Sunday, August 21, 2011

Summer Crops and Harvesting: In Pictures

We've only cultivated about a third of the plot so far, however there is plenty going on! Here is our summer on the plot so far...


Cabbages and Brocolli growing fast!

First signs of brocolli head
Freshly picked french beans
Courgette ready for harvesting

Late season spuds... one of our winter crops

Nothing beats the taste of fresh peas from the pod
Picking beans and peas!
Summer spud harvest!
Butternut squash doing well...
Just one squash plant and it is absolutely massive!
Yellow variety of courgette


We had a good crop of broad beans
 
Cabbages growing rapidly after lots of rain and sunshine!

and finally... this is what happens when you don't visit the plot for a couple of weeks or so.... we discovered a giant courgette the size of a beach ball!

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Making plans

This afternoon I spent the best part of two hours making a net cover for the cabbages and broccoli. It took ages to weave string through the net to make it nice and sturdy... I think it will be worth it though.

James worked like a trouper and made a new bed with the big pointy spade which was a big job! It needs more digging to make more of a fine tilth and we'll be planting kale and romanesco in there shortly.

It's so good to actually see things growing and although it is slow progress getting the plot productive, we do have quite a few bits of pieces in the ground at the moment!

We worked out that the new bed dug today means that we've reached halfway up the plot on that side now. It looks like we should have space for six veg beds covering half the plot and the other half will be fruit. We also have plans for a little grass area in the middle to sit on, a small herb area and some storage and composting. It feels like we are really close to breaking the back of this huge project to get our bit of land productive. So much so that today we felt that we'd reached the point of needing to make a sketch of how we are going to use the 'fruit' half of the plot. There is light at the end of the tunnel!