Garden photos and veggie update

The garden this year is looking good. Perhaps it's the extra long and cold winter, but the roses are really blooming and everything just looks lush and full of life.



The section of ground directly to the side of the kitchen conservatory was just a glorified plant dumping ground last year! A place to put plants that didn't have a suitable place elsewhere to grow. At the beginning of the year I thought this area would be ideal for a herb garden, but now, seeing how beautiful my "dumping ground" is, I'm tempted to have my herbs elsewhere. I had a little gap with nothing growing and some left over tomato plants, so the two seem to go very well together.



The actual veg plot is finally doing its thing. It's taken its time though with the bad start to the year and I know I'm not the only veggie grower to notice a difference with the produce this year.
This photo shows the peas (I finally managed to grow a successful second crop - took three attempts), a couple of lines of parsnips still at the very baby stage and raised bed in the background with chilli and spring onions. Both bags of free seed potatoes did well - both now harvested and thoroughly enjoyed! Also in the plot are two rows of garlic, which have been extremely disappointing (so far all very tiny), two rows each of spring onions and leeks.

I'm back ... it's been a while!

Guess what - wonderful news - the purple sprouting broccoli finally decided to sprout! I couldn't believe my eyes when, a couple of weeks ago whilst weeding the veggie bed, I noticed tiny little purple broc heads appearing on the three plants. According to the seed packet, this should have happened in February! It didn't take long for the little heads to become bigger and I started to pick them once I noticed the chickens taking an interest. With the first lot of heads picked, they've now started to produce more - yippee.


Other sowing and growing news:


The kitchen once again has turned into a greenhouse. We have lots and lots of pots of baby chilli plants lining one long shelf, together with some tomato plants (ready to be moved into bigger pots).


The first batch of mini peas have been moved to their home outside. Sadly only one seed from the second batch decided to produce anything resembling a pea-plant. A third batch have been sown today so fingers crossed. Peas were our best crop last year and I'm hoping for double the amount this summer.

Chilli

The weather has been lovely these last few days, so spring-like and so needed after our long, long winter.

This afternoon gave me my first opportunity this year to get out into the garden and potter. I have a couple of projects to get on with, other than vegetable sowing. Firstly I've started clearing the cottage garden patch in front of the conservatory as I'd like this to become a herb garden. It attracts the sun all day long so it should do well. Secondly, all the pretty cottage plants and bulbs will need to be moved to other places around the garden and these places generally need a good weeding ready for their new arrivals. That'll keep me busy!

Today I've sown eight chilli seeds which will germinate on the conservatory windowsill, all being well. Over the next few weeks I'll be sowing leeks, peas and tomatoes as well as the free potatoes from the Potato Council. I also need to put in some canes for the peas - hoping to do double the amount this year and skip the runners.

Snow apparently is forecast for this week, so most of this may be put on hold, we'll have to see.

Bringing in the harvest

Have been clearing the veggie plot of its remaining takings before an early frost takes it all from us!


The more you pick, the more you get it seems in alot of cases. I've taken in loads more beans and tomatoes since taking this picture. I find the beans are best picked young and not too long, otherwise you are a bit stringy when eaten.

The sweetcorn stepped a tiny bit further to successful this year compared to last. Out of the six planted, all but one have produced a single corn, although sadly only one of those we've been able to eat as the others just aren't getting the warmth to ripen fully. The one we tried though was amazing - I'd never tasted corn so fresh and sweet - nothing like the stuff we buy in the shops!


Another planting year done, I guess it's nearly time to start all over again, starting with the garlic!

Veggie update (August)

It feels like I've let things slip alittle, or perhaps it's just that the veg are ticking along nicely and don't really need my help too much (apart from constant watering of the indoor chillies and tomatoes), and I did spend an afternoon this week weeding like mad (but I took the photos before I'd done this - doh!).


Lots of lots of chilli. Paul is using the green and the red ones to make his hot, spicy pickled chillies - a hit with the family last year.


Sweetcorn - all six are doing OK, but all are very small - like last year, I'm not expecting much!


Oh my goodness, look at those weeds! Look at the purple sprouting broc too - not alot left is there? At least we've had a garden full of happy caterpillars and butterflies.


The outdoor tomato plants are full of fruit and a couple have ripened this last week. Need more warmth and sun.


Cute threesome of pumpkins - a litte early, not sure if they'll keep until Halloween. Growing fruit and veg is certainly a learning curve.


Peas have finished now but we have a huge crop of beans and dwarf beans. If they're not picked regularly, they become stringy when cooked. With still more flowers coming out every day I guess there'll be a lot more picking to do, which we all enjoy doing.


"Yum" sums up this photo - pickings from indoors and outdoors.

Tomatoes, Runners, Garlic and Chilli update

Yesterday and today I had the joy of cooking a meal using several veg harvested from our own garden - fabulous.

Here's a photo update:

Veggie update - lots of progress

Tomatoes (indoor) and Chilli plants are beginning to flower. I'm amazed at how much taller the tomato plants are indoors compared to the two planted outside, even though the weather has been glorious lately.

We also have the distinctive mauve flowers on our self-seeded potatoes which have taken over the onion plot so much now that I have to part the leaves in order to find the onions. The potatoes grown in the black bags from The Potato Council are still flourishing although I've had to water them up to three times a day during the hot weather and there aren't any flowers on them yet.


The onions are looking fine, but small. I didn't have much hope for them from the start as they'd taken so long to get going, but they should be OK. Small is beautiful (and flavoursome).


My pride and joy is the peas. I'm so glad I decided to plant them and have actually sown more (having watched the River Cottage program recently where he liberally sowed peas rather than carefully spacing the seeds out like I'd done). I read somewhere that eating the peas once the pod has been popped is one of the biggest pleasures of home grown foods - so right. I think doing this is higher up the enjoyment stakes than digging up potatoes. I wasn't sure when to actually harvest the peas and didn't want to pick them too soon or too late. Having Googled Kelvedon Peas I read that it's best to harvest them sooner rather than later as the peas are much sweeter. This seems to be true in my opinion. I discoverd some very fat pea pods and found the goods rather bitter compared to pods that are plump but not bursting.



I've also plucked up the courage to try growing sweetcorn again - hopefully I'll do better than last year. The reason I've found some spare space in the veggie plot is because the little cabbages I grew went to seed and then promptly got eaten by the chickens! Nevermind, I'd rather have sweetcorn than cabbages.

Progress - inside

The seedlings for the purple sprouting broccoli are slowly growing, but I think they are more-or-less reading for planting on outside.


Lovely tomatoes. Have planted on four strong seedlings (and two more outside). They'd grown so quickly in their baby pots I couldn't let them wait any longer for their permanent home, which, like last year, is in the conservatory kitchen taking up one end of our work surface. Hope the return will be as good as in previous years.


I have three strong chilli plants in good size pots lining the windowsill. No sign of greenfly just yet! Need to read up about picking off certain leaves to make it a bushier and healthier plant.

Progress ... outside

The beans have been added to now so there's three different variety of beans in there. One lot are dwarf from last year's supply and the other two varieties are from a friend so not sure what they are! I grew quite a few seeds indoors which turned out to be the perfect amount in the end as I had to replace a couple that had been completely destroyed by something or other - most probably the hens. This is why the "keep out" netting is back around them. Although I've just finished planting these out, the second lot are exactly the same size as the first lot. Hope they liven up soon - perhaps the ground is a little too cold for them. At the end of the row I've put in a couple of tomato plants as they were surplus and I didn't have the heart to get rid of them!


Planted out two pumpkins which had started off indoors. Had to replace one of them as it was looking pretty dodgey. Luckily I had a healthy spare still on the windowsill. Both have grown quite well since the wetter weather. These are planted in a thrown together raised bed with last year's compost, which I've read they love. Their leaves are going a bit yellow (I've noticed this with the first lot of beans too) - will watch what happens.


Look at these pots and plastic bags of potatoes - all doing fabulously - just need some flowers now. Wonder if they'll be white or purple.


Peas are gradually climbing, they are now up to their fourth line of supporting string. Getting lovely white flowers now too.


Garlic is looking good and strong and the spring onions, sown between the rows of garlic and also in their own section, are beginning to look more settled in their new positions.