We finished our last onion on 1 December and had to buy some at the supermarket this week. It felt wrong. The remainder of the carrots went into the freezer so we're now down to kale (en masse), spring cabbage, sprouts, leeks, neeps, parsnips, celeriac and Swiss chard. Not bad. From some angles the veg garden still looks really busy:
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| The busy third of the veg garden |
To my delight, I discovered another Romanesco in the brassica overspill section:
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| Hidden Romanesco |
All the tender perennials are tucked up in the conservatory where they are doing very well, especially the Vietnamese coriander.
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| Big Vietnamese coriander and small lemon verbena |
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| Thyme grown from seed |
What's not doing so well is my Meyer lemon tree. I think I seriously overwatered it. It has four ripening fruits but only two leaves. I've now moved it into the warm kitchen, on to a sunny windowsill, to dry it out and see if it recovers. Maybe Scottish lemons is pushing it a bit, but you've got to try these things.
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| Please survive, little lemon tree! |
I've had a greenhouse clear-out. The tomato plants are all on the compost heap, and we had the last little green tomatoes yesterday. Now it's all salad in the greenhouse, with a few sweet peas and some perpetual strawberries (will we have a few strawberries for Christmas?). I've potted up a whole lot of quick-growing tatsoi so hopefully we'll get some winter salad leaves or at least early spring ones.
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| The winter salad project |
Inside, the wine keeps maturing, though we've already drunk three bottles of carrot wine (out of five) so there might be supply issues at some stage.
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| Rosehip, parsnip and carrot & ginger wines on the go |
The felines are still providing excellent rodent control, which is sorely needed. I found one celeriac totally chomped and even saw the blasted vole running off (no feline in sight unfortunately).
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| Compost cat |
Of course, the weather has turned since I took these photos, but it's nice to remember that we had beautiful sunshine at the beginning of December and that it was warm enough to sit out! So I leave you with a picture of the magnificent Russell enjoying the rays.
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| Sun-loving chickens |
hmm, carrot wine!
ReplyDeleteWell, I do envy you your garden - our only still growing vegetables are the chillies and sweet peppers Pekka is trying to keep alive upstairs. There might have been a few Brussels sprouts amid the snow but blue mountain hares have had a field day in the Brassica patch...
ReplyDeleteHere we are advised that citrus trees should be kept in winter in a cool room with plenty of light - never having tried to grow them here I don't know if that's valid.
Thanks, Anja. I think I might move the lemon tree back into the unheated conservatory or greenhouse shortly now that it has dried out. I've also read that light is the most important factor.
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