So we’ve eaten all of our first round of beetroot, are steadily making our way through the carrots, potatoes, shallots and garlic, have stripped the pea plants (hoping for more to come), and have a good supply of courgettes coming through…
What’s next?
Our mystery potatoes (from compost-borne plants) have flowered and are growing away nicely in a planter.The first little Hokkaido squashes have started to show from our derangedly overgrown plants (four in total that are speedily taking over the garden).Cute little sproutlets are showing on three of our four brussells sprout plants.The runner bean glut is upon us. Going to leave maybe half on the plants to grow full beans for drying, and eat the rest in pods over the coming weeks.Our chilli plant is starting to flower in the greenhouse, so fingers crossed we’ll get some peppers from it before the sun abandons us.The second round of beetroots are coming along nicely. This stony, and now rather dry, soil worked well for the last crop of beetroot, despite other plants (carrot, parsnip, broccoli, courgette) struggling a little in it.The parsnips aren’t doing so well in this soil. I pulled the eldest batch earlier today and they were very skinny with orange spotting. Also, very dry to the taste when cooked. They’re also under attack from an assortment of insect predators. Our crystal cucumbers are flowering nicely. No sign of any fruit yet. Very curious to see how these turn out.The growth of the tomato fruit has slowed down (though there’s already lots of it across our six plants, and lots more flowers yet). We pruned them a couple of weeks ago, and there’s been lots of foliage regrowth but the fruit seems static. I’ll give them extra feed and water and see if the situation changes.I came into some aubergine seeds, and not having space in our little greenhouse, I decided to try them outside, under fleece. Who knows how they’ll turn out!
Ballyer Backyard 