Plot Lines

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.

I do hope the weather forecast for this week is correct, if it is I’ll have to resume watering in the greenhouse and Polycrub. I was at the Armadale Market on Saturday where it rained almost all day. It wasn’t midgie though and not as windy as forecast (I’m searching for the positives here!)

This week I dug up the Pink Fir Apple potatoes. These are an old French variety, prized by fancy restaurants for their flavour. I wasn’t expecting a great crop after all the rain but they are surprisingly good. Pink Fir Apple are very knobbly so there’s no point trying to peel them, just scrub and boil.

I’m managing to resist the urge to start picking the autumn crops. It helps that the the French beans and courgettes are still growing well. This time last year all the French bean stalks had been bitten through by voles. I know that in theory vole populations go in cycles. There will be a few years where the population slowly builds up, then one year where the numbers explode, followed by population collapse. This appears to be population collapse year, there is an almost eerie absence of voles – what’s happened to them all? The buzzard population must be in sync with the voles too. Last year there were a few buzzards hanging about the croft, this year there’s hardly any. Next year I’m sure I’ll be complaining about voles again. For now it’s very pleasant to be able to plant purple sprouting broccoli for next year and watch it grow rather than see it all eaten by ravenous rodents.

Small – Pink Fir Apple potatoes, French beans, tomatoes, chard or salad leaves, carrots or beetroot and herbs.

Medium – Pink Fir Apple potatoes, carrots or beetroot, mange tout/sugar snaps, courgettes, tomatoes, broccoli, a green cabbage and herbs.

Large – Pink Fir Apple potatoes, carrots or beetroot, French beans, mange tout/sugar snaps, courgettes, tomatoes, kale, salad leaves, onions, a green cabbage and herbs.

I picked so many tomatoes last week, the sunshine really helped to ripen them. There aren’t as many of the cherry tomatoes left now, but there are still plenty of the red and yellow ones. I’m pleased with the new varieties I tried. They don’t have the astonishing sweetness of the little orange ones but they’ve grown well even in this terrible Summer. I would like to find a beefsteak tomato which is productive and can cope if it’s a damp year. I’ve grown lots of big heirloom tomatoes in the past. They do always taste amazing but generally succumb to mildew by September.

Finally after a Summer of struggling to get salad leaves to grow, the chard, mustards and rocket all look nice. I’ve also got pea shoots on the go again. Not something I usually grow in the Autumn but they are perfect for this time of year really. I’ve also started planting Spring greens for picking next year and I’ve sown all the Spring onions. We have so much self seeded kale that I’m not bothering to sow any on purpose! I can always move plants around if they come up in the wrong place.

Our Winter plan involves converting the net tunnel into a polytunnel. We were going to cover it in polycarbonate but that was looking quite pricey so we’ve come up with a cheaper option using a lot stuff we already have lying about the croft. The net tunnel has been less weedy and more productive this year, it’s a great space for Winter growing but as our weather seems to be getting wetter and more unpredictable it makes sense to grow more undercover where the environment is more consistent. Our new polytunnel plan involves having permanent sides to the structure and a removable plastic cover over the top. The net tunnel has a good mixed hedge as a windbreak, but one corner sticks out into the windiest bit on our croft.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – courgettes, French beans, kale, tomatoes and salad leaves or chard.

Medium – courgettes, French beans, sugar snaps, broad beans, potatoes, tomatoes and broccoli.

Large – courgettes, French beans, kale, sugar snaps, potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, salad leaves, chard/spinach and onions.

The potatoes this week are Cara or Picasso. They look almost identical and are both multi purpose potatoes. We had some roast Picassos and they were very tasty.

Wow! What was that strange glowing orb in the sky on Saturday? What was that strange feeling of warmth in the air? I don’t suppose anyone has ever been so pleased to see the sun as the residents of Skye in 2024. This better spell should give all the veg plants a nice boost. The forecast is good again for next weekend. Sunday was a bit of a midgie fest so that made potato digging less than pleasant. I almost resorted to cutting eye holes in an old snood and wearing that as defence against the tiny biters.

The maincrop spuds have been affected by all the rain, some have a lot of slug damage but there’s still enough to go around. This week we have red potatoes, either Caledonian Rose, Alouette or Rooster. We won’t bother doing Alouette or Rooster again but Caledonian Rose was worth while. Caledonian Rose makes really good mash, it would probably make good roasties too. Alouette and Rooster are multi purpose, they both taste nice but the yield isn’t great.

Somehow despite the grey Summer I have successfully grown…an aubergine! I have a few plants purely as an experiment. They’ve grown surprisingly well, I planted them in the hottest, driest part of the greenhouse and we have a few little fruit now. I figure if they taste nice then it’s worth doing again with more plants.

In September veg starts to take an Autumnal turn although there should be a few more weeks of tomatoes, French beans and courgettes. I’ve some mange tout that was planted late for some September crunch.

This week’s Croft Shares will have –

Small – potatoes, French beans, broccoli, tomatoes and a green cabbage.

Medium – potatoes, French beans, chard, tomatoes, a green cabbage, courgettes and sugar snaps/mange tout.

Large – potatoes, French beans, broccoli, tomatoes, a green cabbage, courgettes, sugar snaps/mange tout, onions, kale and salad leaves.

The croft is not looking it’s best at the moment. There’s quite a lot of mud and the rain has halted mowing and strimming so the grass has got pretty long. The weather forecast seems to be toying with us, it keeps predicting sunshine in a weeks time, then the prediction slowly changes to the usual wet and windy. I really hope that very wet Summers aren’t what climate change has in store for Skye.

I’ve had a good look at all the Autumn veg. The leeks are still on the small side, but do look very nice. The cabbages and sprouts have been slowed down by the cool weather. The pointy cabbages are nearly ready though – we ate a couple and the insides are slug free! The swedes are enormous, cold and wet seem to be their ideal conditions. I’m also growing something called kalettes, it’s a cross between sprouts and kale. The plants are very attractive and it looks like they’re about to start producing the little sprout/kale rosettes.

I’ve sown and planted various salad leaves in the greenhouse. The rocket appeared at the speed of a rocket and so far hasn’t been scoffed by any slimy creatures. I’ve several trays of salad leaves waiting for gaps in the greenhouse. Anything planted now will grow slowly all Winter, ready for picking in the Spring. I think I’ll just fill up the Polycrub and greenhouse with over Wintering plants and figure out how to fit in Summer crops next year.

I spent a day tomato pruning. The tomato plants are laden with green tomatoes and it helps them to ripen if all the side shoots and old leaves are removed. Even on a cool day the Polycrub reaches 25 celsius. Some sun does help with the ripening though.

We did a taste test of some of the maincrop potatoes. I thought they all tasted good, Alouette was probably the tastiest, but the spuds are on the small side. Caledonian Rose seems to have a very good yield, big potatoes but quite a lot of slug damage. Rooster has grown very well and is the most versatile but probably the least tasty – it’s often the way with the more commercial varieties. I’ve also got a variety called Cara which I had read was pretty tasteless. I think it’s very nice, it’s grown well, cooks a bit like a Maris Piper and has that earthy home grown potato flavour that supermarket tatties are lacking. So far I think I wouldn’t grow Alouette again, it didn’t cope well with the clay soil and constant rain but the others are all worth doing. We’ve still got Picasso and Setanta to try. Our most frequent veg growing topic is how to improve our potato growing, really the answer is move to a drier location on a steep slope which drains well!

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, purple sprouting broccoli and kale.

Medium – French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli, potatoes, sugar snaps/mange tout and purple kale.

Large – French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli, potatoes, sugar snaps/mange tout, kale, salad leaves or chard, onions and parsley.

Uig Gala made a triumphant return at the weekend. The weather was very kind, no sun but only a few spots of rain. A bit of a breeze kept the midgies away. Dylan (age 15) entered a “guess the weight” of a huge trout competition and won! The trout was 4.7kg. Obviously figuring out how to cook it was left to me – I cut it into three pieces and baked them. It was very tasty with some French beans and the last Jazzy potatoes. We didn’t eat it all at once – even three teenage boys can’t eat 4.7kg of fish in one go. I’ve suggested in future Dylan enter competitions to guess the weight of cakes rather than enormous fish. The organisers of the Gala did a brilliant job, everyone was kept well fed and very entertained. Our stall did well too, we sold all our veg, lots of jam and a few crafty bits as well.

The bulk of our Summer Fairs are finished now. I’ve a few between now and November but with decent gaps in between. I’ve sold almost all of the stock we produced over the Winter. October is going to be spent making for the Christmas Fairs.

The yellow courgettes are growing very well in the greenhouse. I’ve no idea why, the weather is the opposite of good courgette weather. The follow on French beans are all producing now. I’m very pleased with the flat yellow podded beans. They were slow to start with but seem to keep going for longer than the green Cobra beans. They appear to be pretty resistant to red spider mite as well which helps. I’m not a fan of runner beans, I do think flat podded French beans make a good alternative, tasty and less stringy.

I’m trying to tackle the salad leaf problem. I’ve started peas for shoots and have sown rocket in the greenhouse. In a normal year slugs don’t eat rocket so hopefully there will be rocket and pea shoot salad at some point. I have some nice looking tatsoi in trays which I was planning on planting outside, I think the weather’s too rubbish for that, so I’m going to find space in the greenhouse instead.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – potatoes, tomatoes, French beans, sugar snaps and blackcurrants.

Medium – potatoes, tomatoes, French beans, purple sprouting broccoli, kale, courgettes and blackcurrants.

Large – potatoes, tomatoes, French beans, broccoli, kale, onions, courgettes, salad leaves or chard, parsley and blackcurrants.

Ohhh, the rain isn’t helping – we’ve had to speed dig the remaining Jazzy potatoes. By “we” I mean Dom. He dug the spuds, I washed and arranged them for drying. Next is bagging and weighing. We may also dig up the Sarpo Una potatoes – these are another second early type with an attractive pink skin. After that I’ve a few rows of Charlotte then a maincrop called Allouette. I’ve no idea how the weather will have impacted these. This year I have some emergency potatoes in a well cultivated, better drained bed. If all else fails I can dig these up for August and September.

The dodgy weather hasn’t impacted the mange tout or broccoli at all. I’ve some green cabbages which seem to be a snail magnet, I blame the rain for that. Hopefully the snail damage is just external and cosmetic.

The main casualty of the rain has been the salad leaves. I’ve managed to keep a small amount going but most of the rows I’ve sown have been instantly mown down by slugs. In the Spring I grow pea shoots in old fish boxes, set on top of metal frames to keep them away from anything that might eat the seeds. I think I might have to try that arrangement for Autumn salad leaves.

This week we have another Kilmuir Hall Craft Fair, lunch and cake available, and a nice selection of stalls. On Saturday the 17^th me and some teenagers have a stall at Uig Gala! Fingers crossed for some sunshine. We set up at Armadale Market outside on Saturday in torrential rain, then the rain stopped and it was sort of sunny for a while.

This week’s croft Shares will have:

Small – potatoes, courgettes, onions, French beans and tomatoes.

Medium – potatoes, courgettes, onions, mange tout, tomatoes, kohlrabi and broccoli.

Large – potatoes, courgettes, onions, French beans, tomatoes, sugar snaps, purple sprouting broccoli, salad leaves, chard and kale.

Finally I’ve reached a point were there isn’t a queue of little plants waiting to go in the ground. Just about everywhere that can be planted has been planted. I’ve just sown more salad leaves outside, and will be sowing mustard greens and planting Tatsoi at some point, but really if it’s not in the soil now we’re not eating it before Christmas! Salad leaves can still be sown undercover but there’s no space just now. Once the first batch of French beans are over I can pull them up and follow with something, probably chard.

I’m failing spectacularly at cucumber growing. In the past I’ve grown very tasty ridge cucumbers. Last year I grew my usual variety of ridge cucumber, for some reason every third cucumber was horribly bitter. This year I thought I’d try a classic greenhouse cucumber. I started out with ten plants, I’m now down to one. The rest have succumbed to slugs. The one remaining plant looks pretty healthy but I’m sceptical that it can produce enough cucumbers for all the current customers. My next cucumber plan is to go back to ridge types, but try a more modern variety. I once grew ridge cucumbers outside (yes, in Bornaskitaig) but I think the weather must have been unusual.

I’ve four craft fair type events coming up in fairly quick succession. I fitted in a bit of basket weaving and some jam making over the weekend. I hadn’t forgotten how to weave a basket so that’s a relief. The willow is more pliable in the Summer and the whole basket dries faster once it’s finished. I’ll be in Armadale on Saturday, probably with a lot of potatoes, eggs and jam.

This week’s Croft Shares will have:

Small – tomatoes, broccoli, French beans, mange tout and spinach/chard.

Medium – tomatoes, broccoli, French beans, sugar snaps, courgettes, kale, and potatoes.

Large – tomatoes, broccoli, French beans, mange tout/sugar snaps, courgettes, kale, potatoes, salad leaves, beetroot and onions.