The Harvest

[jacey]

The Harvest
(No not the Buffy episode, but the garden one...)

So today I have done bugger-all except spray myself with 'Deepwoods Off', brave the mozzies and harvest stuff out of the garden. This is my first year of growing veg and I'm so pleased with myself...


This pic says it all, really. Dinner tonight is roast chicken with home grown new potatoes, broad beans, runner beans and carrots

Except... Have you any idea how to safely control a massive infestation of cabbage white butterfly on broccoli, and brussels? The caterpillars have all but ruined my enthusiasm for the broccoli (purple sprouting) because I'm really not sure I've got all the little bastards out of it. Apart from that...

Potatoes are not plentiful, but they're perfect - nary a blemish. Carrots and broad beans are a delight and the runner beans are just coming in and look like they'll be terrific. I've got enough for dinner today, but they are covered with flowers and plenty of little beans on the way.

The swedes are swelling to great-big-enormous-turnip proportions, but I tried one as a baby and it was so strong we couldn't eat it (and I like swede). I'm assuming they'll be a bit better for letting them mature and the frost get at them. If not I've grown the wrong variety - but at least I know I can grow swede and will experiment with a milder variety next year.

I planted the beetroot way too close to the broccoli and brussels and they have suffered from lack of light but I'm hoping that they'll perk up now that the broccoli has been cleared. I can see the roots swelling, but they're still small. Next year I must remember to plant stuff further apart because it grows like buggery. By next year we'll have two more raised beds in production. (Three beds this year, five next. The raised beds certainly help when it comes to weeding.)

The onions are swelling well. Unfortunately the seed pack says they are not brilliant 'keepers' so I may have to chop and freeze them once they're ready rather than plait them and dry them. Since I've grown them from seed instead of sets I'm congratulating myself that I have onions at all. I think I might try red onions next year - preferably a better keeping variety.

My tomatoes have become a family joke. They are enormous plants - six or seven feet tall - growing in the porch. I had two of the earliest ones (seeds planet in February) fruiting from mid-June and those two plants (in the living room in front of sourhwest-facing patio doors) have finished now - after yielding steadily for the last six weeks. But you take your life in your hands when you pass through the porch. BB wants to know if they are tomatoes or triffids.


I think they are very interesting, but stupid...

And anyone who doesn't get that is too young to remember Rowan and Martin.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Back when we gardened, we used BT (Thuricide or similar brand) biological spray for cabbage worms on broccoli -- no idea if it or equivalent is available in Britain. Still had to pick the occasional boiled worm out of the finished product. Didn't affect the flavor, but some visitors found them unaesthetic.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I've shaken so many caterpillars of the purple sprouting broccoli this afternoon that it's quite put me off eating it. Even when I thought I'd got them all, I blanched the broc in boiling water and shook the spears hard against the edge of the sink and got a couple more crawlies out - one of them quite big. How did I miss it first time? Their camouflage is brilliant.

But the potatoes, beans and carrots (and tomatoes, of course) are making up for the broccoli bigtime.