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.

Sunny sunflowers

The seed packet said they'd reach 10 feet tall - I think they may be right!

One sunflower has yet to burst into bloom, but this one's brilliant and looks into next door's bedroom window.



Here's a smaller sunflower, from a bunch of roots pulled from my Mum's garden. Loving this sunny yellow in our garden this year.

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:

Summer flowers, broccoli and carrots

Aren't they lovely? All these in the picture have been given to me as cuttings or seeds by my Mum. Looking forward to harvesting some seeds from the marigolds, they are such a lovely cheerful colour.





Really glad I didn't rush to put these purple sprouting brocs in the ground in May. I repotted them in slightly larger pots and waited, as the packet states. They're going in the ground in the next couple of days.



Carrots - love them and so easy to grow, especially in large pots. This is the first wave and all doing nicely. The netting is to keep off unwanted, nosey hens!

Garlic, Spring Onions, Pumpkins, Runner Beans ...

... all coming along really well. Have picked lots and lots of peas (the more you pick the more you get) and have started picking runners too now.


These are the type that wind themselves round the bamboo poles right to the top (and now wanting to go higher) - lovely red flowers. The dwarf variety are at the front of the poles and have pretty pink flowers.



I've harvested all the garlic now. I wasn't too sure when to actually start taking them out of the ground; the book stated when the stalks start to yellow and begin to bend over. They certainly were going yellow, but not really bending. The reason I pulled them was that a few I did pull had mildew on them and definitely weren't healthy. Once the sun came out for a prolonged period I decided to dig up the rest. Have a huge crop with just a small amount of dud ones. This fabulous hot weather has been brilliant for helping them dry out (on a garden bench); they're now hanging in an equally hot spot in the conservatory kitchen to finish off the process.



Spring Onions in the pot and in the ground have grown so fast this year and are all more-or-less ready for use. Have noticed a bit of "rust" on a few and the cats seem to enjoy laying on them too!



I can certainly vouch for whoever said to grow pumpkins in last years compost (Monty Don I think) - they're going berzerk! Under all those lovely large leaves there's alot of gorgeous flowers and alot of mini pumpkins beginning their new lives. Hopefully we'll be able to get at least two out of that lot for Halloween.

Potatoes

Strangely the four bags of free Potato Council potatoes never made it to the flowering stage. It seems we were not alone! Having received a (late) email from them saying it was time to harvest, we went ahead and empty two of the bags. Unfortunately, we won't be able to take part in the big weigh-in competition as the labels had come off making it impossible to distinguish beetween the two different varieties.



So contents of two bags and one small pot which contained a home sprouted spud from the cupboard. Not bad - will do for a couple of family meals. Just love new potatoes. The other two bags will be harvested in due course as we had just bought a whole load a new pots from the supermarket - typical!

Quack!

I'd like to share these lovely photos that Katie and I took yesterday of the ducks that live across the road from home.

There's been four sets of ducklings born so far this year although sadly one set didn't really make it past a few days. The second lot are more-or-less adult sized now and very, very cute. You can tell them from the adults by their yellow legs (adults have orange).


2 days old

This new lot of ducklings arrived two days ago and belong to a calling duck we named "Mental". We named her this when we first moved into the house as she makes an awful lot of noise (as calling ducks do) and has serious "mental" moments chasing other ducks around quacking at them furiously and often crash landing when she flies around the place! She's not a particularly good mum either and often abandons her little ones when there's a potential bread snack around or when she decides to have one of her "moments". Hopefully these ones will do better than the last lot.

"Mental"

There are plenty of "Mental" style ducks in with the pack, but somehow we can always distinguish the real "Mental"!