After the debacle of the custom fabric, I’m off crafty things for a few days, so time for a growing challenge update.
How lovely is this? A lemon cucumber. First time we’ve grown any of these. Last year we grew Apple cucumber, both are good. We’ve had a few surprises in the garden this year. Some strange squash, that obviously crept in with the courgette seeds we bought, we planted Lebanese cucumbers but the variety we have grown are what I think are Marketmore (a bit of a mix up at Kings seeds I think), but growing very well all the same and some plants we were given anf told they were Cavalo Nero are actually Cabbage Palm Di Toscana.
We’ve just harvested our first Pak Choy tonight. Our garlic have been harvested, they are average to small size, but it’s our first time with those too this year.
We had an interesting time growing Potatoes. We planted Ilam Hardy as our early crop (next to a hedge, not great soil), and Karaka as our mains. Both very small harvests, I think due to the soil condition, not lack of water. The Ilam hardy I didn’t like and wouldn’t grow again. We had a third crop come up, self sown Karakas from last year, where we planted between out two lemon trees and where we dump the fireplace ashes in Winter. Those are awesome, huge potatoes, about 3 to 4 times the size of our other two plantings. So we have chucked in a fourth crop to see if we can get some more before the frosts come in Autumn. Just planted some Agria this time.
The cherry tomates are doing great, I’m getting about 30 or so a day, and the big tomatoes (lots of different varieties) are just coming ripe now, I am getting one or two a day.
We are noticing a huge difference in our two raised beds. One is half mushroom compost and half dirt (and stones), the other in the new one we put in this year that is just compost. Beetroot is growing hugely better in the compost, about double the rate of the old bed, same with the spring onions. I think the mushroom compost just holds the moisture a lot better. It was a good investment.
We still have lots to do, like successive planting, planning our winter veg etc, but it’s hard to get much done its been so hot. We are expecting some rain tonight, which will be very welcome.
All in all we are doing pretty well, I now don’t need to buy any vegetables from the shops, just fruit. We did get some more raspberries and blackberries on the weekend, that’s the last of the raspberries for this year, they were a month early, but we can still get more blackberries. Yum.
