"Amaturer gardener update!" July 2012

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It’s been quite a few weeks since the last update and to say that the weather has been generally fab for slugs would be an understatement – considering how wet it is everything is growing, albeit somewhat slowly!

I have a rotation system going with the salad leaves, lettuce, spinach, cress, & radish – I suspect they are all the easy things to grow but have already picked several yields and everything taste yummy, somethings are growing quicker than we can eat it and has started to seed! (Note to self – “plant less!”) The radish taste lovely and yet its not my favourite food. My baby leeks look suspiciously like the spring onion crop and the baby beets, carrots and parsnips are all looking healthy – the selling point on the packet says “speedy veg!” – I think someone is telling porkies as they don’t grow fast at all – at this stage I’m a bit disappointed that they aren’t bigger but hey – they are growing!

I have a few purple sprouting and curly kale plants growing with my mini cauliflowers and they all look healthy, can’t wait to eat them!
My runners are now 6 foot tall, my dwarf beans around 3 foot but are thin and spindly even though they have flowers on them, they look rather pathetic – I planted sunflowers and sweet peas amongst them , which according to my research is a good match for companion plants – we’ll wait and see!

My Roma and tub tomatoes are happy to be outside and after the leaves turned a funny shade of silver – they now appear healthy and are once again growing and have tiny yellow flowers! Both the potatoes in the trench and in the pot have exploded, but I don’t know when I’m meant to dig them up! (It said ’early’s’ on the packet – but what exactly does that mean to an amaturer?)

I have a great range of herbs this year, I did however have to purchase another Rosemary plant and my chives have been amazing – the purple flower heads came out a few weeks ago and when my three year old niece saw them, she insisted they were bubbles! How wonderful – bubbles they will always be from now onwards! The chive flower can apparently be pickled, they do make a lovely toping on cream cheese jacket potato! Mmmm – yummy and colourful!

I have been investigating the properties of herbs – wow! It’s probably the lemon balm mint tea that I have been making for myself which has stopped me visiting GOY the last few weeks – I found out its a sedative! hee hee “zzzzzzzzz”

I have peppers and chilli’s growing in the mini plastic greenhouse, which did fly across the lawn, plants and all!

The mulberry tree and sweet chestnut look amazing this year, however the crab apple tree (planted before we arrived) has shed its brown crispy leaves! It looks awful and we have no idea why – surely it can’t be sun burn or lack of rain! I also have lots of figs on the tree and I know Yorkshire will be mad as her’s didn’t grow and she gave me the plant! I also have an extended family of hairy critters living in the wisteria – they are munching their way through the wisteria!

I’m really loving my garden this year, its practical, edible, pretty and exciting -however somewhat wet and there has been a noticeable lack of BBQ’s!

Must go – got strawberries to pick – actually we have had so many that we are not able to eat them fast enough!
Happy, happy, happy!!! :D

• 2 Jul, 2012
• 8 likes

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