It’s time to hook up with the team from Garden Share Collective … a great initiative where a group of international bloggers share their gardens with you. Thanks Lizzy!
Now that winter solstice has passed us by, the days are ever so slowly getting longer. The weather is still cold and damp, but the good news is warmer weather will be with us soon – won’t it?
Harvest
Winter or not I am still harvesting veges and herbs, citrus and eggs too of course! My lone grapefruit is looking more and more like it should be picked and brought indoors so I can gloat.
My fennel is on some sort of steroid and falling all over its neighbours, but as nasturtium is also in this space, there appears to be some sort of competition going on.
I’m still plucking lettuce leaves and tossing these into Caesar salads .. and snipping off sorrel leaves and poking theses into sandwiches with salmon – delish.
There aren’t many carrots left but I’m hoisting the odd one from the dirt and standing back to admire it.
The peas when I remember to pick them, are just divine – so very sweet, nothing like growing your own.
As the yacons have flowered, I’ve been digging up the tubers which are delicious thrown into curries (chopped up first of course), roasted or juiced first thing in the morning.
Broadbeans standing to attention!
Needless to say, I raid our garage stores on a regular basis removing garlic and Egyptian walking onions ..
I have this thing about farm gates
Planting
I was going to plant some Jerusalem artichoke – ‘sunchokes’ they are also known as, but opted not to as they don’t agree with me – shame as they are so tasty roasted.
It won’t be long before I’ll be writing up a plan for summer planting and shifting through my seed box and dreaming of summer gardens.
All my garlic has now been planted – I have no idea of the varieties except that they are all grown here. The good news is, all of the cloves have shoved aside the soil and have lovely green stems which are skyward bound. As are our leeks … which are looking particularly good sharing their space with some pink cosmos.
I still wonder at this plant flowering quite happily at this time of year.
To Do
- Weed – no matter what time of year it is those suckers keep on growing
- Keep removing those slugs from my brassicas in my night patrols
- Feed those brassicas with tea from the Bokasi bin and my home made seaweed brew (hubby loathes the latter – it’s outrageously smelly)
- Stand and stare at the rhubarb (my first ever) which is growing with vigour
- Catch the slugs that are munching holes in my rhubarb leaves – don’t they know they are poisonous! Obviously not
- Admire the strawberry plants which are already flowering
- Thank my father-in-law for all the wonderful preserves he left us – we are enjoying those peaches and pears slathered in coconut yoghurt or baked in crumbles
- Mulch my garlic gardens and throw some seaweed fert their way
- Harvest a bucket of lemons it’s time to preserve them
Thank you so much to all those bloggers that left such kind and caring comments on my blog ..
Happy gardening
