Guess what? It's raining.

There I was, beds prepared for garlic (regular and elephant) to be planted and shallots too, the one behind is for broad beans and the heavens opened, so here I am posting a picture of the, as yet un-planted beds.

Beds ready for garlic and bean planting (previously potatoes in rotation)

Not quite mellow fruitfulness

We certainly returned to gardens which had enjoyed their freedom and flourished into the bargain. The photographs show one through the archway into the flower garden the other three are of the veggie patch.
There are 2 beds with green manure which will dig in nicely in the spring.
The brassicas under the net aren't doing too badly, the others are good too, but I'd like some frost to kill off the caterpillars, because I took off the nets much earlier than usual with being away and the rascals noticed!
There are plenty of roots, from swede and turnip, to carrot, parsnips and beetroot. I still have the main crop potatoes to dig, but they are under a good layer of soil, so I am hoping they will be OK.
There are 2 lots of leeks, surviving rather than thriving. Having said that, Mrs Soggy dug a few yesterday and they were fine - and that was of the less happy looking ones.
Courgettes have had it, there are a couple of marrows to be used up, and the cucumbers have gone too, which is a shame - they were a great variety, I had hoped they'd stretch on into late autumn. Good news though is that the tomatoes in the greenhouse are still going along, not cropping heavily, but ticking over with a few small ones.

GMO in the wild

One of the fears of those of us who grow organically is that GMO crops will escape into the wild and cross-pollinate with native species and garden plants and produce. Fortunately, for those of us in Europe, the EU has been fairly robust (though not always as vigorous as might be hoped) in resisting some of the advances of GMO.

Had I not been on a trip to Canada, I may never have seen this, but here it comes:

"Genetically modified canola has escaped from the farm and is thriving in the wild across North Dakota, according to a study that indicates there are plenty of novel man-made genes crossing the Canada-U.S. border.

GM canola was found growing everywhere from ditches to parking lots, the scientists report, with some of the highest densities along a trucking route into Canada."

Read the full story in the Vancouver Sun (if you can get hold of the printed version there is a picture worth a thousand words). Genetically modified canola goes wild

Hilary's beds

Productive veggie beds at our niece's place on Vancouver island. Plentiful herbs in the foreground, with potatoes to the right and behind them kale which survived a deer attack. The grass area to the right is earmarked for more beds, the eventual plan being to expand production enough to feed all four of them the basic staples from the garden, so lots more potatoes, onions, leeks, brassicas and roots to come.

Garden Plots found on Surrey and White Rock Cycle Ride

Dunsmuir Gardens, Crescent Beach, BC.
Great alluvial base soil, with, by the looks of it, many years of good hearty compost added.

Travels

There won't be much in the way of Soggy Garden posts for a while as we are on our travels again, having left a deputy Soggy to keep things ticking along and harvest whatever looks ripe and juicy.

If I spot any interesting veggie patches in this hugeness, otherwise known as Canada, I'll post some pictures.

A Mixed Bag

Mixed in terms of what I am gathering in, mixed also in the results.

Maincrop potatoes still growing happily 

Toluca close-up showing splitting

Toluca, dug and washed

Sarpo Kifli - looking good

Sarpo Kifli, not bad off one plant

Onions - Centurion and Red Baron in foreground

Dessert apples

Soggy-dog, keeping a close watch for passing flies

Some of the produce has done really well (we've been eating our own cucumbers, peas, mange tout, calabrese and tomatoes, amongst other things, for months) while some have been disappointing. I suppose it depends on the plants' response to that prolonged dry weather earlier in the year.

A good example has been the potatoes. The Charlotte were brilliant, few blemishes, heavy cropping, reliable and so tasty. The Sarpo Kifli, which I only test dug one plant of today, look very productive (but I have no idea about taste yet). The Marfona were too good - must plant more next time. Toluca though were disappointing. Some large tubers, but too many of them split, allowing in other little nasties, in some cases rotting out the core; the taste was truly wonderful though (what Mrs Soggy described as an old-fashioned potato taste), so maybe if I grow them again I shall have to water them.

The cooking apples look to be doing well, but the dessert apples are giving mixed results - the birds like them though.

All Change

The broad beans are out and the early potatoes have been dug, so what has replaced them? Leeks, and plenty of them, an early and a main crop variety. (Swiss Giant, Zermatt and Bandit).

Summer blooms

I try to pretend that I do all the garden work around here, but this picture from Mrs Soggy's side of things blows a blooming great hole in that claim.

Out with the old, in with the new

The production on the broad bean plants has been slowing, so yesterday out they came. (Sad in a way when you think what the autumn sown ones endured through the frost and snow).

Today I'll be doing dibber holes, dropping in the leek seedlings and then filling with water. I may dig a couple more rows of early potatoes and put some more leeks in to follow them also.