Aphid Attacks

It is November in Iceland.

This line above was going to be the start of a fresh blog entry a few days ago, with the following line 'and to my joy and amazement my tender fruiting plants are flowering again.' My aubergine and sweet pepper plants were blooming flowers and teasing that a very late second crop was on its way.




BUT, the inexorable but, last weekend I scurried over for my daily check of the plants and made a loud noise akin to that a makes cat when you accidentally stand on its tail. Literally overnight and out from, it seemed, nowhere - my plants were covered, absolutely swarming in aphids. Three different types of aphids - or quite possibly 3 different life stages of the same aphid.

The leaves of my aubergines were dense with green bodies and eggs. My peppers were infested with some white flies. In a panic I checked over my chilies which thankfully seemed to have escaped the attack as had my tomatoes.

In retrospect I wish I had photographed the enemy to properly identify them, but the overwhelming concern was to get rid of them. I tried google image searching aphids just now and only managed to make my skin crawl.

It pleases me to report that I am now aphid free. My actions were fairly brutal but I knew that if I was to successfully overwinter these plants I had to be vigorous. First I removed the most affected leaves and flowers and threw them away in a sealed bag. I literally stripped the plants. After that I manually squished any remaining bugs every morning and evening in addition to spraying the plants with my own home made bug spray. This contains a large amount of crushed garlic and washing up liquid. My living room smelt of fresh garlic and cleanliness which was actually not a terrible thing. The garlic burns (and does burn the plants leaves a little) and the soap disintegrates the aphids bodies. Lovely.



The tomato plants were sacrificed in the clear out. They didn't appear to be infected but I decided to reduce the risk and of all my tender crops, these are the easiest to raise here in Iceland. It was a shame however as I am still eating fruit from them. The remaining green fruit from the plants has been ripened on a windowsill with a long stalk attached. They will be eaten before the week is out. Sad, but to still be eating tomatoes in mid November shows it has certainly not been a bad season. Let's see if I manage to extend it next year.

Mr Freeze

Well it took its time coming but Winter just arrived. We are bouncing around the zero degrees mark during the daytime and way below at night. A subtle drop of around 10 degrees within 24 hours.

I ran outside and pulled up all of the parsnips still in the ground, figuring I would rather parboil and freeze them in the house than spend an afternoon trying to hack them out with an icepick. The purple sprouting was also harvested - this is supposed to be a little frost hardy but I took what was there just in case. I doubt many more stems will grow now its gotten so cold and much darker, but I left the main plants on the off chance.

The perpetual spinach has yet to be affected by the cold, it has only been 4 days of below zero but its not looking bothered yet. This crop has been providing solidly for 4 months and although perpetual spinach isn't the exact same taste as true spinach, its been used in many dishes and salads.

So, what we are left with now in the garden is a test of supposed winter hardiness. There are January King Savoy cabbages, Tundra cabbages, Winter Pilgrim cauliflowers and Meteor peas. Legend has it that all of these are able to cope with quite a substantial frost. The peas have been growing well and providing crops even this week from my cold frame. Smug is what I'll be if I am actively harvesting in the winter here. We shall see, pride often comes before a fall.

October: My harvest this month

Considering this is Iceland, I have to say even I am little surprised at the amount of vegetables I have been harvesting. It is a particularly mild October so far though - maybe this is global warming making itself known.

From the garden:
Mange tout peas
Spring onions
Spinach
Swiss chard
Parsnips
Carrots
Purple sprouting broccoli
Kale
Peas
Lettuce
Rocket

From the unheated greenhouse:
Coriander
Spring onions
Lettuce
Rocket

From the windowsills:
Tomatoes
Chillies
Aubergines
Peppers
Lemongrass
Parsley
Coriander
Basil
Rosemary

Parsnips

For the love of all that is edible why don't Icelanders grow parsnips? I know some of them do, but its a struggle to get them in supermarkets most of the time and they are ridiculously expensive say compared to carrots. The first times I cooked these delicious daggers for my friends most of them couldn't tell me the name of it in Icelandic, even when I showed them the raw vegetable.

Its Steinseljurót by the way.

And why am I so in shock about this not being a more adopted Icelandic vegetable? Its totally frost hardy that's why. Whereas most of the surprise at what I am growing here is because people didn't think it warm enough, this is a vegetable that is reputed to taste better once its been through a frost or two. Its so apt at coping with frost that I dug some up this spring which had stayed in the ground the entire winter and these were cooked and eaten with glee.

The only issue, which is something on my mind now, is that once the ground freezes properly here, there isn't a hope of digging the crop up until the spring. Its October, and the weather keeps dipping down, flirting with zero degrees, and then wacking us in the face with a 15 degrees here and there.

My garden contains quite a lot of parsnips still, they have been pulled through the last 2 months and eaten as varying sized baby veg for a roast but there are more left in the ground and I am playing chicken with Jack Frost. For safety I really had better pull them this weekend, parboil and freeze on my own terms in my already heavily stacked freezer.




The seed varieties I went for were Countess F1 and White Gem, both of which I am fairly certain you can buy here. In all honesty both varieties have performed well. I heavily sanded the area before planting and this year paid more attention to thinning the seedlings and just as Alan Titmarch always said, the results were infinitely better than my haphazard approach last year.

I planted 4 seeds per hole and then when thinning I removed the weaker, leaving the single strongest one to grow. This is one of the crops which hurts me when I thin it as you can't do anything productive with the thinnings. I much more enjoy this process when you can cook and eat the weaklings - as you can with cabbages as spring greens, turnip tops and young onions used as salad onions. Carrots and parsnips however just go straight to the compost. This is why I stubbornly held back on performing this process correctly last year and received thin underdeveloped - even if still tasty - parsnips.

The crop is a very slow grower, so you need great patience, as even growing as soon as the first frost as passed in spring and the ground is dig-able they take all the way until the first frosts arrive in winter. But they are sown in rows, fairly wide apart and leave space for quick maturing crops to grow in between such as baby carrots, spinach, radishes, turnips and more.

These are my favourite vegetable when it comes to eating. Roasted parsnips taste sweet and caramely and I have yet to meet an Icelander who hasn't loved them after tasting a slow roasted snip.



Summary:
Plant: March/April
Harvest: September/October
Soil: No organic matter the same season. Needs to be sandy/extremely well dug.
Problems: For me, none so far.
Maintenance: Zero apart from challenging any weeds.

For the love of Lettuce

The easiest and most worthy crop for anyone living in Iceland to grow is salad. Not only is this a ridiculously easy, low maintenance crop, it saves you more money than any other, with the exception of fresh herbs. Salad leaves can be grown by almost anyone, you can use a windowsill, a windowbox, balcony, patio or garden. It really is an access all areas type of crop.

The variety of salad leaves available is quite astounding, although locally there are less, there are still great 'mixed leaves' seed packets. Included in the selection available in Iceland are seed mats. These are circular pieces of a sort of blotting paper with the seeds embedded. This gives the learner gardener a sure fire way of planting - simply pop the paper on top of a pot of compost and cover with the recommended amount of compost on top. These mats are more expensive, but if you're unsure of your skills its a great starter.

You can also purchase 'plugs' of lettuces for you to replant. Lollo Rosso being one of my favourites. These produce great cut-and-come-again lettuces. I recommend buying 5 or more, then you just cut a leaf or two off of these for each meal and can afford to harvest daily. As I am a salad lover and like to have some fresh green accompanying most dishes this season I had 8 individual cut and come agains plus at least 4 pots of mixed leaves at all times.


Rocket plants are also available in the mixed leaf packs with their own rocket selections. I added to these with some 'true' rocket plants which I swapped with a friend, Klara for some other surplus plants. Rocket is particularly hardy as a lettuce and will last longer outdoors than lighter green leaves. I harvested some from the garden only this weekend.

There are also quite a few 'winter' lettuces to grow in a cold frame slash unheated greenhouse. They are called winter from a UK perspective, so I am adapting that to mean late autumn slash pre frost winter here. I have 2 types which I am sowing now, Cos 'Winter Gem' and Cos 'Winter Density'. These are the small tight crisp lettuces which are sweet and crunchy. I'll get back to you on how late through the season they keep going.