Saturday 6 August 2016

Colourful times

Cooking is so easy at this time of year. You take some of these (which are replenished daily):

Medley of tomatoes, chillies and lemon cucumbers
Add a few of those:
Sliced Latino courgettes
And maybe some Purple Sun carrots and you're most of the way there.

Pretty carrots
The onion harvest was rather small this year. Not enough rain in May, I guess. But it should still last a few months at least. I will try to grow more onions from seed rather than sets since the August-sown onions did very well this spring.

Of the new crops, I've harvested the first Savoy cabbage. The first three achocha hedgehogs have appeared and the quinoa is growing despite getting buffeted by the wind.

First of the Savoy cabbages
Rather cute achocha
Quinoa
The herb bed is filling in. The perennial herbs are really spreading out.

Anise hyssop and Vietnamese coriander
In the veg garden, the squashes are on a rampage. The Pink Fairy has already left the veg garden through the fence and is expanding into the bottom paddock. I'm growing rather an insane number of squashes this year (30) to find the absolutely best varieties (and the ones which do best here) so friends and family can look forward to gifts of squash later this autumn.

Golden Nuggets: at what stage do you harvest these?
The sweetcorn is looking promising in its sheltered position behind the polytunnel. At least there are plenty of tassels.

Early Bird, I think
We managed to cover all the areas to sort out next year and will now forget about these until March.
Herb/flower bed to be, plus protective hedging for it
On the ornamental front, the honeysuckle is giving out heavenly scent and the wildflower border has a different mix from last year.

The ultimate cottage garden plant?

Wildflower meadow strip
But we are still waiting for the summer weather to return!




7 comments:

  1. Your veg are like an artist's palette - beautiful! :-)

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  2. Who of you is getting rather good at photography?

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    1. He, he. I've taken all of these, but Jim's pretty good, too. When are you returning to Scotland?

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  3. At least our Gold Nuggets turn more peach than orange, the skin hardens and is not glossy any more. THEN it's time to harvest them!

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    1. Thanks! Because of the name I thought they'd be bright yellow. Hence my confusion when they turned orange. They should be the earliest of the squashes, right?

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    2. Out of those I know you have they are the earliest ones though Celebration is not much behind...

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    3. Is Celebration orange with light stripes and a similar compact habit as Golden Nugget? I have two of those and they are very far advanced.

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