July in the Pottanger Garden

My approach to gardening is somewhat negligent. I say somewhat negligent when I mean utterly and shamefully negligent. This year I quite literally stuck some seeds in the ground and went back inside for six weeks. Yikes! Which explains why one of the first things I got to harvest was this enormous nettle, look at those roots! I did toy with the idea of making nettle tea but was mildly terrified of stinging myself so lobbed it straight on to the compost heap. 

Confessions out of the way it time to go to the successes! 

The mange tout grew almost as well as the nettles! Quite frankly, a little too well, they exploded out of the ground and engulfed their entire bed far faster than we could think about eating them! We ate them for days on end and sadly we’re still left with a wilting hedge of them! Peas were a similar success though they came later and we were much better at eating them! 

Our carrots also grew very well, we interespered the rows of carrots with spring onions which did keep the carrot fly at bay. I plan to roast these whole like I always see Jamie Oliver doing! The pack said they were multicoloured but so far they’ve all come up orange! 

Beetroots were a similar triumph though I suspect that I should have been covering up the tops of them slightly more as they have quite a thick skin. I’m confident I can peel that off! Like the carrots these were mixed seeds and so far only the white ones are ready to harvest, there’s lovely red/orange ones still in the ground. 

Courgettes were a first time success in our house! They’re famous for being ridiculously easy to grow but I have always struggled. We now have several ENORMOUS (and slightly obscene looking) courgettes and more on the way! Each plant has given about 4/5 vegetables. 

Our berries grew surprisingly well considering how many birds we have! There’s blueberries and raspberries sprouting all over our tiny little plants. There are no pictures of the raspberries because they were eaten on picking! 

We also have a colossal rhubarb plant (I have no idea what to do with rhubarb having never so much as tasted it!), three sweet potato plants, salads, radishes, broccoli and turnips all coming up nicely too. 

What a productive little patch!