My homegrown harvest, August 2018.

So, it's a good year for raspberries.  They started early, I've had soo many and there are sooo many still to come.  No complaints, they're my favourite.

I've had lots of firsts this month too - first home grown apples (last year the squirrels ate a share of the only one!) and first tomatoes of the year, there are loads of green ones on the plants, but they seem to be ripening one by one! 

I've got nine blueberry plants, in their 2nd or 3rd year, and I'm getting ok crops off them now.  Lots of kale too, all of just one plant, I'm giving the stuff away!

Anyway, I think I mentioned my homegrown apples then got distracted by kale, I had 8 apples off my Discovery apple tree, and 2 off my other apple tree, that I bought as a Discovery apple but definitely isn't (it was a very cheapo tree from Wilkos!).  Woohoo!  Apples!  I'm doing the thing and growing my own fruit.  One day I will be Barbara from the Good Life. 

Finally, here is a spring onion.  A caterpillar popped out of it just as I was about to cut it up, and made me jump, and then the caterpillar fell on the floor and I haven't been able to find it, so there's a caterpillar on the loose in the kitchen somewhere. I'm not sure why I had one random spring onion in my raised bed, but I did and now I've eaten it and it was yummy. 

What have you been growing and eating this month? 

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Diary of a suburban edible garden, March 2017.

I'm so busy this month in the garden, I have so much I want to get done!

I've been planting seeds all over the place, down the side garden I've planted Californian poppy, crimson clover and vetch seeds around my apple tree.  Clover and vetch are used as green manures, their roots help the soil structure and fix nitrogen, I'm hoping by planting them here I can improve the soil a little, it's really poor in this bed.  I've also planted a little clematis up the fence at the back.

Lots of raspberry suckers have popped up this spring.  I'm really happy about that, because yey, I get free plants and free food!  Nothing else really grows very happily here, apart from weeds and Mediterranean herbs, so if the raspberries want to take over that's fine by me! 

I made a cute little washing up bowl pond this month.  This is recommended by the RSPB as a good way to attract wildlife into your garden.  Mum gave me a bucket o' pond weed and frogspawn from her pond so I'm really hoping I get some frogs!

I decided it was high time I cleaned out my greenhouse, it's all shiny now.  And I've planted a LOT of seeds (see here for a list of everything I'm planting).  That packet of mixed perennials cost about 70p on sale last year, I can't wait to see what grows from it! 

I've been seed starting in cut down loo rolls and egg boxes, and propagating in our conservatory.  I'm starting the seeds in there, then moving them to the greenhouse once they've grown on a bit.

Look at the buds on these blueberries - can't wait!  'Scuse the weeds.

Joe's been working hard on the hedge at the back of the garden.  He's trimmed a lot off the height, the only problem is it's quite thin now and people walking down the alley keep noseying in our garden! 

The next job is to dig away some of that bank of soil at the base of the hedge and reclaim the garden!  The soil there comes out several feet and we're going to have to put that soil somewhere, soooo... I bought a couple of raised beds.  They're phase one of our project to get rid of the (horrible, patchy, weedy, bumpy) lawn.  I've only put one together so far, but there's another exactly the same.  We're going to fill them with soil and plant them up, then start mulching and planting over the lawn.  Until it's all gone.  Buh-bye lawn. 

It's looking very 'work in progress' right now.  I must finish painting the fence before summer kicks in and there's too many plants to get through.  I've got to get rid of that table too, it's been in the middle of the garden for ever, can you tell I'm not quite sure what to do with it! 

How's your garden this month?

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My suburban garden harvest, August 2016.

This plate just makes me smile.  I think it's such a beautiful little harvest!  And I picked my first carrots and purple sugar snap peas!

I've been picking the last of the onions I planted in my front garden raised beds last autumn, they're small but perfectly formed.

I've only planted a few broad bean plants, so I've not had a massive harvest, but enough to add to some chickpeas to make falafels.

Blueberries started ripening this month too!  I've had a fair few little handfuls, enough for Joe to enjoy for breakfast.  One of the strawberries in the raised beds has had a few late fruits on.

I made some lovely herby roast potatoes with my homegrown rosemary and thyme - yum!

Speaking of potatoes, I emptied my second pot of Casablanca potaotes, it was definitely worth leaving them in the pot for longer, I got loads more! 

I feel like this month has been a happy harvest month, I've eaten so much lovely homegrown food! 

How has your garden been this month?  Have you had lots to harvest?

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Garden, May 2016.

I've decided that there's gardening weather and there's enjoying the garden weather.  We've had a good mix of both this month, grey days where you can dig loads without getting too sweaty, and lovely warm days where no digging is allowed, only sitting in the sun with a cold drink will do.  

Despite neglecting the garden to stress about our wedding, and if you ignore the weedy patches at the back, the garden is looking quite pretty this month. 

My main project has been digging the weeds (so many weeds) from the back part of the garden.  The nettles have grown so fast, they're as tall as me! 

Here's a before photo, and one of where I'm up to now.   I'm digging the weeds and an inch or two of soil up with it to try to remove as much of the roots as I can.  I did the same to the front half of this garden bed last year, it was time consuming but there are hardly any perennial weeds left, so definitely worth it.

Mum gave me some of the compost from her compost heap, so I've been sprinkling that all around the garden.

I've planted out some tomatoes (San Marzano and Mortgage Lifter) into the Belfast sink, my peppers have had a slow start but they're doing ok, and my first row of organic rainbow carrots have gone into the front garden raised bed.  I've planted out purple peas by my wigwam, and a row of beetroot (there was some lettuce too but that's been nibbled!).  Everything seems a bit slow in the garden at the moment, is it the same for you?

The side garden has pretty much recovered from being stomped on while having new fence now.  I've replanted all of the herbs and added a couple of apple trees I picked up on sale (they cost £2.50 and £3.50 each).  One is a 'Discovery' apple and the other is a family apple tree, it has 'Golden Delicious' and 'Champion' apples on the same tree.  Witchcraft I say! 

I also bought loads of clematis (bargain £1.77 from Morrisons) to climb up the new fence.  We didn't know the neighbours had arranged curvy fences, we don't like them and they don't give enough privacy so I'm trying to solve the problem with trees and climbers! 

Speaking of clematis, this one was in a pot in the garden when we moved in.  I planted it up the fence last year but it didn't flower.  This year I put a greenhouse in front of it, which apparently it loves because it's flowering away and looking so beautiful!

Last May I was digging up the first half of the weeds, the garden looked so different then!

How are your gardens this month?

I'm trying to spend 20 minutes a day in the garden, and I'm posting about it on Instagram.

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