Saturday 9 July 2016

Summer garden abundance


There's the usual mixture of triumph and tragedy in the garden this year. The mice have had almost all the allotment strawberries. I think I shall take them out. I spent ages nurturing them last year and netting them this year, all to no avail. Every berry has gone now, ripe or unripe. I found piles of them rotting gently underneath the broad beans. Frustrating. The ground will be better used for something else. The garden strawberries have done quite well though. They're nearly at an end now. I haven't made any jam but we've had more strawberries and cream than you could shake a stick at.

The raspberries are ripening and I've picked masses of tayberries. Leafy things are doing well, especially the weeds, they've been absolutely phenomenal this year. The salad is making up for it though.

The wineberry flowers are buzzing with bees which surprised me a bit. They're tiny and its quite hard to spot when they're open, but the bees seem to know. It's good that the soft fruit is staggered slightly otherwise I'd be a bit overwhelmed.

Broad beans are doing their usual thing of all being ready at once. I've frozen quite a few although my favourite way to eat them is raw while they're still small and bright green. I've taken out the first lot of sugar snap peas and now it's a wait until the next batch are ready.

This time of year is a pleasure, when there's something from the plot or the garden at every meal. Blueberries or raspberries at breakfast time, handfuls of mixed salad leaves for lunch - sorrel, mustards, rocket and lettuce, then broad beans, courgettes or artichokes at dinner followed by something with the fruit.

Everything isn't perfect in the garden, there are no peaches at all this year, most of the cucumber plants didn't survive and the garlic has rust, but there are enough successes and good things to eat to make it all worthwhile. How is your growing going?

33 comments:

  1. Your garden harvest looks delicious! Our garden is a disaster this year and so far, only artichokes have been a success. All my quinces have fallen off, I think the little stems have rotten off. Have a lovely weekend. x

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  2. I'm glad to hear of your garden successes. We have a few green tomatoes on the plants and some other things growing in pots, but we haven't been able to eat anything yet. Thank heavens for the grocery store or we'd starve. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  3. Ohhhhhh I'm admiring your photos. Your garden is lovely. It's so beautiful!

    My garden is a disaster this year, too. The weeds are horrible because of an invasive plant called hairy galinsoga. It's so bad now that I'm not going to have a garden outside next year. I'll grow most of what we need in the high tunnel and buy a few things from a local farmer.

    Thank you for sharing your garden with us. It's very inspiring!

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  4. You have so much yummy fruit and veg. Those berries are making my mouth water. I think I may have been a bit late in sowing my seeds as my veggie plot is only just starting to produce stuff. R and I spent a merry weekend fencing it in to keep the deer out. It worked (although I do feel a bit guilty when I see them peering through!) but, sadly, doesn't keep out the slugs and snails which have demolished my beans and cavolo nero. Like you we have weeds galore this year. I have a mega weeding session planned for this morning, then I'll reward myself with a bit of Wimbledon. Enjoy your Sunday. xx

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  5. Same here, I'm growing all my salad leaves in crates as the ones in the beds were decimated by the slugs. First year growing raspberries and the strawberries are producing masses- I either need to learn how to make jam or reduce the plants! My cutting patch is lush but little flower at the moment. Have s lovely Sunday :) xxx

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    1. Brilliant that the berries are doing so well, especially as its their first year. Cordial is fantastic, I've just discovered it. Great as a drink, but also as a drizzle on ice-cream or rice pudding. And jam is always good to have, I make one with strawberries and a smaller amount of raspberries and it's lovely. No doubt the cutting patch will be in flower before too long, and hopefully it'll go on until October, maybe even later. Hope you have a good Sunday too. CJ xx

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  6. An enjoyable post and lovely pictures. Good to see that there's enough to make it worthwhile. Shame about the plot strawberries. As you know my growing has been rather fraught at times but thankfully like you there's been a few successes. Happy gardening! Flighty xx

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  7. your garden is looking wonderful x mine is over run with slugs. my defences have failed.... also the weeds.... oh my....

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  8. Gosh, it all looks SO abundant, healthy and beautiful. Well done, CJ. Delicious rewards for all your hard work. I've been very slack on the produce front this year – just tomatoes (which don't seem that prolific this year and none ripening yet), raspberries (loads coming) and strawberries (as well as slugs, something else is definitely eating them – pulling them off and nibbling them, perhaps mice, so we haven't had that many). But I have lots of flowers, so that's fine! I'm sure mealtimes are great at your place :-) Sam x

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  9. What a shame about your strawberries at the allotment but I'm glad you still have managed to grow them in the garden and have some to enjoy. Our wineberry is looking better than it has ever looked so maybe we will get more than just a small handful of berries this year.

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    1. Yes, mine took two or three years to get well established. Now it's going from strength to strength.

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  10. Oh well done CJ. As long as the triumphs outweigh the tragedies and you are enjoying the fruits of your labours you are winning. Loads of strawberry and raspberry recipes in yesterday's Guardian Cook section including raspberry and lemon verbena sorbet which I will definitely be making. It is so strange how mice cache the unripe strawberries. This happened to me a couple of years ago which is why I moved to growing ever-bearing strawberries as well as the main summer crop, but it hasn't happened since.

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  11. There are weeds a plenty and the puppy seems to be digging up anything we might have eaten. I've managed to salvage some courgettes and lettuce though! Despite your allotment strawberries it sounds as though you are reaping a lovely harvest from your garden.

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  12. What a great harvest, we don't grow masses but the little we do grow is doing well. Still no sign of a tomato yet.

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  13. Beautiful photos CJ. Those tayberries are amazing! We don't have those around here, but I just looked them up - a cross between red raspberries and blackberries, sounds interesting.

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  14. A lovely selection to be sure :-). I can't remember the last time we ate shop veggies (obvs we did until summer, but you know what I mean!). Salad leaves rule here. Sorry about your strawberries, but the owls and kestrels will be thanking you in the long run ;-) xx

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  15. Looks like you're well on top of things CJ. It's starting to get back on track here, even if I am still living in chicken wire Fort Knox. How wonderful it was to eat mange tout with lunch today which half an hour earlier were still growing on the plants.

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  16. Very pleased I've found another wonderful blog! The photos are excellent and I love reading about other peoples experiences. Like everyone else I'm spending so long dealing with weeds. I've had plenty of problems this year but growing food is still enjoyable. Keep up the good blog.

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  17. Sounds like the success outweigh the disasters. Can you think of it this way, you have made some very little mice very happy.
    Hugs,
    Meredith

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  18. While other gardeners have courgettes in surplus we have yet to succeed in growing them in the 7 years we have lived here, but this year one plant has blossoms so I am hopeful we will at least get a few. We have some tomatoes forming and the rainbow chard is still alive as is one basil plant. The little apple trees are burdened with fruit!
    Have you ever tried grating courgettes, spreading them in a pie pan, baking them for a bit and then pouring a quiche mixture over them and baking until the quiche mixture is firm? It is a change from a traditional pie crust that I like. xx

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  19. Love these images of your garden/allotment. Especially the water lily.
    Keep them coming. :-)

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  20. It all looks fabulous, CJ, so very productive. What a lot of berries. It's a shame about the strawberries, sounds like they'd be better off in the garden rather than the allotment. My favourite broad bean thing at the moment is to whizz them with some feta cheese to make a dip.
    My strawberries are still flowering and only just turning into tiny green fruit, we must be at least a month behind up here! Rhubarb is doing phenomenally here right now and I'm running out of things to do with it xx

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  21. such gorgeous abundance.

    i won't lie, i'm very envious. we are, again - although even worse than last year - drought-ridden. i'm at the point of prioritizing what gets watered..just wanting to keep the blackberry bushes and strawberries alive...with no expectation of fruit.

    i actually had to pinch off the strawberry flowers so that the plant didn't use the energy to make fruit. true story. horrifying, but true.

    i'm feeling very Darwinian about the whole thing though...saving some peas from the plants that did well....eyeing up the toms and zucchini to do the same. i'm hoping to get another round of peas and salad greens in August - and hopefully even some turnip. i'm nothing if not optimistic. :)

    on the bright side, there are hardly any weeds either. ;)

    xo

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  22. we always have to take the good with the bad in gardening... mice, grr!! your other berries though do look rather juicy. and being able to eat something from your garden at every meal - it's what we do it for, isn't it?

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  23. You win some, you lose some in this gardening thing of ours. Glad to see you're winning more than losing. My foes are slugs and badgers - I fail every time! But I'm learning to live with them rather than battle with them. Or trying to. In the meantime we have lots of some things and none of others, but that's fine.
    I love your photos, especially the cool peaceful pond. Thanks!

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  24. Beautiful photos, CJ. It looks like you've had a lot of success so far. I especially love the look of your different kinds of berries. I wish I could grow them here. I do have a strawberry patch but I have to keep my hens out of it because they will decimate it in seconds. I think you're doing really well this summer and you will have a wonderful harvest soon. I hope you have a good week ahead.

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  25. CJ, looks like you are been rewarded with very yummy treats for all your hard work.
    Wishing you a week filled with much much more yummy!
    Anna

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  26. Thanks for the lovely photos, they made me dream of balmy sweetly scented summer while we hibernate from cold driving rain, wind and sleet.

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  27. Beautiful photos, CJ! Yes, gardening is always a mixed bag. And the weeds always get the award for "best crop." While you battle with the mice I'm fighting with the squirrels and birds. My new strategy is to start my plants under a mini cloche, then remove it once I think they are big enough the local wildlife won't be interested. I've never heard of wineberries. I'll have to do do some Googling to see what they are.

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  28. Gosh, it all looks so....can't think of the word...unblemished. Gardening's very hit and miss here (more miss than hit, I'd have to say) but I'll keep trying. And keep gazing with envy at your gorgeous pictures.

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  29. Abundance indeed! I wish we had a fraction of what you've got - but it's more failures than successes this year. Doesn't help that the garden is prone to flooding after a heavy shower or two (and it doesn't seem to do much else at the moment). Alpine strawberries have been a flop, as has the sweetcorn and dill. Fruit bushes: all foliage and no berries (we don't add anything to the soil so no idea what's going on there).
    We do have lots of potatoes. And foxgloves. Not that the latter are in any way edible.

    S x

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  30. All looks good to me. I love the rustic supports you use for your beans, so much nicer than bamboo poles.

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  31. Oh CJ, such beautiful photos. Your garden is a credit to you, and your hard work is paying off, I'm so glad. I am feeling smug about my redcurrants and blackberries which have produced a huge crop without a single stroke of work from me. If only all gardening was so easy! xx

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