A tour of our UK garden
August is here and we’re coming into my favourite part of the season; harvest time! The peas and beans are maturing and Sandy and I are snacking as we walk through and water the plants every day. They’re definitely better this year than we’ve had any years previously. The plants were obviously well loved and established well this year.
We’ve harvested 4 courgettes (zucchini), a cucumber, and our yellow tomatoes are tasting great this year. We had our first rhubarb from a crown we put in last year, too; the rhubarb and apple crumble with ice cream was delicious! The first of our Oxheart tomato varieties is starting to blush pink, and it won’t be too long now, before we’ll be able to start picking those. And, a couple of my sunflowers are glorious at the top of the canopy of our back garden plants.
The weather has finally improved…sort of. We’re getting the sporadic sunny day, in-between the more typical rainy days. A quintessential English summer, although, I know I’m not alone believing “proper” summer is late this year. Our last frost date was supposed to pass at the end of April here in zone 8/9, but this year, we weren’t getting warm enough nights to plant out until the end of May. And even then, we had some cold, windy days which caused quite a bit of damage to some of my plants. Many other gardeners had the same problem and pictures of my harvests from one year to the next really bear out the difference.
My 2020 harvest
12 July Spuds 2.342kg
13 July beetroot, red spring onions, 2 types of carrot
7 Aug Chili pepper plant
11 Aug Cucumber, rocket, parsley, red lettuce, 6 types of tomato
24 Aug Cucumber, lemon cucumber, 1 tomato
vs. my 2021 harvest
16 May 1 flavourless radish
8 June Spuds tiny (no bigger 12 July)
23 June rocket and 2 types of sugar snap peas
11 July tiny cherries
25 July red cabbage
29 July 1 yellow pear tomato
10 Aug Cucumber, courgettes, 2 types of runner bean, 4 sugar snap peas, 1 yellow pear tomato and 1 black beauty tomato with blossom end rot.
20 Aug pepper plants
Hope you enjoy the walkthrough of our little, 21 x 27 foot garden. We’re pretty proud at all that’s packed into this tiny space and are praying for warmth to get the veg ripening before Autumn’s chill sets in.
What about you?
Are you keeping a garden this year? What are your favourite/best harvests this year? Any questions about what we’ve shown you in our tour video? Please share your thoughts by sending us a message below, we’d love to hear from you!
