Most people, if they think about pollination at all, must think of it as a binary process – it either happens or it doesn’t. But in the fruit garden life is much more complicated than that. Many of our familiar crops rely on multiple pollination events to form what we would consider to be one fruit. Raspberries are an obvious example. Apples are less obvious, but you’ll get oddly shaped apples if they are not pollinated properly (once for each seed, IIRC).

And this is what happens if your sweetcorn is not properly pollinated because the slugs eat the the sweetcorn silks (which are the female flowers).

This is by far the worst affected of the three cobs I have picked so far, but I have no hopes for a decent harvest. I should be more disappointed, but the fact is that I find it quite interesting, and the chickens are more than happy to eat the affected sweetcorn (the underside of the cob in the photo is far more normal looking).

I haven’t given it much thought before, but it looks to me as though every single thread in the silks corresponds to one of the kernels in the cob. I have never even heard of slugs/ snails munching on sweetcorn silks before, so I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought the plants where safe once they started growing strongly.

Sweetcorn is unusual because it’s one of the very few common kitchen garden crops that is pollinated by the wind rather than self-fertile or pollinated by insects. The idea of growing your sweetcorn plants in a square block, rather than in rows, is that it maximizes the chance of the pollen falling from the male flowers (tassels) at the top of the stem onto the silks on the tops of the cobs, and thereby helps to prevent patchy pollination (slugs notwithstanding). If you’ve only got a few plants then you can give them a tap when you walk past to help release the pollen.

Kiwi ‘Jenny’ turns a corner

It’s almost as though the garden knows that it’s now officially autumn. Yesterday was a misty morning, followed by a windy afternoon – although it didn’t start to rain until late last night.

It was still raining when I woke up this morning, but soon stopped and it’s turning into one of those lovely ‘freshly washed’ autumn days – bright and clear and warm, but definitely not summer.

I was amused to see that my Kiwi ‘Jenny’ has taken a different path on the trellis over the last few days. I wonder why? Her second stem is twining nicely on the trellis, now, too.

The decorating is finished, the house is clean, the sun is shining and we’re waiting for guests to arrive. They don’t know it yet, but home grown tomatoes are on the menu ;)

The bit yellow round ones are the Yellow Queen; the pear shaped ones are Yellow Submarine; the cherry toms are either Whippersnapper or Gartenperle. The plants weren’t properly labelled :(

For the last week or so I have done almost nothing but decorate the spare room. It’s almost done (new carpet arrives tomorrow!) and so I went out to the Grow Dome this afternoon to do something with the plants there.

I pulled out everything which had no intention of providing a harvest this year. The tomatillos had just started to flower, but were going nowhere. The kiwanos were strong, vigorous plants that were taking over, but hadn’t even flowered. There’s no chance they will produce mature fruit this year.

I pulled out everything which had died – including the goldenberries. I collected all of the fallen fruit. They haven’t been the most productive plants, and I had to open each papery wrapper to check that the fruits were ripe and clean (some had aphids inside), but how cool is serving up home grown physalis?

And I harvested all of the tomatoes and pulled up the plants. They had outstayed their welcome – thuggish beasts that were stealing all the light and constantly throwing up side shoots. I was sick of dealing with them. On the plus side, their haulms have filled the compost bins!

There are a few plants left. The Mouse Melons are doing surprisingly well, and there are some peppers that are flowering and fruiting. The nectarine fruits are being munched by something – possibly slugs. And I’m leaving the peanuts for now, although I don’t know whether they will produce a crop.

The Grow Dome will be a little bare for a while, but then there will be autumn and winter crops. Some leafy veg seedlings are already growing; I have to work out what else I want to grow.

If the grotty weather this summer has made you fed up with blogging about your garden, then you might like this – Berocca are giving away free blogger relief packs, and as the site features the blogs that apply for a kit, then you might get a bit of extra traffic as well.

There’s no garden things in there (shame!) and it’s only green in colour, but it is very cool and it might brighten up an otherwise overcast day.

My beautiful kiwi is a month older than she was last time I took her photo.

Join Green Thumb Sunday or check out the other participants

A few weeks ago, my MIL awarded me a Brilliant Blogger Award, for helping her garden grow and greening up her life :). Thanks Jacky!

I backburnered it a bit because of the book, but I have now managed to choose 8 blogs I would like to pass the award onto.

• My friend Karen is one of the kindest and most generous people I know. My life would be much poorer without her, and there are many, many more people in this world who would say the same thing. Karen blogs about her life – her family, her landscape and her photos.


• Rebsie takes the most gorgeous photos of the peas she grows in her garden. Some of them are very special, because she’s breeding her own varieties and the don’t grow anywhere else (yet!). Rebsie is also a talented musician, and you should check our her album.


• Jane Perrone is in the middle of a major life upheaval at the moment – new baby, new job, new house – and she’s given up her allotment, but she’s still a pillar of the garden blogging community!


• For a touch of garden-related madness in your day, you can’t do better than The Garden Monkey, who also blogs about his passion for gardening books over at his Book Flange.


• Allan Shepherd is a relative newcomer to the garden blogging world, but he has impeccable credentials – he’s written some must-have gardening books, and he’s very involved with the Centre for Alternative Technology.


• The Cottage Smallholder is on a crusade this year to save money, but even without the brilliant frugal ideas, this is a blog for anyone who likes to eat.


• Waste reduction is a hot topic at the moment, and so my final choices are two Zero Waste blogs. The first is The Rubbish Diet, which (AFAIK) was pretty much the first UK blog on this topic, and one that it spawned – My Zero Waste. Both very inspirational, and packed with ideas on how to reduce the stuff that we throw away.

As ever, there are far more brilliant blogs out there than I could mention in one post, so if I didn’t give you the nod this time then be patient – I’m sure someone will as the award rumbles on! In the meantime, why not treat yourself to a free blogger relief pack from Berocca?

The rules for passing on this award are as follows:

1) Put the logo on your blog.

2) Add a link to the person who awarded you.

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4) Add links to those blogs on yours.

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs. I’m off to do just that!

The first sunflower has bloomed – this is a dwarf yellow spray, and it will bear more flowers in time. This may well be the first sunflower I’ve ever grown – I don’t remember any others!

It has been a busy day here. I started off by penning a chapter of the book (if you’re interested, that was V… the end of the first draft is in sight!) and doing some housework. Then hubby and I tackled our latest decorating project, getting the spare room ready for repainting.

Then we had lunch, then we went for a walk to the post office (it’s about a mile round trip) and then I realised it was sunny and went out into the garden to transplant the leeks.

I had planned to cut the hedge before I did the leeks, because it’s over-hanging the bed, but I couldn’t find the hedge trimmers so I just lopped off the worst offending branches. The majority of my leeks are Bleu de Solaise. I also sowed the contents of a free packet of Hannibal, but there weren’t many seeds and germination was poor… and I ended up with 5 seedlings. So the leek bed is all Bleu de Solaise, barring 5 Hannibal in the bottom left corner.

After trimming the leeks, dibbing holes, dropping the leeks in and then puddling them in, I had intended to come inside. But then I noticed things that needed doing. I refilled the chicken’s food and tied the vines (which are doing quite well) into their support as necessary. Then I remembered I had been meaning to remove the grease bands from the fruit trees, and check their ties to make sure they had room to grow. So I did that.

And then I remembered that I had been meaning to feed the Tromba squash that’s growing in a container, because it’s leaves are yellowing… so I did that.

And then I remembered that I wanted to take my Winter Salad seedlings (still no lettuce!) into the Grow Dome, so I did that I had to water them at the same time.

And then I came inside to collapse in heap, before I remembered anything else! ;)

I am so sick of this weather! We saw the sun briefly on Sunday, and went out to see the animals at Cogges Farm. This chicken was drinking out of the bucket whilst they were milking the cow! So funny.

Apart from that brief spell, it’s been overcast and wet and windy and I haven’t been outside much. Most things are being munched by the slugs. They keep attacking the peppers (and I might just pull them up) and they’ve eaten the silks off the sweetcorn cobs, so I don’t know whether they will be fertilized properly :(

Inside, most of the seeds that I sowed for Winter Salads have germinated (indoors!). It’s just the winter lettuce that hasn’t. I still need to sow the chard and lamb’s lettuce.

A couple of days ago I came across (via Rob’s World the idea of a Free School, which is basically a system for skills exchange and community development (something very in keeping with Transition Culture).

We went into Borders last night (retail therapy for the poor weather!) and I picked up the latest issue of Home Farmer, and they’re trying to set up something very similar – Home Farmer Community Groups, informal meetings of local people who want to share skills and learn how to garden, cook, keep animals etc.

If you want to get involved with your local Home Farmer Community Group (and it looks like they’re just getting off the ground, so be patient), you can send your name, address and phone number to:

Home Farmer
Community Groups
The Good Life Press Ltd
PO Box 536
Preston PR2 9ZY

or email the same details to groups@homefarmer.co.uk, or ring 01772 652693.

The sun is shining this morning (although, judging by the forecast, it won’t last). There’s a bit of a yellow theme going on in the garden at the moment. The Sunburst squash are finally starting to grow, there’s some yellow violas flowering their little hearts out:

And there’s some sunflowers on the way:

Scarecrow at Ryton Organic Gardens

I’ve had a lovely email from a teacher:

“Hello,
I am the proud owner of your your book, Growing Vegetables is Fun. I have enjoyed sowing the seeds with the secondary pupils that I teach and have found the articles in the book incredibly useful for helping me to teach the children about organic gardening, sustainability and food miles, fair trade, etc., but I was wondering if you had any other material or resources that would be useful to use in the classroom or if you could direct me to useful websites that are fairly simple and straight forward and maybe a bit fun for them to explore. I have found that resources and information that is accessible and clear for this age group is very scarce and neglected which is why I was delighted to discover your book.
Many Thanks.”

I’m not an expert on gardening websites for kids, but I have found a few on my travels around the internet.

• The RHS have a campaign for school gardening, although it may be aimed at primary school kids.


• The Garden Organic for Schools website is definitely aimed at primary and secondary schools, and has information for both adults and children.


• The Growing Schools Garden appeared at Hampton Court Flower Show last year, and has a website of resources built around it for kids of all ages.


• Dorset Cereals’ Edible Playground did something similar at Chelsea this year, although judging by the design of the website it’s aimed at younger children.


• Plantscafe is a great site about botany (plant science) for primary school children, with projects that can be completed at school or at the local botanical garden. It’s not all science, there’s some plant-based art projects as well, and the site is European so it’s available in several languages.


• And the RISC Roof Garden website has some nice stuff about a different sort of gardening, complete with descriptions of unusual (but useful) plants, how the garden was created and sustainable gardening in general.


• Seeds of Italy have a special scheme to provide schools with information and cheap vegetable seeds.


• And whenever I see any gardening-related giveaways for schools, I post them on Muppet’s Moolah.

Has anyone else come across any good gardening websites for kids? Please leave the links in the comments, thanks.

I got round to juicing my tomatoes and having the taste test today.

The one on the left is the juice from the Yellow Queen tomatoes. I made that one first (which is why it’s starting to settle) and I had a slurp out of it, too. The one on the right is the juice from the Yellow Submarines. There was a bit more than would fit in the glass, but considering that I had 300g more Yellow Submarines, I think the Yellow Queens were juicier.

As to the taste test – the Yellow Queen juice was very, very tomatoey. Tangy and sweet and lovely. By comparison, the Yellow Submarine juice was very bland, although no doubt I would have been quite happy with it on its own.

We’ve got some visitors coming in a couple of weeks. By then I should have some more ripe tomatoes, and I might be able to encourage them to do a taste test as well :)

Today I have sowed most of the seeds for another Garden Organic experiment: Winter Salads. I’ve sowed Pak Choi, Endive, Winter Purslane, Winter Lettuce and what they called Spinach, but I think it’s Leaf Beet. I still have Lamb’s Lettuce and Rainbow Chard to sow later, and I’ll have to see what else I want to sow for winter as well.

It refuses to stop raining for long enough for me to spend more than 5 minutes in the garden (and I daren’t go into the Grow Dome because the tomatoes are taking over!) so I’m going to talk about green things today instead.

We have a new ‘toy’ in our house – an OWL wireless energy monitor. As you can see from the picture above, the display tells you how much you’re spending on electricity from moment to moment (or you can programme it to tell you how much you’re using, or how much CO2 you’re emitting).

It arrived a couple of days ago, and it took Pete less than 5 minutes to set it up (if you’re interested, you can see his picture of how the transmitter clips on to the mains cable).

We have now discovered how much we spend by leaving the computers on, whether or not the TV uses a lot of electricity when it’s left on standby and why you should never, ever, boil more water in the kettle than is absolutely necessary. It also tells us the current room temperature and humidity!

The OWL normally costs £40-50, but this week the Ethical Superstore has a really good deal – you can buy an OWL for just £29.95. And if you’re a new customer at the Ethical Superstore then you can use the promotional code X5WFF to get an extra £5 off your first order – which means that an OWL will only set you back £24.95 + £2.50 P&P. And they come nicely packed in a cardboard box with scrumpled brown paper – so you can even compost all of the packaging except a little bit of packing tape! :)

875g of Yellow Submarines

575g Yellow Queens

I’ve been growing two varieties of cordon tomatoes in the Grow Dome this year, as part of a Garden Organic experiment to compare old and new varieties.

The newer variety, Yellow Submarine is winning on yield at the moment – but the plants are in a slightly sunnier position. They’ve also caused me a lot more grief in terms of having to remove sideshoots.

I’ll juice them for a taste test tomorrow. There’s still plenty of fruit left on all the plants for future harvests.