This is a special year. Special because (for one year only), I'm allowed to use the garden as well as the allotment to grow my veg. That's the whole garden, not just the greenhouse and a couple of cherry tomato hanging baskets.
That's not to say the garden is exclusively veg, and in fact I've had the time this year to improve the non veg areas of our garden too. But this blog is about veg and I think for the first time ever, I can say there isn't a single part of the garden that isn't in use, because I've been able to marry together grow bags, hanging baskets, potato bags, borders and the greenhouse to supplement the shrubs and annnual bedding that we're lucky that our garden already features.
And, as in last week's update, we're harvesting veg in the garden too. Let's start in the greenhouse, The tomatoes, peppers and chillis are well established now but won't be fruiting for another month or so. The cucumbers on the other hand...
Last count I had 13 ridge cucumbers (the smaller ones) READY. So those who know me and live close by...and would like some, just let me know and I'll pop some by! There are even some outdoor cucumbers successfully growing too!
Also harvesting are the beans. Now a colleague at work has asked me if you can grow runner beans in a grow bag. Well the short answer I think is no, as they take up too much space, need plenty of enrichment from the soil they grow in and I'm not sure how easy they'd be to stake anyway. Mine are growing in a raised bed between the lawn and a path below. But no, it's not the runners that I'm harvesting yet, as they're just on the start of their journey (as evidenced by the lack of progress up the poles (below) and the presence of a carrot 'catch crop' growing in bewteen the bean plants themselves which I will harvest in a month or so's time, whilst I wait).
It's the dwarf french beans I'm harvesting now. But yes, Michelle, you can grow these type of beans in a grow bag...or a large pot...or even a polystyrene box as I am this year.
They've only taken 10 weeks or so to get to the point where we can pick our first produce, and once they get going, they are quite prolific croppers. We're able to pick enough for 3 people every couple of days...and if you pick regularly they'll keep cropping for 4-6 weeks.
We've also been self sufficient in lettuce for the past month. This is through a combination of hanging basket and grow bag (netted to protect from the resident birds in our area).
I've also gone for a real mix of 'leaves' (red and green) as well as traditional lettuce (like your Cos and Iceberg) and what we do to preserve the season is just take the outer leaves from the plants...and let them keep growing more to replace them!
Also growing in hanging baskets are the cherry tomatoes (below, above another grow bag of normal tomatoes). These aren't quite ready to harvest yet but there are loads of yellow flowers and if previous seasons are anything to go by, once they start turning to fruit, we'll be ok for tomatoes all the way through to autumn.
Which brings us round to the potatoes experiment in the small potato growing sacks.
Well we have growth at the top (albeit, not as healthy as I would like) so not really sure about these till we harvest, Mind you, next week we'll start lifting the first potatoes from the plot (below right) so hopefully that should give them the time they need to recover.
I've also got carrots scattered in a few beds amongst the annuals and some sweet potatoes emerging from an old plastic container (below) I've added a shoulder of cardboard too to make a bit bigger.
So there you go. Add to that courgette plants in hanging baskets, tomato, beetroot, spinach and radish, all interwoven into the main garden at various points in the garden and a herb area thrown in too and I'm pleased with this year so far, Although I will be keeping an eye on the local weather forecast this weekend as it has been unseasonably windy around here of late and I have lost a couple of cucumber plants as a result. Possibly just as well though...imagine how many cucumbers I'd have if they'd survived!
Anyway, till next time....
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