It is the start of August and I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what has been working well in the garden and what has not.
What's going well:
- This is the first year growing tomotoes in the ground rather than in growbags and they are thriving. It is also the first year where I have grown all the plants myself from seed. I am still weeks away from my first harvest but I have high hopes.
- I had a great crop of first early potatoes. The variety is Home Guard. Great tasting with a medium harvest on each plant. I am down to the last few plants now but I am impressed that a 2.5Kg bag of seed potatoes has been providing the house with potatoes for nearly 2 months. My main reason for growing potatoes this year was to break up the ground on a new raised bed I built over the winter. I might consider growing them again next year if I have the space.
- Cabbage and broccoli has been going down well at dinner.
- My homemade cloche gave me a month head start on my neighbours and since it is made out of left over building materials had cost me nothing to make.
- This year I managed to get the back garden into reasonable condition with 4 permanent raised beds made from recycled decking timbers, proper paving around the garden, and a lawn. At the moment I wont count the lawn among the successes.
I have a number of new crop that I have tried for the first time this year.
- I have just started harvesting my first crop of garlic and am very impressed. Easy to grow and low maintenance. The wet garlic has great flavour in cooking. Lessons learnt are to use cultivated bulbs from your garden centre and not your supermarket bought variety.
- Endives have also been a great new crop this year. Easy to grow as a cut and come again crop. Will be substituting endives for lettuce in the future. They are lower maintenance and the taste is superior.
- It is also my first time growing chinese cabbage. Since we do a lot of Asian cooking in the house, chinese cabbage stir fried goes well with lots of meals. The crop needs a lot of space and is prone to bolting in the warm weather.
- I am looking forward to harvesting my first sweetcorn in a few weeks. Each plant has a couple of cobs set but they are still a while away from being large enough to eat.
The ugly:
- The lawn is a mixed bag. I am happy to have levelled the garden and picked out all the stones and building rubble but there just seem to be as many weeds in the lawn as there is grass. It is a never ending job pulling them out.
- My chillies grown from bought seed have been a disaster this year. I have never grown them before but it is a crop I would like to master so I wont be giving up so easy.
- My Pak Choi has been mostly a none event this year. I suspect the seed is old.
- Will be dropping lettuce next year and replacing with endives for my salads leaves.
I still have lots of crops in the in garden and will reflect on these at the end of the summer.
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