Growing food at 57° North

It ain't easy

looking through the elder hedge and over the rhubarb, the greenhouse peeks out over the raspberries.

It’s Summer Solstice. From now, the days will get slowly shorter. We won’t notice the slow retreat of the daylight to begin with, we’ll be too wrapped up in the busy Summer hours.

I’m hoping that some of the next few months will be spent tending to and harvesting from a bountiful vegetable garden. The growing year has started with the usual frustrations and set backs; rabbits, voles, poor germination, broken tools, not enough compost and unreliable weather. I can’t tell you how demoralising it is (and I’m sorry if you have suffered the same!) to plant out seedlings which are scoffed overnight by the wildlife. Or the sadness when a howling wind and rain hammer and uproot healthy plants, smashing them to pieces.

Our solution for the plants getting eaten was to make protectors out of old milk bottles. We cut the ends off them and pegged them into the soil over the cabbages and kohl rabis. Light and water can still get to the plants, but not the voles or rabbits. The plot is fully fenced, including a chicken wire mesh on the lower half and a deer fence on the top half, but we discovered a couple of areas where the sheep have been climbing up the fence on the outside perimeter and damaging the chicken wire. That had allowed at least one rabbit in. We spotted him one morning, chomping away on the beetroot leaves without a care in the world and completely ignoring the model eagle which is supposed to deter such beasties. The girls chased him out and we fixed the fencing - too late for the first peas or the early greens, but we can plant again.

Outside, the beds surrounded by their wool paths, are looking quite empty and weedy to be honest. The potatoes are just starting to come up, while volunteer potatoes are already well established and dotted around the plot. Parsnips are germinating and we desperately need to hoe between the rows but alas, no one can find the hoe and there are even whispers that it may be broken. I made a half hearted search for it this morning but it was too hot and I gave up pretty quickly.

The elder hedge around the plot is absolutely established now, providing shelter and attracting pollinators

The greenhouse is full with trays of tiny plants. There are more beetroot, cabbages, onions, cauliflower, herbs, flowers, pumpkins and peas. Part of me wants to keep them in the safety of the greenhouse. But I know that they will have to go out soon and fend for themselves. Other plants will stay inside, the gherkins (oh, I can’t wait for pickled gherkins!), the tomatoes which my sister in law gifts us every year (her tomato plants are always amazing), the sweetcorn (which my husband insists on growing every year) and what I’m most excited for - my bell peppers. I germinated them last Summer and wintered the plants on my bedroom windowsill and they are finally beginning to fruit some twelve months later, despite everything online telling me at the time that I was doing it wrong and they would most certainly die.

There was a sawfly caterpillar outbreak on the gooseberries and we spent an afternoon frantically picking berries and removing caterpillars before the bushes were destroyed. Funnily enough, the damage to the plants abruptly stopped the following day. Whether it’s because we actually impacted the caterpillar population or the conditions just changed, I’m not sure.

sawfly caterpillars strip the leaves off gooseberry plants

The raspberries are ripening and we look forward to a glut of sweet berries. Rhubarb and gooseberry crumbles have been on the menu most nights over the last month and the raspberries will make a welcome change.

We started our vegetable plot because we wanted the challenge and mindfulness of growing our own food. And my goodness, what a challenge it is every year. Rewarding when it works out, demoralising when it doesn’t. I’ve come to realise that the state of the vegetable plot is also a reflection on the state of ourselves. When we are too busy or not feeling mentally and physically at our best, it becomes very hard to stay on top of - and that’s not necessarily a bad thing - it’s just the rhythm of life.

I’ve had to remind myself that we aren’t growing for survival, it’s supposed to be something fun and nice to do. If we aren’t enjoying the garden or don’t have the time then that doesn’t mean we are failing. If we don’t have successful harvests over the next few months, I’m going to try to take it on the chin and think about how to make things better next year. I imagine it might involve lots more rodent control!

Compost quantity has also been an issue this year. We have never bought in compost and want to keep it that way. I am interested in trying to make a bracken/wool mix compost but we’ll need to build another compost bin first. And so the to-do list grows!