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I'm really please with ourselves. Last year we were two town numpties who hardly knew one end of a dibber from the other. Then we moved in to a house in a village and it had a garden with a veg path and we started to see the fun in growing things. We were planning to redecorate the house. We haven't had time.

This week our garden has given us cabbage, potatoes, courgettes, french beans, carrots, lettuce, beet root, chard, spinach, strawberries, raspberries, onions, and herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil and sage). The tomatoes, runner bean, brussels, artichokes, horseradish, kale, and peaches will need a bit longer. The rhubarb, apples, pears - all planted by us - will take a little longer, but they're all looking good.

Just planted peas, pak choi, winter lettuce, carrots and beet root seeds, and two kohlrabi plants. OH is leafing through the seed catalogues as we want some potatoes for winter, and I'm sure it will soon be a list (if only to save on the P&P).

Had a few disaster of course - the garlic was eaten by mice, the spinach bolted (but it's still edible), and the radishes went woody before I'd could eat them all, and we seem to have planted too much too close together - we didn't always realise how big things grew! The chard was getting over shadowed by the buddleia but that was saved by a pair of secateurs - yes we have now expanded well past the original veg patch and have chard growing in the flower boarders along with cabbage, artichokes and winter savory.

Wow, I am very impressed and I bet you are too. I am very much a beginner with the gardening but I love how addictive it is. I have said it beofre but reading what all you folks are harvesting in the North makes me right envious as we sit here in the chilly fog with my chard not growing one bit!
if you have any pics I would love to live vicariously through images of your garden!

Jessiebean wrote:Wow, I am very impressed and I bet you are too. I am very much a beginner with the gardening but I love how addictive it is. I have said it beofre but reading what all you folks are harvesting in the North makes me right envious as we sit here in the chilly fog with my chard not growing one bit!
if you have any pics I would love to live vicariously through images of your garden!

I'll see what I can do later with pictures - I did take some today - but seeing as it's gone 2am in the morning here I'm beginning to find it hard to no fall asleep.

Ooo you're in Launceston, my mother was there earlier in the year, staying with friends, but that's another story...

Well done Cloud, that is excellent for your first year!!!

I am a little dissappointed by the veg patch this year. At the moment we are eating:

beetroot
carrots (theoretically althoguh because it has been so dry they are tiny)
courgette
mini squash
flat leaf parsley
shallots
salad and first early potatoes
salad leaves
some spinach (but not lots as it bolted)

If it had not been so dry, we would also be eating salad onions and broc (it ALL bolted and was useless!)

Its strawberries, broad beans and courgettes this week - with lettuce and basil too. Nearly ready are climbing french beans, blackcurrants and celery...

i finally have some peas growing! have the last of the broad beans to pick, some gourds courgettes the last of the strawberries and peppers.

no tomatoes yet but they are forming nicely.

i think im going to get some sort of greenhouse for next year even if it is only 3 or 4 of those plastic ones to grow peppers and the like in.

Well done Cloud - it gives a fantastic feeling of satisfaction doesn't it? congratulations

Oh how time marches on, as we picked pretty much the last of our raspberries so we ate the first of the blackberries.