Monday, June 24, 2013

First of the Harvest!

Today I ate my first homegrown pea of the season.  It was a mangetout, Shiraz.


It's been flowering for a while, then the first tiny pods appeared and today one was ready to pick, ready to eat - so I did!  And it was quite delicious too.


I don't have a large veg plot but I manage to grow quite a lot. This year, as well as planting by the moon (more about that another time), I also tried the 'square foot' gardening method for planting.  It sort of works in that it made me more ordered, but I don't like trying to weed between veg planted very closely together.

However everything is looking very healthy, the courgettes have flowers and baby courgettes,


the tomato jungle is growing rapidly (and does actually have flowers although I can't see them in the photo!)

and the beans (runner, borlotti and climbing french - fosse violetta) are all growing cheek by jowl with a red climbing rose and foxgloves,


the runner beans even have flowers.


The frogs are doing a good job of keeping the slugs down, although I have just spied a snail amongst the beetroot.

I've been cropping salad leaves for several weeks and have discovered that self sown rocket is incredibly fiery.


Now that I've had my first tastes of salad and pea I'm looking forward to many, many more harvests this year. 

5 comments:

  1. Your veg is way ahead of ours! I'll have to have a word with you about the planting by the moon method (but maybe it just makes you more organised).

    Did you eat the Shiraz mangtout raw? Ours will be ready soon, probably by this weekend.

    C x

    ReplyDelete
  2. When we had our allotment, we planted by the moon, we bought the book and followed it. I'm sure it made a difference but then I may have just imagined it. lol
    Your plants look very healthy. I would love to go back to growing food but our garden at home is very small and we just don't have the energy that we need now to do the allotment.
    Briony
    x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeeeah! Nothing quite like the first harvest of the year Su. I grew 'Shiraz' last year and was disappointed with the taste but it could have been down to the weather. Will have to give it a second chance :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. The sight of your home grown vegetables is making me long for summer already - winter here in NZ

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is so lovely when you start picking your crops, they taste so much better than the shop bought-enjoy

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog. I appreciate all your comments and I love to read them all. I will try to reply to each one, unless you have a 'noreply' blogger address that is, but this may take a few days if I'm busy!

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.