It's been a great couple of weeks for cucumbers. The two I've eaten thus far, have been so realistic that I could have passed them off as the expensive ones from the local organic shop. They were that delicious, in fact, that it was a shame to dip them in houmous. However, I did learn that if you leave cucumbers ripening too long, the seeds inside start to grown quite large and inedible (perhaps I should have kept some of these for next year's planting).Following on from the cucumber success, one brilliant thing that I've learnt from my ever handy Royal Horticultural Society Gardening Encyclopedia has quite magically stopped my broccoli plants looking like leggy cabbages and has helped them produce some much needed green florets (here is a link, but I've actually got a treasured second hand copy of the mammoth book on my coffee table) . On the production of pretty yellow flowers, I thought the plants had gone to seed, but the encyclopedia told me otherwise. Cut the flowers off and the plant is then encouraged to produce lots of green floret side shoots - I'm now rejuvinated in my broccoli expectations, and am hoping that I'll have enough to mix with my (sometime) stringy runner beans and French beans for a medley of green veg when my parents come to visit at the weekend.
Then there are the rampaging tomatoes. Two things that I wish I'd taken heed of, not only from the encyclopedia, but from the many blog articles that I have been reading, is to make sure that the plants are supported and that all side shoots are snipped out. Yesterday, during the strong winds that were eddying in my garden, it was only from the good fortune of the mange tout having died down, that I had any canes spare to support my wind blown forest of tomatoes. Then, whilst tying these up, I noticed the disproportionate amount of thick green leafy growth compared to flowers and fruit. The plants have quite clearly been expending all their energy on growing rather than fruiting. However, following a quick belated cull of side shoots I'm still hopeful for some cherry sized tomatoes that might ripen in time to mix with the now bolting cut 'n' cum lettuce and the nearly ready third cucumber.
Finally - I just have to mention the pumpkin which is the size of my head (the photo doesn't do it justice) and is currently growing up my non-fruiting apple tree, mocking its fruitlessness. Never having grown pumpkins before, I'm not sure if this upward growth is normal or if they usually grow along the ground, but with the lack of light in my north facing garden, I am used to everything growing lanky and leggy. My only worry with this gravity defying plant, is that even though the much maligned tree is supporting this head sized fruit, will I one day come home to see a snapped branch and an orange mess on the floor? I just hope that next door's cat, which now sleeps in the shade of my veggie patch, keeps a lazy eye open for this potential danger.
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