My homegrown harvest, July 2019.

July's been a month of raspberries.  Sooo many raspberries.  I only have autumn fruiting raspberries, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them fruiting now!

I've had loads of greens too, which I've been shredding, wilting in boiled water, then squeezing into little handfuls to freeze, so I can use it later in the year.

We had our first, one and only cherry, it was delicious, the variety is 'sweetheart'.

My 'discovery' apples started falling off the tree so I picked them all, which was a mistake as they're SUPER sour and nowhere near ripe!  They're on the windowsill, I hope they'll soak up some sun and get a bit sweeter. 

I didn't manage to grow any carrots last year so yey for carrots this year!  The variety is 'berlicum' and they're really nice. 

I've also had loads of strawberries, purple snap peas, potatoes, beets, some baby onions and a little baby garlic.

What have you been growing this month?

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My home grown harvest, June 2017.

Things.  Are.  Happening.  In the garden.  It's food.  And I'm growing it. 

This has been my best year so far for growing my own, and I'm really seeing the potential for being able to grow loads more as the garden progresses over the next couple of years.  My new raised bed in the back garden has been amazing and I want more!

I have so much lettuce, and so many peas.  The yellow mange tout I planted has been prolific.  Unfortunately they're not as tasty as the less prolific purple mange tout I planted last year, but happily the purple ones have self seeded so I have some of those too!

My favourite lettuce is this one, I'm not entirely sure what it is because I mixed some lettuce seed together without noting down what I was using, but it's huge and delicious.

I've had far too many mange tout to eat, so I've been blanching it in boiling water (about a minute - minute and a half is right for mange tout, it's probably not right, but I've just been doing odd handfuls in a mug of boiling water!), then drying and popping into a sterilised jar in the freezer to use in stir fries in the winter.

I've been enjoying garlic scapes, wet garlic and some unsuccessful elephant garlic (won't bother with that one again, I've included my finger in the photo for scale! It wasn't strong tasting enough for me either!)

 It's been my best year for strawberries.  I'm so happy!

We've been picking home grown herbs all spring and summer too, rosemary, thyme and sage are our favourites and Joe makes amazing herby roast potatoes.

How are your gardens?  Are you harvesting anything exciting?

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Diary of a suburban edible garden, May 2017.

The other morning the postman said to me 'your garden's gone woosh hasn't it?!'.  And 'woosh' is exactly the right way to describe the garden this month, it's been the perfect combination of roasting hot and big rainy that promotes lots of leafy wooshyness. 

Unfortunately the weeds have gone woosh as well as the plants I want, but you can't have everything!  The slugs ate all my seedlings when we went on holiday, and there's a blackbird nesting in my wigela so I can't get over there to prune and weed under it.  I'm quite happy to have a nester though, it shows the garden's attractive to wildlife which means I'm doing something right!

I've planted 3 new tiny trees this month!  In the side garden I've planted a rowan and a hazel.  There's a little oak tree too that I intend to grow in a pot (I'll increase the size of the pot as it grows, but there'll have to be some pruning too!).  I also bought a little dog rose to grow up the fence and (hopefully) hide the view of the neighbours heads bobbing up and down their driveway.  I bought all the saplings online from the Woodland Trust.

I wonder how many trees I can fit into my little garden.  I think I have 7 in the back garden and there's 4 in the front garden, and I have plans for loads more fruit trees.

My little apple trees have some apples on them!  Quite a lot have dropped off (June drop?), but I'm hoping for at least one home grown apple this year.

Here's the side garden, the raspberries are looking goood.

I have chives all over the garden and the bees are going mad for them.

The raised beds in the front garden are doing really well.  There's some slug damage on some plants, but I've got yellow and purple mange tout (the purple are self sown from last years plants), broad beans, minipops sweetcorn, borlotti beans, strawberries, nasturtiums, pattypans and some leeks in there.  It needs a bit of a weed!

The ground elder in the front garden definitely needs weeding!  Joe's dug loads out and we've covered the bare ground with cardboard, but there's still more to do (before those flowers set seed!).

My back garden raised bed is really giving me the happys.  The first photo is from 4 weeks ago, the next one is from now, so you can see how much it's grown in a month!

Woosh! 

I'm really pleased with the lettuces - I have never been able to grow salad and I currently have loads of the stuff.  I'm creating my own polyculture salad seed mixes to sow (and keeping track of them in my little gardening journal).  I just mix a few varieties of seeds that I think will complement each other and sprinkle them where I want them to grow.  I've been sprinkling quite liberally then eating the thinnings! 

I'll leave you with this beautiful rose, which smells lovely and has loads of flowers (because I didn't prune it last year and now it's about 8 foot tall!) and this lovely nigella flower cos it's pretty too!

PS.  I still haven't finished painting the fence! I did one more panel but it keeps raining!

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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