July Veggies

It takes until July for me to begin to get some pay back from the veggie garden but it is lovely when it does and worth the wait.  I'm under no illusion that I make any impact on my grocery shopping with the small amounts I grow but it is lovely to have one part of your garden actually producing something for you other than just lying there looking beautiful.

The peas are already pulled up but they have been fantastic this year.  We eat many of them just by picking a few here and there when we are in the garden and munching them there and then so they don't often get as far as a saucepan.  I picked two crops of around 2 lbs which did actually get cooked and some were frozen.  Both were really lovely.  This was a pleasing size crop for petit pois.  The real surprise is that there hasn't been a single pea discarded - this is to be taken literally - not one pea was flawed in any way.  Remarkable.  


The 100% success rate moved on to the first potato lifting too.  A while back I emptied one of the four bins I'd planted with what I thought was the earlies.  The whole bin gave us one meal of marble sized potatoes.  I later realised I'd lifted one of the King Edward bins which are, of course, lates.  What an idiot.  Happily last week when I emptied the right bin I had a great crop of (again) 100% perfect potatoes.  No discards and no blemishes of any sort on them.  The variety is called Annabelle and if this was an example of what they can do I heartily recommend them.  Creamy, waxy new potatoes whose skin you can rub off with your fingers should you want to.  They cooked in about ten minutes and were lovely with the peas and baked haddock (not smoked!) and caper sauce.  I cooked double the amount I needed so that the other half could be used the next day. These were yummy sautéed in a little olive oil and unsalted butter with the left overs from a home roasted ham lightly fried and an egg.  The yield was good.  I got six to eight meals from three seed potatoes; also they were pretty evenly sized.   I split them into two different sized groups and that worked fine.  This result was even more pleasing as these were my bargain rescue potatoes which I'd put in a month late and didn't hold out much hope for.  They have been cropped earlier than the ones in the garden.  I can recommend growing them in a bin if this was an example of what they can do.


My cauliflowers look as though they are doing what they always do....  the ones I have left are getting smothered with cabbage white butterfly eggs.  I know you have to net brassicas but as I've said before I want the throw it in and see what it does type of veg growing. We did have the first early one - small but perfectly formed but looking at the remaining ones I'm not sure what we might get from them.  Does anyone have a companion plant suggestion or anything else which is an easy solution to protect brassicas from the butterfly fiend?  Please share it here.


The rhubarb has sorted itself out really well.  I moved it from sunlight to shade and it has quadrupled in size and health.  I have half of yesterday's rhubarb crumble in the fridge as I speak in testament to its bounty.  Rhubarb and ginger jam next year if it keeps going as it is.


The square foot garden was fun and initially I thought it was a great idea.  I still do think it would be a lovely idea for children to do because they could grow lots of different things in a small identifiable space.  For me? not so good.  After three years of doing this I now know I want to stick to a few basics which are easy and successful so my square foot garden will comeback into the game as a brassica (cauliflowers and broccoli) bed next year.  Maybe I'll even net it (!!!) 


The patio is home to pots of strawberries - all sorts of varieties so we get ongoing production.  The word production is a bit of a joke as all we get is the occasional foraged strawberry as we putter about the garden - not a single serving as yet!  Right now I am living in hopes as the ever-bearers are coming into their second flush and are full of flowers.  Fingers crossed.  I have also just bought six small Mignonette plants which I am going to try in the greenhouse.  As these produce a tiny fruit, like a wild strawberry, they will only be used as an addition to a salad or dessert.  That said they have a lovely flavour and appearance.  I have just pegged down half a dozen runners off a couple of the large plants (Elsanta and Calypso) to get some new plants for next year but already I am wondering if I want to be overrun with strawberry pots everywhere for such a small return.


The runner and French beans still have to come into production. I have one (!) decent runner bean at the moment - heaven knows what I can do with that.  Watch this space.