(Almost) End of July Home Produced Round Up

I've been keeping a list of food from the garden this year, with great plans to weigh things for a running total to work out it's worth BUT of course I haven't weighed or counted. I know I've given away beans, tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers and eaten lots of everything.


An update of what I've had from the garden so far this year..........

• Lettuces
• Rocket and small beetroot leaves as salad leaves
• Lots of Cucumbers - and even more given away
• a few asparagus spears
• lots of rhubarb
• A surprising amount of strawberries from 6 new plants and a few from the old bed.
• 3lb of gooseberries
• Lots of raspberries and 3lb put in the freezer
• Several courgettes.
• New potatoes 
• Lots of tomatoes from greenhouse
• 2lb Redcurrants
• Several aubergines and more given away

New for July

• Beetroot
• Few mange-tout peas  - put in the freezer
• Green beans  - some put in the freezer
• 2 small Calabrese heads.
• Onions

I might as well have not bothered with squash or pumpkins in big pots - the plants grew, there are lots of flowers but Not One Single Squash on any of the 5 plants so far and the two pumpkin plants have produced one each - no bigger than a cricket ball and then the plants promptly keeled over and died. Back to putting squash in the garden next year and not growing pumpkins at all I think - I was only growing them to give away to the grandchildren anyway!

The 4 plants of  4 different brassica varieties are squeezed into too small a space so they might not do well - it seemed a good idea at the time to grow winter greens again after not doing so for a while but keeping the cabbage white butterflies off is a hard task,  I'll probably not bother next year.

I've no idea how the late sowing Runner Beans plan will go. The 1st June sowing are up the canes and flowering and the 1st July sowing are still only about 18 inches tall but as the French climbing beans are still very prolific there's no hurry. I've been trying to persuade Sis in Law that French climbing are a Much better idea than Dwarf French beans - they take up less space, don't get rain-splashed and you don't have to bend down so far to pick them. Maybe I'll pop some saved seed into the Christmas Hamper.

It's been lovely to see SiL and BiL enjoying vegetable gardening for the first time in many many years. Sil's job involves her travelling around the country, much responsibility and many hours but 4 months at home shielding BiL means that Board Meetings etc are now all online and that's given them both time to clear what was a patch of brambles and wildness into a very productive patch. Their greenhouse took her days to empty, tidy and clean but that too is now full of donated tomato plants - including a Black variety - which I didn't fancy eating at all - a bit too reminiscent of a Deadly Nightshade type thing!

Back Tomorrow
Sue