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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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, August 2017.

There's not been so much to harvest this month.  Which is ok, I'm still getting my timings right for successional planting and stuff.  I'm just happy to be eating homw grown food!

I was super pleased with my first little bean harvest and I'll definitely grow more beans next year.  I made some rice and beans with my borlotto beans, I always think it's such a shame they don't stay stripey when they're cooked!

I accidentally grew some beetroot!  I thought it was Swiss chard but no, on closer inspection they were beetroot and Joe's eaten them with his roast dinner as I don't like beetroot.  I've had a request to grow him some more so I've planted some more little clumps of seed to see if they'll grow over autumn and winter.

We've had loads of raspberries towards the end of the month.  I'm picking a couple of handfuls of them every other day and there are loads and loads still to come, it's such a good year for raspberries.  Joe and I had to share this sweetcorn because it's the only one that's grown.  It was super yummy though!

How are your gardens?  Are you harvesting anything exciting?

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My homegrown harvest, July 2017.

This has been a month of many courgettes!  

I need to sort my timings out for next year, and plan to do more successional  sowing, I've run out of lettuce and had the last of my peas, and didn't sow any more to replace them! 

I've had loads of courgettes however, I'm at the taking-courgettes-to-work-and-passing-them-off-to-my-colleagues stage of courgette glut.  

I had a gorgeous head of garlic, just from a clove of supermarket garlic I planted - it was so lovely and fresh. 

I've picked all my broad beans and the start of the borlotto beans, I'm not waiting for them to dry, I'll eat them fresh.

 

The rats tail radish has been prolific, unfortunately neither of us are keen on the seed pods, either raw or cooked.  They may be heading compostwards!  The flowers on the plants have attracted loads of hoverflies into the garden, so I might grow it again next year just for the insects. 

There's been a bit more that I didn't photograph, but not much.  We've had a few blueberries, but the blackbird has had more!  And my autumn bliss raspberries have produced a few berries too.  I'm not sure why, you can leave a cane of autumn rasps to over winter, then it'll fruit earlier in the summer, but I cut all my canes to the ground.  Whatever the reason the raspberries I've had have been so delicious, like sweeties.

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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