Late summer crops

Despite late planting out and poor summer weather, we have actually had a crop of tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes 'Totem' wern't as successful as last year in terms of yield and both those and my 'Tigerella' tomato plants succumbed to what I think was blight.

All was not lost however, and we've had a fairly decent harvest from both varieties, albeit mainly green ones which will need ripening off the vine. The 'Tigerella' haven't produced the colour and stripes that I expected and haven't grown as large as they probably could have but I'm just pleased to have harvested something!

Two small, but ripening Tomato 'Tigerella'

Throughout this rainy summer we have continued to battle with slugs. However, despite their grim determination to eat every last seedling, we did manage to get a salad garden underway and have been enjoying an abundance of fresh rocket leaves for weeks now. We also have some leaf beet and kale growing which is our tiny attempt at winter crops this year along with the jerusalem artichokes that have been in the ground all year.

Wild and Rucola Rocket, Corn Salad, Canary Leaf Beet and Kale in our salad garden

The new border

We have been really pleased with our recycled raised beds (so called as all timber used to build them had a previous life of either an old bookcase or a wooden crate) however, we decided that the larger two at the back of the veggie garden weren't the best use of our tiny space.

So, using the small stack of bricks left over from when the previous owners built the low wall, we have dismantled the two raised beds at the back of the garden and after an afternoon of digging and levelling the soil, laid a row of bricks slightly sunken to create an edge to the new back border. It is roughly 1.5 metres deep and 2.5 metres in length and we have gained a fair amount more bare earth for planting into then we had with the two raised beds.

To the side of the new border underneath the viburnum in the corner of the garden, we have left a small space that will be planted as a mini wildlife garden, also known in our house now as the nature reserve.

We are keeping the two smaller raised beds at the front and there is small space to the side of these that I plan to use as a small area to grow flowers for cutting.

As I am no longer the poor student that I had been for almost a year until recently, I am now working full time again and can now buy some new ornamental plants to make the garden much more green! As much as I love my veggie garden I would also like to have climbers covering the fence with lush foliage and colourful flowers as well as other ornamental plants in the new back border intermingled with the edibles and lots more plants in pots on our tiny terrace. I'm still to decide on specific plants, however I will post my planting masterplan for next year in the next few weeks.

The back raised beds being dismantled...


...and the new, larger back border edged with brick