Grandpa's strawberries

Back when I moved to my Tooting garden in 2008 I took some baby strawberry plants from my Grandfather's garden.  He'd recently passed away and it was nice to have a little something that had been nurtured by him growing in my container garden.

Now strawberries do best with space to crawl about and send their runners out in all directions but I had a container garden so these poor strawberries had to survive in a pot and I kept encouraging the runners back into the same pot.  To be fair I didn't get many strawberries but the ones I got I savoured.  I even fed them worm compost.

So since 2008 these strawberries have been soldiering on but not doing much except making runners.

I realise the school of thought is to throw plants away every 3 or 4 years and replenish but I couldn't part with these plants - they were my grandfather's afterall.  So the last few years I've been concentrating on feeding the runners into new pots to establish new plants from Grandpa's parent plants.

This year I had a lovely surprise... From Grandpa's original plants I have some  nice big flowers and promise of fruit.  I don't quite know how this has happened. Maybe its because I moved the plants back closer to their original home when I brought them to my current garden in Birmingham (grandpa's garden was in Oswestry, Shropshire).  Maybe it was our harsh winter.  Maybe it's because a borage plant grew in the same pot as the strawberries last summer and as it shrivelled away last autumn it fed the strawberry plants.

Whatever the reasons I'm going to celebrate the fact that Grandpa's strawberries are flowering on plants that should by all rights be well past their best!

Leaving the garden for a holiday away

I have just returned from a holiday with my boyfriend who is currently working away from home with the UN.  It was a lovely week's holiday but I could never have relaxed and enjoyed myself had I not had my lovely neighbour, Mic do the watering while I was away. 

This is the first holiday I have returned find a garden full of healthy plants.  Usually I spend the holiday checking the UK weather forecast trying to find out how dry it is in the UK and not really focusing on enjoying my holiday.  Before I leave for the airport I put upside down bottles of water contraptions in all the containers and heavily water everything before I go and then return home to find everything desperate for a drink and at least one casualty.

I have to say that Mic has been a star and everything is much bigger and bushier than I left.

My strawberries have not started producing fruit yet but there are plenty of flowers with promises.

Have to admit that my tomatoes have gone beserk!  Which is of course an amazingly good thing.

Really have to get these potatoes out of the bag now I think and find out if there's any goodies at the bottom - this is the first time I'm growing potatoes so it could go either way!

I think I may have some peas ready to eat.  Just need a closer inspection....

Looks like these guys have bolted... probably not suited to container growing as the turnips we've been growing in the Bramford Community Garden were all around golf ball size a fortnight ago.  I will experiment with eating the flowering heads in some salad instead.

Now the Kai Lan has got to be about 3 times the size it was a week ago.  I can see this might be this year's favourite super discovery.  (Last year's was chard).  I think a welcome home salad is in order.

I also found these beautiful radishes - perfectly rounded and ready to eat.  Another veg that has at least trippled in size in my week away.

If you'd like to see what else ended up in the welcome home salad... here's a link to the recipe garden salad

An ornamental edible garden

Lately I've been pondering a lot about the ornamental qualities of an edible garden.

It could be my work at the garden centre that has inspired me.

It could be due to planting a few companion flowers in the garden to ward off pests (e.g. calendula and nasturtiums).

It could be recently reading Alys Fowler's book The Thrifty Gardener - I could not help but read this gardening manual cover to cover!  This book inspired me to look at the garden as a combination of a thing of beauty and an edible garden.  Previously, I had always been focussed on growing edibles.  It really got me thinking about combining the two aspects, not just the plants but the containers that the plants live within.

Since then shopping has not been the same - always on the lookout for potential plant containers where ever I go and what ever I consume.  Take a look at what the radishes are growing in, in the picture below.

As well as hunting for potential containers this also led to my sowing a few annual ornamentals which I haven't really done before.  Cosmos was the ornamental flower that crept in - technically speaking the rest of the flowers are recommended companions for an edible garden.

I find rainbow chard with its full leaves and colourful stems always to be visually beautiful as well as very tasty.  Virtues of growing chard

Another vegetable that I have always thought very beautiful are squash.  I grew crookneck summer squash last year and the leaves looked so lush, the flowers and the bright yellow fruit looked amazing. Wonder of germinating squash

This year I have simply been completely bowled over by the beauty of purple pea varieties.  I think their flowers are simply astounding.  The flowers look sweet and no doubt their peas will taste amazing too.  I have never grown these before.  They came in this year's batch of seeds from the Heritage Seed Library called Purple pod.  Just take a look at how it flowers.  Peas please

I had almost forgotten to eat nasturtiums.  I've grown them for the last few years but simply as a fodder for the aphids so that they would leave my more prized edibles alone.

The other day I was gardening at the Bramford Community Garden and one of the other volunteers ate a nasturtium leaf.  The penny dropped - of course, you can eat the leaves! So I picked a nasturtium leaf.  Immediately, I smelt a very evocative smell that reminded me of a smell I knew from my childhood and with that smell I remembered the taste.  I thought why didn't I do this sooner!!  Munched on the leaf and that leaf packed a punch of peppery flavour.  Ever since then, nasturtium leaves have appeared in my daily salad!!  And the leaves and the petals are so beautiful too.

Last week I planted a Globe Artichoke in the Bramford Community Garden for its beautiful tall thistle shaped flower and its multi purpose of being a beautiful and architectural plant as well as an edible.  (Not the one in the picture!)  It is just a baby plant at the moment but I am looking forward to it growing taller than me with loads of beautiful flower heads!

Another thing of beauty is strawberry plants.  They come in a range of flower colours from deep dark pink, to pale pink through to the classic white flowers.  They can be planted in hanging baskets where the ripening fruit can dangle down graciously.

Take a look at these radish flowers. 

If I hadn't neglected the radishes last summer, I would never have seen this beautiful display of white flowers.  Following on from the flowers came the radish pods which were delightfully crunchy in salad (a bit like very small mange tout). 

The effects of the lovely rain

Yesterday, in South London we had the first real rain showers since I think late April when we had a big thunder storm.

This morning I wondered through the garden at breakfast time (as is my morning ritual) looking for any new shoots and new signs of life/flowers when I stumbled upon the strawberries.  These strawberries arrived through the post as bare root plants last Friday with only little stumps where the leaves would sprout from.  Two days ago I gave them a little feed from the worm farm and yesterday mother nature decided to help me along too with some wonderful bursts of sheet rain.  All in all both of these have had a marvelous effect on these lovely strawberries. 
 
The interesting thing about rain water is that plants always look so much better after natural rainfall rather than from tap water.  Especially London water with its hard, lime scale.  Sure they need the tap water when nothing's coming from the sky, but there's something in the rain that just adds pure vitality to plants.

Ever the optimist, I am now even starting to hold out hope for some strawberries in around a month's time.  Maybe a little more rain please?  I shall keep you posted...

In the meantime, I shall continue to be grateful for yesterday's rain as the garden is looking even more lush than earlier this week.