Unfortunately we had to leave early as J and N were coming for lunch – but I left a gooseberry pie for the Lochgoilhead ‘Bake off’. Unfortunately I don’t think it was a winner as at least one of the others looked much nicer.

Anyway – there was homemade soup, bread, assorted preserves (including Donich plum jam and chutney from me) and it looks like a promising venue for the future. I certainly have some experiences to share from gardening here on the edge of the wilderness for the last year.

However the plums are now ripe and there is an embarrassingly large number of them considering they come from one small tree. I’ve had a bit of a battle picking them as the wasps are equally keen to have them. After experimenting with a number of techniques (some of which were going to give me either a broken ankle or some nasty stings or both..) – I put a midge jacket and a pair of gloves on and gently brushed the branches of the tree with a soft bristled yard brush. This knocked all the ripe fruit to the ground where I could pick it up – carefully avoiding the wasps, but left the green ones on the tree.

I reckon I have had about 20kg so far and there is still a fair number left. So today I made jam and a few plum crumbles. I have a load left to process tomorrow so I think I will make some chutney and incorporate the very last of the tomatoes which I had to pick green as the plants were in the last stages of dying off.

The recipe for the jam was super simple. Take 1.5kg of plums and cut them in half, removing the stones. Add 400ml water and simmer for about 20 minutes. Then add 1.25kg of sugar, stir and bring to a rolling boil until the mixture reaches setting point. It said on the site I got this from that it would be 15 mins – but for me it was more like 20. I test for it by putting a plate in the fridge and then putting a teaspoon of the jam on to it and leaving it for a minute or two. When it sets (slightly) doing this and crinkles when you push it – it will set in a jar. This makes 8 standard jars of jam – I don’t do anything complicated to sterilize the jars, I just wash them in hot soapy water, rinse them and then fill them with nearly boiling water and leave them for five minutes before emptying and giving them a good shake. Fill them carefully using a ladle and don’t spill it on your hands because jam burns are very painful. Apparently this keeps for a year but it won’t in this house….

We have apples nearly ready and the brambles in the hedgerows will literally only be a day or two now. So shortly we should be able to have my all time favourite of bramble and apple pie.

For some reason I don’t think my Chili peppers are going to bear fruit – they are only going into flower now so I am not sure they are going to have time to develop a decent crop before Winter comes (guess who has been watching ‘Game of Thrones’ recently).

Produce aside – the garden doesn’t look as nice in July as it did in June – most of the flowers are over and everything is very very very green. The water lilies are still fantastic though.

To my recollection, neither of these ever made it as far as being cooked. The peapods never made it out of the garden at all, and the turnips got there only to be peeled with a knife and then eaten like an apple. They were so tender and good

My Gran and Pop are long since passed away and buried just down the road from here in Cardross, but today I had some of my own peapods and a snowball turnip out of the garden and they tasted just as good as they did forty years ago. I got to thinking about how strange it is that the world has changed out of all reckoning since then, and yet in other ways is just the same.

The herbs in particular smell completely different when picked in handfuls from the garden rather than bought wrapped up in plastic from the supermarket – and it certainly removes the waste factor of having to buy a whole packet because you need two sprigs of it.

Anyway – I should have done a third picture of an empty plate – but I will just say ‘Yum!!’ and now get back to my work.

On the positive side… Every morning for the last week I have had enough strawberries for a bowl with yoghurt for breakfast. The peas are doing quite well and I tried the first pod today – a bit small but very sweet and lovely. The first tomatoes are set (only on the few plants I bought in in case the seeds didn’t grow – but the seed grown ones are in flower now). We have many spring onions and too much salad (R does not like it). I’ve had quite a lot of ‘snowball’ type turnips which are great peeled and eaten like an apple – only the inside ones survived though – something ate the ones which I put out in the veg patch. Also lots of herbs and it is great picking them in handfuls just like Jamie Oliver. The first courgettes are just coming through as well along with the squashes – and if they all grow we will have lots. Outside the stuff is doing less well but the potatoes look ok as do the onions. I wasn’t expecting much from the gooseberries and currants I planted this year – but I will have a few handfuls at least.

On the negative… My beans had lots of flowers but don’t seem to be making any pods. Perhaps they didn’t get pollinated in the tunnel but it is odd if that is the reason because the peas right next to them seem fine. Outside did not go well at all early on – none of the sprouting broccoli made it and the turnips and sprouts have only had a few survivors. But the stuff I planted in May has done much better – I suspect at least partially because the slugs had other things to eat by then.

So lots and lots of lessons learned for next year – the two biggest being a) don’t start too early – it is a waste of time and effort, and b) don’t plant more than you can easily take on – a lot of my stuff has suffered every time I have had a big test and been too busy to devote TLC to them.

Also – self-sufficiency is a long way off for us – I’ve put major effort in and we have been nothing like self-sustaining in anything so far – except perhaps herbs. Next year I need to put better consideration in what to grow and be a bit more selective. Also if I worked out how much the veg we have had cost per pound it would be the most expensive I have ever eaten – we could have bought it all from Harrods and had it delivered for the money it has cost us

Yesterday I took my life in my hands and moved my first early potatoes which were growing in containers outside in order to free up a bit of space. I now need to get the deer fencing up as a matter of urgency before everything gets eaten, so this afternoon I dug out ten of the twelve holes needed for the cage I have bought. The poles need to be buried 14″ deep, and in this garden it turns out, 12″ is the absolute maximum you can go down without hitting what feels like bedrock. It isn’t really but I have dug some huge stones out this afternoon. I did notice that the other thing I need to protect from is the cats who have the idea that the area is a huge toilet which has been created specially for them.

Most importantly – some of the things I optimistically sowed back in January are now ready to eat.

I thought the radishes were ‘delish’ but even though R tried to be polite, I could tell he was not enjoying them.

This is proving to be properly hard work, but with the birds singing and all the new flowers open it was quite delightful.  I think part of the area I have chosen may have been under the walls of the original lodge house, because I keep hitting stony bits which may have been foundations, and from time to time I am unearthing bits of pottery.

The plot at close of play looked like this.

I need to get a bit more organic matter dug in and then wait for the soil to dry out and warm up a little (we actually do have decent drainage) – then I can get the first early potatoes I am currently chitting into the ground.

In the meantime, things seem to be starting to sprout in the polytunnel – although a slug has got in somehow and has had a nibble at some of the radish leaves.

The rotavator has now been constructed (thanks to R!) and we need to get some petrol so we can give it a try out. It is massively heavy but it will have to be to deal with the other three sections which still have to be dug out.

      
Having problems finding someone who can repair the greenhouse roof after all the storms – #ruralscotlandproblem.    
Can’t get top soil delivered because the road won’t take an 18 ton lorry and no one seems to be able to deliver in a smaller one – #ruralscotlandproblem    
Phone line goes down and BT send 5 separate engineers before finally discovering that forestry commission need to give permission for a new pole because it is on their land – #ruralscotlandproblem    
Every company on the Intenet (honourable exception of Amazon here) thinks your PostCode is on the moon because it is in the PA area – #ruralscotlandproblem    
Of course there could be a compensationary hashtag – #ruralscotlandadvantage

  
Waking up to bird song and river noise – #ruralscotlandadvantage   
Walking out of your door and on to a glorious hillside – #ruralscotlandadvantage        
Pine martens in the garden – #ruralscotlandadvantage   
Space to live and breath instead of living in a concrete box in a row of other boxes – #ruralscotlandadvantage      

So far at least the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages – but I still wish we could get our greenhouse repaired.