We thought it was about time for an update from out little garden in the Garden of England, lots has been happening in the 6 months since we moved in!
As you can see from the before and after photos, our vegetable beds have been quite successful!
In the new photo, which I took this morning, you're looking at tomatoes, sweetcorn, courgettes, globe artichoke, strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, peas and chard on the left and cabbage, jerusalem artichoke, beans (broad and borlotti), herbs, blueberries, lettuce and garlic on the right. Considering we only started our garden 4 months ago I think we've done pretty well!
Our best harvests have been courgettes and chard as you would expect and our giant cabbage, which you can see Matt holding in this picture. We made an indulgent cabbage casserole (cooked with garlic, blue cheese and bacon) and bubble and squeak burgers (mashed pots, cabbage, onions, garlic and peas browned in some oil).
The only vegetable that we brought with us from London were broad beans and they did quite well until the aphids attacked but we have a second lot in now which I sowed about a month ago. They managed to fight through the slugs and get to a suitable height and we don't have the pigeon problem here that we had in London so they should give us a little crop before it gets too cold for them.
Speaking of slugs. We've found a secret weapon...Matt! Every evening he goes on a slug hunt and collects all of them (from the giant orange to the tiny brown) with his bare hands (yuck!) to be disposed of.
When mummy and Nick were last visiting we went on a walk and found lots of elders heavy in berries so Matt and I went on a collecting mission at the beginning of the week and came back with two tubs. We now have 4 jars of elderberry and blackberry jam (blackberries from the freezer that we collected from the garden in Wimbledon). We haven't tried it yet but it smells lovely!
The final update is on our potatoes, which are a beautiful purple colour (very me!). This is the first year we're tried to grow them. We used 6 large tubs and this is the crop from 3 of them. I didn't chit the seed potatoes for very long and I only put one in some of the tubs where they could have had 2 or 3 but for our first effort I'm delighted!
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