Well, this month started sunny and bright, but ended up gloomy and overcast, and it's raining as I'm writing this post. Yet I managed to get a small harvest of runner beans and tomatoes and 1 looooong cucumber. Beans topped and tailed in the freezer. Toms, chilies and cuc in the fridge, chilling until they are eaten.
It's raining again today but thats OK, nothing unusual there. At least when I use up all my rainwater, I just blink and voila the rain water container is full again. However with all those showers I've managed to get some toms, cucs and chilies in for the kitchen and freezer.
As you can see my toms gone pear shaped.... Literally pear shaped 😜🍐🍅And more to come.....
The harvest continues with more tomatoes and cucumbers and other vegetables that we enjoy eating in various dishes.
Finally good weather 20 C today. It has been warm the last few days with scattered showers. Went out to see what else can I harvest and saw this...
Also came in with 3 big heads of cauliflower, forgot to take pics in my excitement, but I'll show you the cauli cheese I'll make for dinner tomorrow. Beans are awaiting to be harvested tomorrow as well.
E voilà cauliflower cheese from my own caulis...and this is one the moment where I feel it was worth it, because here growing cauliflowers is like hit and miss.
The wonders of August doesn't finish here, just look at this bounty. The corn is in the fridge waiting to be boiled and served with butter, the melon tasted like honey. The amount of beans harvested again was huge. I'm running out of space in the freezer.
It's not much, nor show case products, but I grew them, they don't come fresher and more organic than this. They are fed chicken manure pellets, my own home made confrey liquid fertilizer. The trick is if you have greenhouses like I do, to choose plants that are suitable for where one intends to grow them. Simple is that 😜
These yumm looking pointy cabbages will be eaten for lunch today.
17th of August
After the fiasco with my watering hose I've managed to cut the grass, harvest some veg and fruit and snip some pics.
Here are some pics....
This little pretty flower is the orange cosmos, it adds such a cheery splish splash of color to the border. Aubergines are ready to be harvested for a curry, chillies are getting red and hottttttt, not scorcio hot, just enough to make a statement. Melon nr 2 in the fridge chilling, and a bowl of tomatoes. Very yummy and sweet and juicy addition to breakfast and tea.
The flower parade continues with yellow cosmos, white mallow, impatiens balsamina, and white straw flower. These straw flowers I collect while they are still small and barely open. Whilst they dry in a box, they will open but not much, just enough to create a display of color. These plants are part of the flowers, grasses that can be dried for different dried flower arrangements or other crafts. These strawflowers come in many colors and shades. They are sooo pretty dried. It's another way to sneak some summer into the bleak winter days.
I just love the way my sunflowers come out this year, they were full of butterflies and bees. Among other flowers I have a lonely gladioli that survived winter. A lovely nice impatiens balsamina showing proudly it's very pale, almost white baby pink. 2 more strawflower: a magenta and a red one.
White and red scabiosa, then borage with its lovely baby blue flowers, occasionally they develop pink and even white flowers. These are edible flowers and taste like cucumbers. The next picture made me smile because I saw this very sleepy bumbles on one of my sunflowers. Another dark red strawflower adding it's flowers to the collection. The 2 last ones are yarrow flowers one is called Pearl, the other one is the wildflower version of it.
19th of August
The corn was harvested a few days ago and kept in the fridge until today when it got boiled and eaten with a splash of butter. Only gardeners who grow stuff know the feeling of satisfaction your own crops give you. Not mentioning the utter feel of happiness and joy when you got to it them.
Also harvested some aubergines and a green chilli, and one of my onions I harvested a month earlier. These veg were the base of the curry I cooked for dinner today 😁😜😋
25th of August
In spite of occasional dry and warm weather, there are still a few heavy or light showers in sight. However this won't stop any plant frow growing and doing what it does best.
To my utter surprise while I was clipping the grape vines I've found something that made me giggle and go "wowwww". I'd never expected to see at this stage fruit on my luffa, but there it is and with a bit of luck I just might get one fruit out of all those tiny ones. The beef stake tomatoes are amazing this year too, I kid you not.
The sunflowers are still pouring out flowers to the delight of many visitors like bees, which get drunk on the nectar and fall asleep on the flowers. Not only bees but other polinators and butterflies find these coming up flowers and every day bufe.
These are tagetes that I planted among brassicas to keep the cabbage butterflies away and help the plants grow and to mask their scent from the cabbage white butterflies (which absolutely works).
This is a tortoiseshell butterfly feeding/pollinating my tall tagetes, so I can have seeds for next year. And those are the cabbage white adult caterpillars on my brussel sprouts.
These sprouts were outside the cage, planted among tagetes just to see how effective the plant is, and it works. Of course there are a few nibbles on the plant, but as I said before, nothing major, and it won't effect the development of sprouts for Christmas.
And this is why companion planting is so essential, especially in the kitchen garden. Of course I had to net the brassicas while they were small but I uncovered them now, as they were pushing up the netting for more room. I find that the adult plants at this stage can face the cabbage white caterpillar attack with no major effect on the plants.
These are my straw flowers, I mentioned about these above. Of course I won't collect the open ones, that I left on purpose to fully bloom and attract pollinators and then finally set seeds. I'm happy to see that my collection is happily growing and I'll have plenty for my resin projects. Can't wait to play with them and create lovely things.
These are the things that make me happy among a few others.
27th of August
It's raining again, but I've managed to get in my last 2 heads if cabbage of this season. I'll chop them up and boil them for lunch with gammon and spuds and pineapple chunks.
Only a gardener can understand the feeling of satisfaction and pride when I harvest abd serve up something I have grown.
