Selfsufficientish.com

pulled some beetroot and picked some rocket and sorrel for a nice salad.

I have sown some rocket!!! First time here, because of the previous flea beetle problem I thought with all this rain and they are supposed to not like damp conditions, so let's have a go!

I did a test run with radishes (another veg I have been missing ) and they only got one or two little holes and have grown fine, so rocket here we come! I can't wait, yum!

Our pond is now in & stocked with plants We've already seen a couple of small toads, so hoping they stick around & develop HUGE appetites for slugs

Harvested a gang-load of potatoes - we planted loads, despite none of us eating lots of tates, as they're good for breaking up clay soil. First of the tomatoes harvested too.

Established a herb bed by digging loads of sand into the soil, in an effort to improve the drainage, before planting the herbs I grew from seed. Established clumps at our homes are to be split & cuttings taken, to creat a communal herb garden at our shared lottie.

The fox cubs are growing well too.

Just got back from the allotment. Unfortunately, we've just had to give up half our plot.
It was just getting a little too overgrown for us. We've now gone down to 3 rods instead of 7
I feel a bit depressed about it, cos i feel a bit of a failure, but also i feel a bit relieved
because it should be a lot more manageable.
Problem was, when we took over the plot, there was, and still is, loads of junk in the
ground, which needed digging out.

Anyway, it will be good to start over again. Fingers crossed next year, we should have a bumper harvest!!

Wish us luck!

Don't feel a failure Charlie! You can only do what you can in the time that you have - I've got a great big veggie patch at home and I don't go to work so I do have the time - but it takes up a lot of it!

As for what I'm doing in it at the moment - nothing, cos I've got a busted foot!

Froze 14 bags of beans, will be freezing beet root and beet greens, still have kale and collards to harvest. Have harvested a lot of garlic, and all the peas.

Squash are coming on nicely and so are the tomatoes. We have 2 helpers from Help Exchange-new ones ,arrived today, eager to learn, city kids who've never gardened before.

Should be fun teaching them

Lois

Ah! It's raining again...
I think that signals the end of my attempts to keep the outside tomatoes in production - I'd covered them with a plastic sheet to keep the blight/stem rot/foot rot etc., confined and they had actually started to put on some healthy growth but I'm the last one that I know of to persist in the face of wet-induced problems. Thank heavens I have some inside - though they are very slow due to not realising that a large elderberry would further cut out the light. Waiting now to harvest elderberries and cut tree savagely!
On the other hand, the pak choi sown in large compost-filled crate number two has done marvellously well and I'm picking the odd leaf of Russian kale to liven up supper.

pulled beetroot - had tops for tea and roots were pickled. spinach, peas and runner beans. now picking pears and apples - yes early - but they are ready - and now stormy weather so windfalls...

well not be a brill seasin due to flooding and stuff but still got a harvest between being poorly gutting the house caring for a disabled son and house husband, but got beans spuds onions beetroot and weeds interestingly with the rain we found we have a bog weed growing purple mauve flowers
dave

Not much at the moment, harvesting a few cherry tomatoes and eating greens, but mostly Rick has been concentrating on finishing the chook house.

Our share of the birds have been wandering over from next door to check it out and laying the odd egg beside my freezer in the carport or beside the house next to a stump, they've been in the run and one jumped up and checked out the nesting boxes.

Rick just has perches left to build and wire to put over the wondows and its done, hang the feeder, get a waterer and I'm ready for chooks.

I think I'm getting about 10, plus 3 Americauna hens from another friend who is going to try to find me an Americauna rooster.

So after looking out for the whole lot while the neighbours were away for the weekend, I have 3 dozen eggs in my fridge.

Lots to do in the garden though, theres squash maturing and I need to prune the tomatoes and theres still tons of greens to be harvested and beetroot to harvest too.

HUGS to everyone

Lois

Freezing the last of the beet root and greens, freezing collards, froze some tomatoes and will do some more tonight, Harvest Time

Lois

Pulled some beetroot - put in the spring cabbage - prepared the broad bean bed - what are collards?

Collards are like a loose leaf cabbage or Kale without frills, what we don't freze will stand through winter.

Good in soups etc, not strong, much milder than even kale.

Lois

Planted a couple of rows of broad beans, and a row of peas.
Also moved my Cherry tree from one side of the plot to the other side.
Dug up a handful of Jerusalem artichokes.

Collards - oh, a kind of cabbage? Are they a Canadian thing or do we get them in Britain?