Tomato Glut

All this sun means lots of ripe tomatoes and a lot of watering to keep up with.  Work on re modeling the veg pach will continue after the weekend, we have already claimed a flower bed which will be used for a 2nd  crop of peas!  Liliana was a great help.

Recent harvest

A couple of photos during a harvest.  Mimi holding up an onion (that isn’t ready but never mind) whilst preparing the broad beans and eating a mouth full of peas!

Broad beans ready to be turned into pesto, as modeled by Liliana (who is recovering from chicken pox)

I heard rumour some tomatoes were picked too but, as usual, none made it to me.

The following is what we grow and how successful/popular said veg has been

When we moved in there was (and still is) an apple tree, a rhubarb plant and some wild blackberries.  The apples aren't ready yet but many are growing and the rhubarb is just awesome and replenishes quickly.  The blackberries will be made into an ice-cream but may have to bulk up from other sources.

Now for the stuff we planted:

Peas - kids love them, pods get picked and peas promptly eaten for a tasty sweet snack.
Broad Beans - grown ok, broad bean pesto is amazing.
Runner beans- not many yet, few we cooked we’re popular with the kids (and adults)
Carrots-  seem to be doing well, not ready yet
potatoes- as above
onions- again seem ok
Tomatoes-kids love picking these and they seldom make it to the house before being eaten
Cucumbers- 5 or so fine and tasty ones in May/June then nothing!
Chilies- few fruits but none ready yet
Peppers – same as chili
Aubergine- disaster.  No fruit then destroyed by some insects.
Raspberries- very tasty, shame we’ve only had 5 all year
Strawberries- not much fruit all of which has been eaten by birds/bugs
Spring onions- tasted odd, maybe they weren’t ready!

Think that’s everything.  I should have pointed out in my first post that none of us have ever grown anything before this year and have pretty much no idea other than what we’ve read in books, on internet or the back of seed packets!  We didn’t even have any garden tools until someone kindly lent us some.

The veg so far

Hello and welcome to our blog about our little veg garden.  It has a greenhouse, a veg patch roughly 2.5m x 2m, 2 compost bins,a water butt and various planters.  Thats the veg patch explained, now for the angels....

Liliana is 3, Mimi (who is actually called Imani but shall be refered to as Mimi) is nearly 2, Serenity is 3 months (ok so she isn't very active in the garden yet) and my wife Candice is around 21 or so.

Thats it really, the girls and I love the veg patch, the little uns learn so much from harvesting, helping to prepare then actually eating what they picked.  It also draws everyone into the garden and is pretty sociable helping each other look after the fruit n veg not to mention promoting healthy eating.

There is a lot more left to harvest this year and we are planning a make over during winter to make 2 smaller veg patches which are more accessable to the kids while also supplying more growing space.

Hurrah!