Well I last wrote from my garden in April.
So what is happening now and how have my suggestions worked out?
Our potatoes have provided an ongoing harvest, with each bucket yielding enough for a couple of meals for the pair of us.
Incidentally Kirsty has told me not to grow reds again, as they are difficult to scrape & this particular variety is a bit floury.
Strawberries: by removing runners we have stimulated the production of fruit only to find our local squirrel has a penchant for fruit, as does our pair of blackbirds nesting in the hedge. This forced us to move them into the polytunnel and, after a four-day camping trip during the recent hot weather, we returned to find they had become dried out so our yield is now pretty meagre.
One thing you can be sure of in gardening is some things will do well and some will do badly every year, so any success is a bonus.
Lettuce: this is an ongoing success story with the successional mushroom tray growing working well.
Another little tip if growing lettuce in the ground is to allow some to go to seed. These will give you lettuce ‘weeds’ later in the year and early on next year. I will talk more about seed saving in a future article.
My money saving tip this time has been brought about by a lack of germination of our parsley seed. We were forced to buy a pot of parsley from our local supermarket. I am sure you will have all seen these pots of leggy forced growth which seem destined to die on your kitchen windowsill as soon as you have cut a couple of meals worth off them. Well, before you think they are doomed for the compost bin, take them out of the pot, split them into four and plant in a pot or garden border.
In a few weeks you will have your own compact, normal growth healthy plants which you can continue to crop.
I have also tried this with pots of coriander with limited success and suspect that it may go to seed quite quickly. I will report back another time.
If you are lucky enough to have a garden or allotment you may be interested in some occasional videos we have posted.
I hope my article inspires and helps you to enjoy connecting to nature through gardening and growing in the smallest of spaces.