November Harvest

Lovely afternoon, so had a bit of a go in the garden. Harvested the last of the Borlotti beans and the runner beans - not as bad a yield as last year, but not great either. The French beans at the front which went in in July were a fiasco, though - maybe one pod per plant.

Have taken out all of the corn - it's really not a great use of space - will leave it out next year. Kevin Harmon has beautiful corn for sale in the latter part of the summer - that will satisfy my yen for fresh corn.

Harvested the last of the ildi and millifleur cherry tomatoes - the upside down hanging tomatoes seem less susceptible to the frost.

Preparing beds for garlic - it seems like I need another bed :-)

Finally, cooked some of the beans and slowly braised some kale & beet leaves in garlic and olive oil - blended all with salt, pepper , a little creme fraiche for a yummy dip.

Spring!

 

Hellebore are blooming....

 

Garlic is thriving...

 

The fedge is looking lush with leaves, and the blackcurrants and blueberries have started work on blossoms....

 

And the corn salad is ready for harvest.

First quarter 2009

Got off to a good start with peas and broad beans - they are in the garden and doing well. Any leeks planted earlier are growing, but not terribly fast. All the rest - cabbages, onions, calendula, lettuce have been destroyed by the slugs. Vast amounts of egg shells are not working.

The second phase of planting - tomatoes, borage, ore leeks are doing ok, but I have not exposed them to possible slug predation.

This week I am going crazy planting - mostly in paper pots - and hoping that something will survive my extended absence in April. You spend so much time looking forward to this point in time, and when it comes, it's not what you expected.

Outside, I have planted carrots, beets onions and early potatoes - and some in pots - this weekend I hope to plant the rest.

We are harvesting Kale, parsley, thyme, chard, corn salad. The daikon is going to seed. The leeks are almost all gone, but the autumn sown onions might be worth trying soon.

Harvests

Clearing the beds bit by bit - before we know it, it will be time to start replanting them! So today I harvested most of the remaining leeks - I'll miss having them out there - and some corn salad.

The corn salad was mixed with some Rocha pear, and a little goat cheese, and dressed with a light balsamic vinegar dressing for a sublime salad.

There's more corn salad in one of the planters, and in another bed. It's a great one for this time of the year, and it self seeds like crazy, so with judicious weeding, you can forget to plant and still have some coming along.

I'll probably make a Leek and Feta tart tomorrow. And will hopefully get around to sowing some more leek seeds, so it won't be too long before the next batch is ready.