After a lovely couple of weeks swanning around in southern Italy, I was itching to see how the veg plot had progressed in my absence. I meandered off down the garden to have a quick poke about down there this morning. Meandered… did you hear that? The holiday must have done me good: I’ve learnt another speed other than ‘bombing around’.
First port of call was the greenhouse, and I have to say, that everything is going swimmingly in there. We are going to be inundated with tomatoes any time soon, have four decent sized aubergines growing, and the chilli and pepper plants are festooned with flowers and fruits.
Oh, and we have a melon that’s now about the size of a fist, and four or five cucumbers coming along. Our holiday garden-sitters have done us proud!
Peering outside, I noted that the courgette plants were also romping along. I planted them in the side of the raised strawberry bed, in the hope that they would trail over the sides. Not so – they are happily covering all the strawberries, so I think I’ll give them a patch of their own next year.
A wander over to the veg plot told rather a different story. The wettest summer my garden can remember has done the runner beans no favours. There are a few paltry beans dangling on puny plants, but no flowers to speak of. I even planted stunt doubles before I went away, in the hope that if we got a late summer, there would still be beans-a-plenty. Not one of them has popped up, so it looks like all the time and effort digging the bean trench, making the wigwams and planting the beans has been in vain. They are now officially ‘has-beans’.
I whipped them all out and weeded and dug the area. A quick check of the crop rotation plan tells me that brassicas are next up in that bed. The family will be pleased. There is nothing in the world they like better than a nice cabbage
The wet weather hasn’t done the onion bed any favours either. The weed fairy had obviously paid us a visit whilst we were away, and the onions were difficult to spot in amongst them. If they haven’t rotted away, the leaves have started to go brown and wilt over, which tells me that they’ve done growing and need to come out. These were soon whipped out too, and I weeded and dug over the patch ready for next year’s crop of potatoes. Some of them came out not much bigger than when they went in, and I have to admit I’ve probably had bigger ones on a salad, but nonetheless I’m sure we will find a use for them. They’re currently drying out on the edge of the decking and will be winging their way towards a French Onion Soup very shortly…
