for the gardeners.

Undoubtedly the main reason for our success in attracting birds to the croft are the hundreds of trees we’ve planted. Even a small hedge, or one tree makes a difference for the bird population though. Small birds really love a hawthorn hedge for nesting in, Dog Rose or even Rosa Rugosa are a good Autumn food source and Sparrows love a dusty drive way to wriggle around on! Corncrakes like a bit of an open space with shorter grass to strut about on. We do have a tree-less area where the grass was cut a few years ago, that’s where Mr Crexer is showing off and shouting. Let’s hope he’s successful and Mrs Corncrake shows up.

The Blackbirds are on a constant quest for fruit, last week two got in the greenhouse and managed to scoff a few cherries. They always find a way into the blackcurrants, luckily we’ve got so many blackcurrant bushes that the birds would struggle to eat them all.

I had a rootle under the potato plants and found a few edible sized tubers so I expect new potatoes to feature soon on the Croft Share menu. The baby beetroot are sweet enough to eat raw, either grated or thinly sliced. To cook, wrap in tin foil and bake for about one hour at 180C.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – shallots, Spring onions, beetroot, courgettes, chard and salad leaves.

Medium – shallots, Spring onions, beetroot, courgettes, chard, salad leaves, kale and herbs.

Large – shallots, Spring onions, beetroot, courgettes, chard, salad leaves, kale, herbs, Spring greens and onions.

After an amazing selection of weathers we’re back again with this year’s weekly veg scheme. The long dry spell certainly helped the tomatoes and aubergines. Outside was a bit trickier and I had to force teenage boys to carry watering cans back and forth every evening until the rain returned. The chickens loved the dry spell, most of their pen turned into a dust bath. The ducks found the lack of rain deeply upsetting – their ponds completely dried out. They’re much happier now, and yes, are laying more eggs!

My planting this year has been very staggered, out of necessity rather than design. I’ve had fewer helpers this year so all the potato planting has been done by me. I think I’ve done about 400 seed potatoes with 200 to go. I discovered in previous years that first and second earlies can be planted until the end of June and still get a good crop. This staggered method does mean I don’t have to dig them all up at once which I would definitely struggle to do. This year about a third of the spuds are in raised beds which in theory should help with the harvesting.

I’ve planted most of the brassicas, some fell victim to slugs, but most are growing fairly happily. I’ve lots of nice looking leek babies in the planting queue and some more kale. There’s always more kale!

In the greenhouse the tomato plants have tiny tomatoes on them, this year I’m growing the usual little orange ones, as well as some bigger red and yellow varieties. I’m also trying a beefsteak tomato for use as a chutney ingredient.

This year the poor courgettes have really been the favourite delicacy for the Bornaskitaig slug population. I must have planted 30 plants and twelve have survived. I’m about to re-sow – there’s still time and the ones that have made it have grown very well.

Our fruit trees and bushes are looking especially good at the moment, the long dry spell helped the fruit to set. We’ve lots of apples, plums and even some cherries.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – onions, Spring onions, garlic, kale, salad leaves and a courgette.

Medium – onions, Spring onions, garlic, kale, salad leaves, chard, Spring greens and baby beetroot.

Large – onions, Spring onions, garlic, kale, salad leaves, chard, Spring greens, baby beetroot, asparagus kale and herbs.

Our ancient cockerel Bruce finally pecked his last at the weekend. He made it to the grand, old age of fifteen. This is very old for a chicken! He was one of a clutch of nine chicks. He had four brothers and four sisters. He out lived all his sisters and three of his brothers. His brother Snowy is still going strong. According to google the record for the longest lived rooster is twenty two. I’m not sure Snowy will be around for another seven years but after a bit of a rough spell in the Summer he seems very healthy. He lives in his own little pen with one good natured hen who doesn’t bully him.

As well as one surviving brother, Bruce also has nine daughters. They are all rather bad tempered and impossible to keep contained. I suspect they all have the long life gene as well. As a young rooster Bruce survived an encounter with a fox. He fought the fox, losing his tail and neck feathers in the process, but was otherwise unharmed. His neck was a bit bald forever after though.

This year’s Croft Share scheme is winding down now. This has been the wettest Summer I think I’ve experienced here. Most of our plantings did well in spite of the rain and slugs. Broccoli and leeks seem to positively enjoy grey, wet weather. The mange tout grew quite happily as did kale and potatoes. All the tomatoes and other under cover veg grew much as they always do. The yellow courgettes did very well – that is a bit of a mystery, courgettes don’t usually set properly if it’s raining all the time. Resolutions for next year include trying to find a productive cucumber variety that isn’t irresistible to every passing creature, and persevering with peppers even if the weather’s rubbish.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small Share – kale, chard, cabbage, leeks, courgettes and herbs.

Medium Share – kale, mustard leaves, cabbage, leeks, broccoli, salad leaves, sprouts and herbs.

Gardeners have to enjoy planning ahead. I’ve just drawn up a plan for next April’s veg harvest, a good portion of it is already growing in the greenhouse, as well as some outdoor leeks. The salad leaves and chard I’m picking now will still be pickable next Spring. Once the days shorten it’s as though all the leafy veg is frozen in time. They will just sit, barely growing until about March when they all wake up again.

I’ve started planting onions and garlic in the greenhouse. Last Winter I planted a lot of garlic outside. It grew pretty well but did suffer from “rust.” The wet weather caused orange spots to appear on the leaves. This didn’t damage the bulbs but it did stop them getting any bigger after about mid June. I may just plant all the garlic undercover this year, with some onions outside. I’ll be planting the Spring onions next. They need to go somewhere dry in the greenhouse. Spring onions are the only allium I’ve found that slugs will eat.

I’m hoping to start next years’ veg scheme a few weeks earlier than this years. I’ve been investigating broccoli type options for the Spring. There are Asian leafy vegetables which produce edible flowering shoots a bit like asparagus kale or sprouting broccoli.

This week’s customers are all getting an Uchiki Kuri squash. This is similar to Butternut squash and can be cooked in the same ways. If you live in the Highlands and fancy growing squash, Uchiki Kuri is the most reliable. It always does pretty well undercover and in a sunny year (i.e. not 2024) can even grow outside. We did try some squash outside this year, the rain and slugs destroyed them. We’ll persevere again next year with bigger seedlings and closer plantings.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – leeks, sprouts and tops, Uchiki Kuri squash, salad leaves and mange tout or French beans.

Medium – leeks, sprouts and kalettes, Uchiki Kuri squash, salad leaves, broccoli, courgettes and kale.

Somehow I’ve successfully grown a total of FIVE aubergines (in the worst Summer in the history of the world!) obviously five aubergines isn’t enough for all the Croft Share customers but it is enough to make Brinjal Pickle – a very tasty Indian chutney. So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve made three different types of chutney for the Christmas markets, all using crab apples and other croft produce. I boiled the crab apples and pushed the pulp through a sieve as that seemed like less hassle than trying to peel and core several kilos of one inch apples.

Next on the preserving calendar is Rosehip jelly. We have a lot of Rosa rugosa which produces nice big rosehips over a long period. Some of the Rosa rugosa has started flowering again, maybe in response to that warm spell we had. I recently read about a market garden in Dunkeld which experienced a severe frost mid September. This killed off all their tomatoes, French beans and squash. I have to admit that does sound worse than three months of rain.

This week could be the last picking of tomatoes and French beans, yes sadly the Summer vegetables are coming to an end. There are only about three months of the year when I’m not looking after tomato plants. Tomato tending starts again in January, I have a complicated arrangement with heated propagators and a grow light. In March the tomatoes go into a little caravan during the day, back in the house at night. In April they are in a mini greenhouse, inside the Polycrub and finally in May I can plant them in the soil!

All this year’s potatoes have been harvested as well. This has been our best tattie year, I know this defies all logic considering the weather. After three years of ploughing and growing in the back field we realised that first and second earlies grow fast enough to cope with our erratic weather and clay soil. Maincrop potatoes need more cosseting, they need better drainage and less weed pressure. We tried some new Maincrop varieties and I’ve settled on Cara as the best type for our croft. We also discovered that fast growing first earlies can be planted in July.

This week’s Croft Shares will have –

Small – leeks, sprouts/tops, salad leaves, one or two courgettes and French beans or mange tout.

Medium – leeks, sprouts/tops, salad leaves, courgettes, tomatoes, broccoli and chard.

Well, that was an amazing spell of weather. The greenhouse was at “too hot to work in” on the thermometer. Working outside was very pleasant though, I planted cabbages and leeks in the net tunnel for the Spring.

The youngest boy picked all the crab apples, about 7kg! I’ll be making crab apple jelly, crab apple jam and maybe even crab apple chutney. If I feel very enthusiastic I might also pick rose hips and make rose hip jelly or rose hip and crab apple jelly. By the time I’ve done all that I will no doubt be sick of the sight of crab apples. I’ve sold a lot more jam this year than last year, so I’m aiming to have plenty ready for the Christmas markets, with more variety than last year. Apologies for mentioning Christmas in September! We have to make a plan for the Christmas markets in September or we won’t have enough stock. Pretty soon I’ll be doing more in the way of basket weaving and felting, less in the way of weeding and planting.

This week I’ll be picking the first of this years leeks. These are the best leeks I’ve ever grown. They aren’t enormous, they just look very attractive and none have bolted (so far.) Normally leeks bolt at the slightest provocation. Leeks appear to like endless rain and very little sunshine. I planted them after almost everything else so I had only a tiny amount of compost left. The leeks were planted in a very thin layer of compost with a thick layer of grass clippings on top. This arrangement doesn’t seem to have impeded them at all. Our growing capacity is always dependent on how much compost/manure we can create and how much seaweed we can gather. It’s always helpful to find plants that do well with minimal added organic matter. Kale and perpetual spinach will both grow happily in a crack in some concrete. Courgettes and broccoli on the other hand need generous applications of compost.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – leeks, kale, French beans, tomatoes and broccoli.

Medium – leeks, kale, French beans, potatoes, mange tout/sugar snaps, salad leaves and courgettes.

Large – leeks, kale, French beans, potatoes, salad leaves, broad beans, kalettes, onions, courgettes and chard.