Pictures of a Neglected Garden

Today's Harvest

With the new house being finished, and moving and major projects taking up all my time, my garden has been sadly neglected. About the only time I've visited it is to put scraps into the compost bin, and pause to pick a few things. It seems like no-one has told the garden it's being neglected though, since it's still producing just fine without me. The tomatoes are still chugging along. I've harvested probably a couple of kilo's of tomatoes off of the 6 plants, and have been freezing them to make tomato sauce, which hopefully I'll find time for in the next few days. The goosberries seem to like the cooler weather, or maybe it's the fact that I revamped their bed with new compost before all this started, because they've put on new growth, and lots more blueberries. The climbing peas have all fallen over and are totally tangled, but we get a handful of peas like this off them every day or two. They are certainly a good producer if you're going to grow peas! We actually cooked them tonight, just very lightly, and as with all homegrown stuff, they taste so totally different to what you buy in the stores. Almost like they're a different vegetable. DD even ate two, and she's never voluntarily eaten a pea in her life!

We also picked the first strawberry today. I've been watching this one for a few days, and this morning pronounced it good enough to eat. DD and DH shared it. Surprisingly enough, the one next to it, which isn't even showing any colour in this picture, was red enough to pick this afternoon, and I ate it before I told anyone else about it! It was beautifully sweet, without a hint of the tartness that seems to characterise store bought strawberries these days. With all the fertaliser I've been giving these, they're much bigger than they were last year, and the plants are loaded with flowers. I will be having huge jam making sessions this year. That is, if I can keep them from the hungry horde (and me)!

The potato patch that I planted about two months ago is doing well. I've been hilling the plants with dried grass and some sugarcane mulch, but no matter how much I keep hilling, they keep growing! Hoping to get a good harvest this year. There are 25 plants there, and I'm hoping for over 100 potatoes. We could start burrowing under the grass and probably harvest some small ones now, but given how many potatoes our family eats, I think it's more economical to wait till they're full size. Hopefully these will be ready to harvest within the next month. The sheets over the back fence is my half hearted attempt at frost protection. So far though, there has been no sign of a frost. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

This second, smaller potato patch near the compost bin is also doing well. There are about 16 potatoes planted here, in a much smaller area. They're probably a month behind the others, so hopefully overall we'll get enough potatoes to see us through a few months. I will plant some more soon, as I believe you can plant potatoes close to all year round here. Only problem is going to be finding seed potatoes to plant.

The seeds I planted a few weeks ago are coming up. The ones in the bottom left corner are Roma tomatoes, about 20 plants, then some sunflowers and nasturtians. Can't remember what the rest are, but I guess I'll find out!

I've also planted up some more climbing peas after the success of the last lot. I have a special spot planned for these guys though, which I shall be posting about the the next week or so hopefully.