It's been a funny year for weather so far - very dry early on and now quite wet, it's hardly a surprise that a lot of things haven't done very well so far or are just growing too slow. There are, despite this, lots of successes too. My flower garden is growing very well (although somewhat munched by slugs and snails) and I've managed to start harvesting. There's been lots of chores to do in the garden, which have kept me busy and I'm happy that things are moving on.
Edible wall
This year I decided to use some old pallets that I got from local builders to make a wall where my pergola once stood. Severe weather took down my neighbour's fence and did a bit of damage to our garden, the cherry tree getting the worst of it, so I wanted to upgrade that side to include an edible wall as I have a grape vine and the not so very well cherry tree.
It was an easy construction - a bit of paint and some liner and with my husband's help to create feet so that it would stand, I planted nasturtiums, strawberries and cucamelons to create a colourful, trailing mix.
Coming along quite nicely. I originally chose a blue paint, which I hated so immediately swapped to this cool, green, which I think fits better.
Filling out: The nasturtiums have filled out the best, with the strawberries ripening up. The cucamelons have just started to grow on a bit more but it'll be a few weeks before we see any fruit on those.
Harvest
I was kept busy by harvesting rhubarb, garlic and broad beans today. My rhubarb normally does very well, but it didn't seem to like this year and I've not managed to pick much there. The broad beans were a different story - I've only just started picking them today. There's already 400g in the freezer and there's still plenty more to be picked over the next 2-3 weeks. This year the garlic has done well too. We seem to have enough for about 9 months of the year, so I should really take note and grow more as we love using garlic in our home cooking!
Garlic drying out in the sun before I tie them up and store them.
The broad beans take a long time removing from their pods but well worth it when you eat them!
Just some of the broad beans and rhubarb I harvested today.
Moving on
Now that my broad beans are coming to an end and the garlic bed is clear, I will need to find something to fill those gaps. A couple of months ago I sowed French beans and out of about 30 seeds, I only got one plant! The reason behind the poor germination is unknown but I can guess that maybe it could be because the packets I used (I tried 2 varieties) were getting old. So, I purchased 2 more varieties: Ferrari and Polka, which are dwarf French beans. Fingers crossed these will germinate this time as my family love French beans.
I've also been looking at making the garden more self sufficient in itself, examining the science behind soil, invertebrates and plant nutrition and I'll share my ideas and work in my next blog. Until then, keep enjoying you outdoor space!
