The Big Picture – Part two

Just to recap from yesterday.  I’m bringing you all up to date with the garden as it is now – warts and all.  I’m running behind, but this is ok.  It is still spring.  So moving on from the onion and garlic of yesterday we have what makes a garden feel like a garden.  Tomatoes are almost essential in a veggie patch.  Well they do in mine.

11       TOMATO

I have reigned myself in this year.  We still have tomatoes in the freezer from the summer before last summer, and then there are the tomatoes from last summer.  Hubby the Un-Gardener can’t see why I grow so many, but they are all different and cool.  So this year I have decided to have 5 less plants.  So that means twenty all up and at this stage I think they will all be different.  But before they can go in I need to build their frame to give them the support they need over the long summer months.  I think I will tweak last year’s version because it worked well, but could do with an adjustment or two.

12      ASPARAGUS

I have a second bed, because you can never have too much of a good thing, although I have to say, come Christmas when you harvest the last spears for the festive meal before letting the plants go to frond, I do let out a little sigh of relief.  But before long I miss them dreadfully!  Most of these are two year old crowns so next year I’ll be able to gobble them all up!

13      BEANS      

We don’t actually like beans all that much.  Especially broad beans.  I don’t know why I grow them.  But I’ll try again this year….  Never give up, that’s what I say.  I’ll also grow a few French beans because they are ok-ish and some purple ones because they look cool, but most of the bean crop will be kidney beans because we do eat a lot of these – especially in the winter.  And they are a great set and forget crop because you only need to harvest them once the pods have dried.  Easy.  But I can’t plant them out until I figure out what to do with all the leeks!

14      LEEKS & ONIONS

This is the onion overflow bed, because if I am to grow enough onions and garlic to last the whole year, then the main onion bed just isn’t big enough, and there would be no room for cool things like elephant garlic and shallots.

15      ODDS & SODS

This is the best bed in the whole garden – well one of them.  This serves two purposes – one as an overflow for things that don’t fit into the bed they should be in, but I just have to have them, but it is also home to the new and the exciting – the one off projects and the things I want to grow to see what they are like.  The bed that keeps the garden from going stir crazy from only growing the staples.  There is only so much pleasure a seasoned gardener can get from a carrot.

16      BRASSICA

Broccoli is toying with me this year – as I thought I’d sown seed, but I can’t find any broccoli seedlings.  I’ve sown some more.  So eventually this bed will be filled with delightful treats such as kohlrabi, collard greens, flower sprouts, Romanesco, cabbage and not forgetting broccoli.  I have almost mastered succession planting here, but it does help if you sow the broccoli seeds in the first place.

17      SALAD

To ensure we have a constant supply of salad over summer this bed gets planted with new plants regularly.  Little and often.  This stops the glut and the barren times when nothing is there at all.  It also helps avoid the bitter plants that turn quickly in the summer heat.  While this bed may look a little empty at the moment I am happy with how it looks, for now.

18      CARROTS & PARSNIPS

Carrots are fussy creatures and so to take this into consideration, this bed has been lovingly prepared and the soil has been sifted to a spades depth – by hand.  No nutrient rich organic matter has been added and the carrots and parsnips do just fine.  The beetroot and radish don’t seem to mind either.  There is also lots of space here for another row or two of each.

19      RED CURRANT

After my weedy debacle when I pulled out a barely alive plant along with the weeds there is a space in the garden for two new plants alongside the mature one.  I think I may have killed the poor wee one.  Opps.  But I have one new plant to go in and I may take a cutting to get the third.  That’ll be fun!

20     BLACK CURRANT

These fine plants are doing well and last year gave me a great harvest.  I’m hoping for even better this year.

Come again soon – because that’s not all.  This journey around my garden will resume real soon.

Sarah the Gardener : o )