It really feels as if someone has switched the months around this year. Here we are in July, with April/May weather: highs of 16C and frequent showers and no end in sight.
Still, it is a good temperature for working in the garden, between showers, and the fruit & veg are growing quite happily. We've got quite a large variety on the menu now: cucumbers, new potatoes, broad beans, mangetout, cabbage, lettuce, courgettes, beetroot, radishes, shallots and, slowly but surely, the first tomatoes and carrots.
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| Strawberry Symphony |
Our main crop at the moment, however, is strawberries. Blackbirds permitting, we are harvesting two litres a day. Strawberry rhubarb jam has already been made and some strawberries frozen. We eat about a litre a day, so yummy in porridge, with ice cream or cream or on top of a sponge cake.
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| Gooseberry Invicta |
The gooseberry bushes are absolutely laden this year. We've had a few already, but most of them should be ripe over the coming fortnight. Same goes for the jostaberries and currants.
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New bed, with quinoa in foreground. Note the weeds that
have grown since we removed the black plastic in April! |
Jim's still digging the new area, which is very stony. Half of it has already been planted with quinoa.
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| New herb bed |
The new herb bed is really coming along and makes the top of the garden look much prettier. This year it's a bit of a hodgepodge of herbs (summer savoury, dill, coriander, majoram, rosemary, anise hyssop and blue hyssop, borage, camomile and Vietnamese coriander) and other things that needed a sheltered home (sun flowers, grain amaranth, red cabbage).
The mint bed is also filling in. The lemon catmint is proving particularly tasty.
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| Colourful displays everywhere |
Roses, lavender and wild flowers are out in full bloom now and everything is looking colourful. All we need is some balmy sunshine to sit out and enjoy it all.
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| This is what we want! |
You seem to manage fine with your weather! is quinoa a short day crop? Our mangetout are flowering so we are hoping to sample them soon.
ReplyDeleteApparently the quinoa flowers in July/August and the seed is ready in Sept/Oct. Fancy giving it a try? Well, let's see how I get on with the harvest first though it sounds relatively straightforward: http://realseeds.co.uk/grains.html We've got tons of mangetout at the moment. I've now figured out which of the wigwams are mangetout and which are peas - I must do more labelling, I always think I'll remember, but of course with so many crops I don't!
ReplyDeleteMangetout is handy because the quality doesn't deteriorate with freezing like the beans'does. Ours (Oregon Sugar Pod) looks so different from the ordinary peas that even I remember which is which.
ReplyDeleteWe grow Oregon Sugar Pod, too, and Kelvedon Wonder and Douce Provence for podded peas though the latter is also good as mangetout. I might freeze some mangetout if they freeze well since we can hardly keep up at the moment! We're having them as snacks and in salad every day.
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