More courgettes, sugar snaps and French beans

On the harvesting front, I've had a couple more courgettes. The most recent one was huge and is sitting in the fridge ready to be eaten tonight. Unfortunately, one of the plants appears to be dying off now, although there's one more courgette that's getting bigger. The other plant has two courgettes on but something has tried to eat them so not sure if they will survive.

I've now harvested all my sugar snaps and frozen the ones I couldn't eat. I had a pretty big crop and hoping that the frozen ones will keep okay. I pulled up the plants so that I can get to my dwarf French beans more easily. Have harvested some of the beans already and they were yummy but hopefully plenty more to come yet.

It's nearly time to pull up my Charlotte potatoes (will prob do it on Wed night) and harvest the first of my tomato crop. I noticed that a few toms were ripening nicely over the weekend. Both my Gardener's Delight and Brandywine are thriving and I've had no problems so far with bugs, touch wood. Have been feeding every few days with New Horizon organic tomato feed and spraying intermittently with Growing Success bug killer (also organic). Will definitely be trying some more mediterranean varieties of tom next year as even the indoor variety I've grown has been thriving outside in my thriving garden.

My squash plants are coming on a treat but are taking over the garden. In an attempt to get them under control yesterday, I wound the stalks around each other, but I don't think it will last. On the plus side, I already have two buttercup squashes coming on strong, with some more female flowers just waiting to be pollinated. They look amazing so am hoping all goes according to plan and they survive.

July photos Part 4: Kitties

Finally, here are a few kitty pics:

July photos Part 3: Veggie update

Here are some piccies of veggies that I have growing at the moment. Lots of courgettes, lettuce, rocket, peas and tomatoes, but also the first signs of squash - my favourite.

July photos Part 2: Flowers

These ones are of plants that are now in bloom.

July photos Part 1: Harvest

Here are my July photos. First up are some piccies of my first harvest! How proud am I?

Summer and autumn colour

The non-veg side of things in the garden needs a bit of attention as there isn't a huge amount of colour at the moment. I'm currently scouring the August edition of Gardener's World to get some ideas for new plants but in the meantime, I've found this thread on the Grapevine forum too. Here's a list of recommended plants for summer and autumn colour:

Rudbeckia (an orange one would be good; long lasting)
Love Lies Bleeding (long red tassles; long lasting)
Dahlia (flower until first frosts)
Crocosmia (flowers late summer)
Sidalcea (flowers late and lasts a long time)
Asters (come really late)

Summer into autumn colour - perennials:

Achillea
Echinacea
Helenium
Salvia
Cosmos
Sedum
Lavender
Penstemon
Scabious

Looks like it's off to the garden centre this weekend to see what they've got!

Harvest Time

Finally, I get to make a post about harvesting! Had my first pickings this weekend - the fun part begins.

I harvested my first early potatoes and have been trying those. They taste pretty good although slightly bitter. Not sure if it's the potatoes or the mint, which wasn't in the best condition. Anyway, I'm going to do some more tonight so hopefully they will be better. I didn't get a huge crop, but it was big enough and hey, who needs heaps of potatoes in the middle of a heatwave anyway. The first lot I did with creme fraiche and mint, but will be trying some tonight with bacon and oil; hopefully they'll be a bit sweeter in that combination. It was a proud moment when I came in with my bowl of spuds to show Christine that all the months of old compost bags and straggly growth had been worth it. Still not sure she's convinced to be honest ;-).

Next, I pulled up a carrot or two. As expected, they had forked badly because the soil is much too rich. Must add sand next year. Anyway, the carrot I pulled up was about an inch long and was quite rounded. It tasted delicious and I think they'll be perfect for salads so I'm not really bothered about the forking. It was the sweetest carrot I'd ever tasted and that's all that matters. I've also got lots of sugar snaps, which taste fab when eaten straight from the plant. Like the carrots, they are very sweet and crunchy and I'll have enough for plenty of salads. The peas and beans are by far the most attractive veg plants I have - pretty flowers and lovely leaf growth, definitely worth doing.

Having dug up my first earlies, I had room to move my tomato plants to the side so you can actually walk but the steps without being attacked now. I have little green tomatoes on most of my plants now with one or two producing Brandywine beefsteak tomatoes. The Brandywine were supposed to be grown in the greenhouse but due to mislabelling I ended up putting them outside. Nevertheless, they seem to be fruiting okay and of course, I can tell them apart now they have tomatoes on!

Elsewhere, I have gooseberries that are just starting to turn red so waiting to pick them for a pie. My apple tree now only has two apples left on it as Mother Nature has seen to the rest. Anyway, you aren't supposed to grow more than six in the first year so hopefully it'll do the tree good. In the squash patch, the plants are going beserk. After I'd planted I read that they grow really big and it wasn't a joke - they are huge. Bit worrying really but as I love squash, I'll stick with it.

In the flower dept, my nasturtiums are huge and taking over the back of the garden - didn't realise climbing nasturtiums could be so huge. My parents have some lovely little ones in hanging baskets so think I'll steal some of their seeds for next year. My Clematis Niobe has flowered and gone unfortunately. It was stunning but the 30 degree+ heat of yesterday finished it off so it looks like that might be it for this year. Not to worry as I have a Grandiflora which should flower next month and my passion flower is just coming into flower to make up for it.

Will be posting again in the next day or two, mainly lists of things to do and buy and maybe some piccies of those giant nasturtiums and squash plants.

May pictures: part two

Some more piccies:

June update 1: Some May pictures

Can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Must get my act together. Anyway, I'll start with some old pictures I've been meaning to put up for ages. These were taken before our cat, Edsie was hit by a car. He's still with us but is now paraplegic so we are learning to live with all the difficulties that brings. It's a bit sad to be looking at piccies of him before the accident, but he looks so gorgeous on them that I have to put them up. There are also some house piccies too, although we've done a bit more work since then - painted the bedroom, hall/stairs/landing and the fireplace wall in the lounge.








More to come in next post...