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 homegrown harvest, June 2019.

Things are finally growing in my garden!  These are the first potatoes of the year - it was a mix of varieties.  The potatoes aren't quite ready so I just rummaged around in the soil and pulled out some big feeling potatoes without disturbing the plants too much! 

I've had my first raspberries.  I'm slightly perturbed that these are my 'autumn bliss' raspberries and they're all coming now!  Is this climate change?  Did I prune them crazy wrong last year?  What will I eat in autumn!?

The first strawberries have arrived too, I only eat home grown strawbs so these are a proper treat.  The first ever yellow raspberries came, a small total harvest of 5 berries but there's a big cane growing already for next year.  Purple snap peas and tons of kale and chard too.

I'm trying to keep up with picking and drying home grown herbs this year, I've picked oregano and mint this month to dry.  

I trimmed the onion tops back and ended up with a washing up bowl full of onion tops!  I washed and chopped them all, froze two boxes full, and popped another box in the fridge to be used up in stir fries, fritters, Joe's omelettes and I made a particularly delicious green onion pancake too.  I thinned out my cabbage seedlings and ate them, because waste not want not. 

It's all about the berries though this month, I've been out picking them every day! 

That's about it for this month, have you been harvesting much from the garden this month?

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Dairy of a permaculture (ish) garden, June 2019.

I love it when the foxgloves flower, they're soo beautiful!

Our biggest garden-y excitement this month has been that the driveway is almost finished!  Seven 850kg bags of gravel have been spread (we may have bought one too many, but we've come up with  a plan for it!).  Joe's about to put up a new fence, there's a bin store to build and we want a couple of big pots with something pretty in by the front door (any suggestions - we want something hardy and evergreen and it's mostly shady apart from a few hours of sun in the morning).  I have a new waterbutt too, it's 250 litres and filled in one night - it's been really rainy here!  We've also had new guttering and facias so please note how nice and shiny they are because they cost £1700 (our old ones were asbestos...).

I think the gravel will be slightly less white and a bit more more pale grey once the rain's washed the dust off.  Look at this side path too - I think it's sooo nice!

The front garden raised beds are doing really good!  I've already had my first potatoes and there are beans and peas growing in with the potatoes too.  I've got carrots and beets on the way, and I've trimmed all my onions back because they were hitting the top of their protective mesh (the internet said I could trim them back to 4 inches high a couple of times during the growing season, and it would send more energy into making a bigger bulb, so we shall see).  I've had loads of kale, the sweetcorn is up and my tomatoes and peppers have flowers on them!

I've got little apples on my little apple tree! 

I've got broad beans, peas and borlotto beans in my back garden raised beds.  There are some courgettes in the other raised bed and a lot of weeds too (not pictured!).

Here's the garden in full for posterity. 

How's your garden doing?  Every time I plant a new plant a slug eats it and I'm getting fed up of that, and I had to pull up nearly all of my outside tomatoes because of blight, but otherwise I'm enjoying my garden! 

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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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My homegrown harvest, June 2018.

I'm not disappointed with my harvests this month, it's always nice to have fresh kale and home grown strawberries.  But I can't help feeling like I had much more to show last year.  A slow start due to a cold spring, too much sun and not enough rain now, and not having as much space to grow because I've temporarily lost my front garden raised beds are all to blame I think.  None of my lettuce has germinated and I can't believe I've gone since last year with no home grown lettuce.  I've just sown some more, I hope it will grow! 

Anyway, here are my little harvests for this month, 

Have you been eating anything from your garden yet?  Hope it's going better than mine!

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My homegrown harvest, May 2018.

I've just had a few little pickings from the garden so far this year, but the first of anything is always the sweetest!

These are onion scapes - unopened flowers from my Siberian perennial onions. Nice in a stir fry but they're a bit slimy to be honest!

I'm not entirely sure what variety these are, I think some are red spring onions and some are baby leeks - they came out of the raised beds as Joe was emptying them to be moved.  They're very strong!

'Scuse this terrible phone photo, but this is the first kale I've picked this year.  In fact I think this is the first kale I've successfully grown, so yey!  I know you're supposed to be able to pick it all winter, but my plant was only little so I waited for spring to come and for it to grow a bit more before harvesting from it. 

Have you been eating anything from your garden yet?

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Diary of a suburban food garden, September 2016.

This month my strawberries have put out loads of runners and I've been trying to tame them!  There are a couple of strawb plants in each end of my front garden raised bed and they've put out a crazy amount of runners.  I've been training them downwards, into the gravel on the drive and round the base of the raised bed - I hope they'll grow happily there and I'll get a bumper crop of strawberries next year!

Down the side of the house my herbs and fruit are growing well.  I'm about to chop that apple tree to a knee height stub, as recommended in the book 'Grow a Tiny Fruit Tree'.  It's a bit nerve wracking so I keep putting it off!  But if I'm brave and cut it soon (I've missed the time for summer pruning, but apparently I can do it in winter too) the tree should never get higher than head height, so I won't need a ladder to pick the fruit.

My Autumn Bliss raspberries are doing really good, they're in their second year now.  I re-watched Alys Fowler's Edible Garden series on YouTube and she said to leave them to flop over, rather than staking them upright.  When they're flopped over the leaves hide the ripe berries from the birds, which means more for you!   It's working so far!

I planted this kale last year and it's taken it ages to get going, but I think I might actually get to eat some kale from it soon!

I've been doing a bit of winter sowing and planting.  I've sown some greens, perpetual spinach, chard, red beet leaves, dinosaur kale and red kale, I think I may be woefully late but all my spring and summer sowings failed and I'm desperate for some homegrown leafy greens!  If the worst comes to the worst I'll resow in spring, but I'm hoping for a bit more sun to get these seeds started!

I also bought some pretty bulbs and some reduced seeds (50p per packet!).  I'll plant the bulbs now and the seeds in the spring.

I've not had a great year for tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins or pattypans - I've had hardly any!  All my tomato plants have been grown from seed and they've all been weedy and horrible looking and only given me one or two toms per plant.  I usually grow tomatoes in this lovely butlers sink, but they're just not happy there!  Every flower on the plant on the right has shrivelled up and gone brown, and the plant on the left has given me one fairly small tomato!

This is my most best and biggest tomato plant, a san marzano also grown from seed, it seems super happy here by the conservatory wall and has grown so big it blocks the path.  There are quite a few tomatoes on it, but they're all green so far. 

And here's the whole garden.  I have a lot of weeding to do!  But I'm happy with the evening primrose that's popped up!

How's your garden this month?

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