Garden: Review of the Year 2015

I love looking back at the year in the garden, usually prompted by the arrival of the first seed catalogues; actually the only seed catalogue because of course they all come on line these days. Wow, that makes me sound old!

Artichokes - always the first of the spring vegetables.

I note that two years ago my review was started with one word - Rubbish! This year I could almost do the same, if you'll allow three words - Hot and Dry.


The joy of having a weather station is not just satisfying the compulsive need to see just how hot/cold/dry/wet/windy it has been, but to compare this year to last. So, in a nutshell, 2015 has seen two thirds of the rainfall we had last year (800mm or so) and it fell predominantly in the first five months of the year. The maximum temperature has been a little hotter (44 compared to 41 in the previous two years) but perhaps more interesting is that we only topped 40 degrees once last year, but in 2015 it has been over forty degrees on seven occasions, and two of those were in September. Between the end of June and the start of September daytime maximums were normally well above thirty degrees.

Of course two years of figures in isolation are fairly meaningless in terms of climate change and the bigger picture, but both the heat and drought have nonetheless had a big impact on our own garden and growing.

Cucamelon

For the first time ever we've had a glut of both aubergines and melons, the cucamelons have been rampant and the tomatillos have been an utter revelation. Next year I'll be doubling the number of plants so it will undoubtedly be a cold wet summer! I could eat Sour Green Tomatillo Curry every day, and even now am foraging through the three drawers of the freezer in the faint hope of finding more.

A watermelon lurking in the undergrowth.

Watering was predictably a real issue this year and we ran out of water butt water (despite having 1500 litres stored) within ten days of the arrival of the heat. Hand watering with the cans was good enough for all the new plants until they were established, and after that it was a weekly soaking with the hose and huge amounts of mulch. I used grass clippings, leaf mold, home made compost and whatever else I could find.

In late April the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers were entrusted to the outside world with a lots of crossed fingers for no more frosts, but given that we'd been hitting 30 from half way through the month, that seemed pretty unlikely.

The tomatoes planted with a new string and cane support structure.

And by July the plants were the tallest they've ever been at this stage and already starting to fruit. And we had to tie the frame to the house.

The only way to plant out haricot in July.

Away from the vegetable garden we've been busy, too. In the brief periods between blistering heat, anyway. At the very top of the garden we have a deep scruby boundary between our orchard and that of our neighbour, but where it turns the corner beside the composting corner, the blackthorn had become very dense and tall. We hadn't realised quite how bad it was until we spotted that one of the new apple trees was growing at quite an acute angle in search of light.

All the brown area above is where we have removed mostly blackthorn plus some bramble, wild rose and a little ivy. Wherever possible we left the ivy as it is an excellent source of winter nectar. The area has been re-seeded with a mixture of rye grass and annual and perennial insect-friendly flowers, although as the drought goes on into December, I wonder if very much will germinate.

But it is nice to be able to sit by the pond and nor be savaged by the brambles climbing through the bench, or have ticks walking onto me from the long grass.

Part of the land we romantically like to call the wild flower meadow although it is really just an area of field left to do its own thing each year. We cut it once, plus regularly mow a path through the centre; it is the place where most of the butterfly photos on this blog have been taken. There always seems to be something flowering. We have debated the merits of a spring cut or an autumn cut to best benefit the wildlife so this year we decided to go half and half.

In 2015 the whole area was cut in the early spring and then one half given given a winter haircut in November; the other half will have to wait until February or March next year. The freshly cut area is visible on the right. The meadow is now bordered by a row of pampas grass, four plants split off from a single monster which we had to remove from near a path in spring. Although the effect is somewhat spoiled by the arrival of The Muck Heap. I love The Muck Heap.

We have new friends with horses, meaning an endless supply of horse muck. OK, so we do have to go and get it so it isn't free in terms of time or fuel, but we also get fed good coffee and biscuits at the same time. The muck heap is positioned so that we can drive the car and trailer right up to it and then rely on gravity for the unloading.

Spreading the love!

I'm slowly working my way around he garden giving just about everything a good deep mulch of manure, like the bed above in the potager. And the blackbirds are slowly working their way round throwing all the mulch about. But it looks so much nicer than the usual winter top dressing of black plastic!

The final big garden job this year was to remove the temporary anti-deer fencing from around the potager, and replace one length with an over-sized fence built from some of our allocation of woodland for bois de chauffage, as detailed here. In the spring we'll add more vines and a rose, but I'm really pleased with the monumental nature of the structure.

So all in all, 2015 has been an interesting year - we have really enjoyed the product of a hot summer in the potager, and also seen the downsides. All the apples were small, wizened and covered in scab. We do have (I hope) enough tomatoes bottled in various forms to keep us going until the 2016 harvest begins.

Maybe next year will be better - is requesting the heat and some rain just greedy?