It’s taken over six months, but we’re finally reaping the rewards of our garden on a daily basis. And reward really is the right word – I never knew it could be so satisfying to wander outside and fill a small basket with vegetables for dinner!
We’re by no means self-sufficient, but at the moment we’re able to source almost all our greens from the backyard. Hopefully we’ll be able to add tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes to the list soon.
The absolute winners in the garden so far have been the perennial leeks. Christine, bless you for putting us on to these! Since we bought our initial five plants from Cornucopia Seeds in July, these little treasures have multiplied like mad. When we pulled out the young leek you see above, we were able to replant nearly ten baby leeks that were budding off her.
The sprouting broccoli plants, which have provided us with weeks of constant greens, are now going to seed and the chickens absolutely adore them. Very soon the peas and broadbeans will be finishing up, and that bed will be emptied out, ready for planting with corn seedlings. As corn is wind pollinated, the seedlings need to be planted en masse, or they won’t produce cobs. We’ll have two whole beds of corn soon (110 plants!), and I’ll be watching for the arrival of Shoeless Joe Jackson. If you build it, he will come…
We probably haven’t thinned our carrots out enough, although we are getting some reasonably sized baby carrots, including this interesting mutant…
Cabbages haven’t been a huge success, although a couple did finally start to form small pointy heads. We’ve decided they take up too much space and take too long to grow for our garden – and no-one particularly likes them! Next year we’ll plant more cavolo nero (kale) and kohlrabi instead…
Pete had intended to leave the rhubarb uncut this year, to enable it to establish properly. As a result, the leaves on some of the more mature stems grew to nearly 60cm (two feet) in diameter! My husband, in his infinite wisdom, then decided they had been left too long, and harvested these old woody stems. It took a bit of experimenting, but in the end we were able to turn them into quite a nice rhubarb and tomato ketchup…
Pete made a simple but very delicious risotto for dinner tonight – carnaroli rice and chevapi sausages, with leeks, celery, carrots, peas and beans from the garden, all cooked in white wine and tomato water stock. It was a fabulous way to end the day!
Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’ … The Talmud
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 