The Fruits of our Labours

I'm afraid I've been busy lately, but I thought it  was time I reported some of the things that are going on in our garden.

I was pleased when the flower on my sunflower opened up a couple of weeks ago.  Last year I planted 3 sunflowers and the slugs and snails ate them all before they could flower, so this year I planted it in a pot and put it somewhere we don't get many slugs and snails.

The green peppers are doing much better this year, too.  I only planted three in the tub, whereas I think I put 5 last year, because they were called 'mini bell peppers'.  In fact the one that is doing best is one I bought at the Hampshire Green Fair earlier this year.




I was pleased to see at least one decent sized pepper on the plants a couple of weeks ago and now I have several more, so I'll not be needing to buy for a few weeks.

I've also been pleased with my cherry tomatoes this year as I've managed to harvest several punnets of ripe ones already. I've grown them in a 'grow house' and kept them zipped up most of the time, whereas in previous years I've thought it was only necessary to close them up when the weather was cold. I'm still waiting for the uncovered Ailsa Craig's to ripen.














I've also harvested a few more pounds of runner beans lately, some of which I have blanched and frozen, the rest of which we have eaten.  They are very nice cooked in with chopped tomatoes, or tomato purée if you get fed up with eating them just boiled. You can fry a bit of onion or garlic first as well and maybe add some basil or oregano.

It's also been an excellent year for our apple tree this year and I've picked pounds of apples, some of which I've stewed and frozen, some of which hubby stewed up with blackberries he picked in the garden and made a crumble then froze the rest. We've also had a plain apple crumble and an apple pie in the last few weeks, all made with apples from the garden.  We've also eaten some raw and have a fruit bowl full of them.  I gave my parents some and I've still got quite a few left.  The tub contains about half of what I picked.



I've decided that a grow bag was not the ideal medium to grow a courgette in, but my plant is still producing courgettes, albeit small ones just now.  This is proving to be a pretty good year for our garden.  We didn't plant a lot of onions, but we had enough to last us a few weeks.   Last but not least I also harvested a few pounds of potatoes a few weeks ago.