Garden harvests of 2025

 I realise that I didn't ever total up everything I grew and picked in the garden at home in 2025 which was a shame as it's lovely to have a record of this.  Some things in the garden were very successful and others were not to successful! 

Alpine Strawberries:  47.  Not a great sum from my 2 plants compared to my mum who had hundreds or even thousands from her many plants but much loved despite their small number. They are incredibly sweet!

Strawberries:  190.

This isn't as many as some years but better than last year I think!

Blueberries: 445

I'm quite surprised as I didn't think they were doing as well as other years but not bad from 2 plants! Many went in the freezer so I have yet to enjoys some!

Rocket:  9 handfuls.

This was disappointing! I need to plant more rocket as it is is usually prolific!

Cherries:  44

The birds got some but these were juicy and wonderful! I did also get freebies from the tree in the carpark down the road!

Raspberries:  83.

This was pathetic!!!I remember the year of 2000 and I am most annoyed at the badger or whatever killed my Autumn Bliss plants. These new varieties are not as good!

Loganberries: 1

This plant is GOING if it doesn't do something soon! So, so, so much foliage and nothing else!

Cucumbers: 9

I'm not very good at clipping these in. I think they'd have done better if I had done!

Tomatoes:  176.

This was quite successful. They did not get blight this year!

Courgettes:  14

I was pleased with these from one plant!

Runner beans:   273.

I paid 50p a piece for 2 bean plants from the yellow bungalow and their honesty box down the road and I consider this an absolute bargain! I keep meaning to pop a note through the door to thank them for their amazing plants! Next year, I will buy more! They were really good ones too! These were one of the star crops for 2025!

Rhubarb:  20 stalks:

Most of this went in the freezer and into fruit amber! I would like to plant more!

Dwarf French beans: 30

A small amount from about 6 plants but appreciated!

Everlasting onion scapes: 23. 

Considering these were free from Mum, I'm happy with this.

Peppers: 8

From One plant!  I was very happy with this!

Aztec Broccoli: 4 takeaway tubs full.

I think I messed this one up! I let it grow too much and it was too tough to eat! It grew well but I didn't know how to harvest it.

Apples: 11

The most apples we've ever had from the tree!

Nasturtium seeds:  87

I picked most of these in Vinegar and saved a few for growing next year.  These were brilliant plants and came from seeds I liberated in Madeira from the many Nasturtiums growing like weeds!

Chard: 2 handfuls

This is usually prolific so this was disappointing!

Butternut squashes:  2

Again, these would have been a lot more successful if I had planted these in the ground instead of a pot and clipped them in better! I'm not very good with climbing plants! Still, I'm proud of these two tiny babies!

Sorrell: 8 leaves

This needs new compost!

Blackcurrants: 963

The absolute star of the crops this year!  Mum gave me a titchy plant which had come from hers 2 years ago.  It grew majestic this year and kept producing! Many are in the freezer!

So there were some pleasing successes and other disappointments!  I hope we will be able to grow some exciting things this year!

Cottage industry

This year, CBC has reduced his working timetable to 4 days a week and stepped down from HoD. He's doing two gardening/horticulture  courses on his extra day.  This means we have a reduced income.  I'm trying to be extra careful with making sure we use up things and be better prepared in terms of food etc. I've been trying to also make more healthier choices. We usually eat a lot of vegetables but I need to increase my uptake of fruit.

Anyway, here's a few things I've processed recently.

The above are cobnuts from my Dad's garden.  I may have mentioned that their beautiful cob-nut trees were heavily pruned when we were there. I tried to rescue some of the hundreds of immature nuts. I left them to dry out in a plastic mushroom crate in an old clock box and they seemed to have dried. On Saturday, I shelled about 200 of them. I gave a box to my sister to take back for my Dad. I put the rest in a box to keep as a snack for my breakfasts on the way to school. 

 

Over the past few months, when our loaves of bread have gone too hard, I've been sawing up the bread into chunks and putting in the oven with olive oil and herbs to make croutons which we've used for soups and salads and just a snack.

Last Sunday, I picked some nettles from the edge of the field near church and made a batch of  it for our lunch and a couple of dinners where I had rehearsals. It was delicious.   I added a box of croutons to it.

I was running low on washing powder and no chance to get to the eco shop to refill so when I went to my Godmother, I went and picked up a large bag of conkers from the pavement outside the vicarage and made 2 litres of laundry liquid from it.  Conkers/Buckeyes contain saponins and you can use Nancy Birtwhistle's recipe to make almost completely free washing laundry liquid. 

I made 2 litres of it!

I may have mentioned that there is an apple tree down the road in the carpark which has many windfalls which no one picks up or picks. So I have been going for a walk to go and fetch them. Often, half is bruised and uneatable but it was worth getting them for any content!

At the end of my Light Music weekend, there was some food and other things left over including about 10 carrots and some amazing Chicken stock. I made a big batch of soup from it and homegrown beans, tomatoes,  courgettes and onionscapes plus a box of reduced yellow split peas I'd bought ages ago. Delicious and it catered for us for 2 evenings in addition to the first evening's dinner. Even better, the jam jars I transported the stock home in from camp are now my regular receptacles for taking soup to school so it won't leak in my bag!

I've been enjoying lots of homegrown harvest

Do you spot the Nasturtium seeds? Well, these come from the Nasturtiums that I planted from the seeds I foraged in Madeira. I'm putting them in vinegar to make Poor man's capers as taught to me by Vintage Vix!

Do you spot those leaves down the bottom?  They are Aztec broccoli, given to me as mini plants by my mum. They are growing in my raised bed!

It's been a bumper year for Blackberries!

With some apples from my Dad's I made 5 boxes of stewed apples and blackberries in honey.

In addition, using more of Dad's apples and all the windfalls, I have made about 12 boxes of fruit amber using blackberries, apples and a little homegrown Rhubarb!

It's very satisfying to make my own!

xx

 

Garden update

Ah, the joy of home-grown produce really is huge!

The season is starting to kick off!

Today, I picked this beautiful little haul!

It's my 2nd cucumber of the year so far.  I bought one plant and my sister germinated the other one.

The first pickings of Rhubarb.  The strawberries have been coming fast and I'm well over a hundred already.  Today included the first raspberries.  Annoyingly, the blueberries aren't so good this year or are taking a while but theese are the first few!   The rocket has been munched to shreds by wee beasties but I'm still going to eat it!  It feels very early for tomatoes but I am not complaining! I think I picked the courgette too early- it is only tiny but I thought it was restricting the others around it!

Here was last week's haul.  The cherries are delicious!  Sweeter than the ones I have been scrumping from the carpark down the road.

One of my cucumbers is absolutely determined to resist growing up its canes!

Here was another haul.  I have to say that fresh chopped mint is the best accompaniment for strawberries!

My loganberries suddenly flopped all over the lawn and knocked a whole load of blackcurrants from the plant (it's bountiful this year...but not ripe yet!)

It amazes me how a tiny stem holds a large cucumber growing!

The birds some some of the cherries but not all!

The Lavender seems very early.  The bees are cherishing it!

My Myrtle bush was looking really sick about a month or so ago. I pruned off all the dead wood and now it is thriving!

The Rhubarb amazes me. It looks so dead in the Winter and then it comes back!

The honeysuckle on the shed is beautifully fragrant.

And provides a nice platform for the birds.

The Toadflax returns with vengeance.

We thought the Campanula had gone forever but it has come back!

My neighbour gave me a different type of strawberry plant to add to my soft fruit bed. I love the red flowers.

Our Clematis as usual, defies all attempts to train it up a trellis or obelisk and climbs up the cherry tree.

 I'm delighted with the garden produce so far!

Homecoming Dinner

 CBC and I got home this afternoon, around 5.30pm after 6 days in Girona, Italy.

We had a lovely time. Couldn't believe we came home to glorious sun and some warmth!

We didn't have a huge amount of fresh food in the house but I went out into the garden and 

discovered the chard has boomed! I cut a veritable bouquet of it. It's quite expensive to buy in the supermarket (when you can get it) so I'm gleeful this is self-seeded from last year's also self-seeded.

The kale plants are really trying hard to flower and go to seed but I've discovered the small flower buds look and taste rather like tender stem broccoli. I also still managed to pick lots of kale.

In the right flower bed,the three-cornered leek (self-seeded) is surrounded by Forget-me-nots but is still growing so I picked lots of that.

The Lemon Balm has started growing again so I picked some of that too.

Wasn't sure what to make for dinner.  We struggle to get back into the swing of cooking after being on holiday.

I had a brainwave.

I got two blocks of noodles (from the Refill shop) and put them into a saucepan along with the kale-occoli plus lots of Chard stalks. I added hot water and set it to medium heat.

I then made up some Miso paste into a thick liquid with about 100ml of hot water which I added into the saucepan.  Once it had been going for a bit, I added in a bit of vegetable stock (from a sadly,now closed Refill store) and the chopped up Chard leaves. I also discovered a third of an old courgette lurking in the fridge from a week ago and chopped that into small pieces and added it in.

I then beat an egg in the old miso jug and threw it into a small saucepan along with lots of chopped up 3-cornered leek and pepper and left it to cook. 

I served up the noodles, broth and veg into a bowl and added some more chopped 3 cornered leek plus I poured some Sesame oil on top.

Finally, I cut up the leek omelette into pieces and added on top.

Very pleased that it ended up being delicious and was very little effort to make plus quite healthy with 4 types of green veg plus the veg.  Plus it was pretty cheap to make!

I served it with Lemon Balm tea!

Garden joy

 It seems a bit late sharing this now but I was enjoying some of the late flowers and colours in early October and I thought it would be nice to share them, particularly as it is now all yucky and rainy/dark!

I love the way Verbena Bonariensis defies gravity!  It leans at all sorts of awkward angles but is a delight to all the polinators.

I think this one is Nandina Domestica.  It looks so jolly and red in the Autumn and dons berries for jewellery

The cosmos hasn't been particularly successful this year but this self-seeded set has appeared out of the lawn!

The fuscias are still blooming- delicate ballerinas caught mid-jete.

The lemon tree has thrived this Summer after CBC kept treating it with anti-scale insect treatment, the advice he was given on GQT after a roasting!

Amusingly, a line of Nigella has grown at the edge of the lawn, in the drain grating!

The Blueberry plants always don their red robes at the end of the season.

I've still been picking these 5 edibles up to this week! I wonder what I will find outside tomorrow morning?

I relocated a Nasturtium to the soft fruit bed and it's finally growing!

Let's see the Cosmos again!

Here's another Autumn harvest.

A healthy-looking Lemon Balm plant has begun to grow in the lawn to which I have no objections- free tea!

Ah, there's another of the Nigella!

The warmer months always show their love by the bounty they share! I've enjoyed the feast.

xx

Homegrown harvests 2022 totals

I've enjoyed growing lots of  things these last few years but I've never been organised enough to keep totals of what I've grown- this is a shame as I've had some bumper years for raspberries!

However, this year, in mid-June, I remembered to start writing down what I was picking. This means there is probably about 10 large colanders of Rocket and a bunch of alpine strawberries or more, which didn't make it into the totals as well as a whole lot of Perpetual spinach and Welsh onion scapes!

Strawberries: 517

Rocket: 9 colanders full.

Raspberries: 623

Green Beans: 108

Blueberries: 478

Courgettes: 8

Cucumbers: 9

Capers (Nasturtium seeds): 59

Peas: 77

Figs: 10

Apples: 3

Alpine Strawberries: 15

Rhubarb:34 stalks

Tomatoes: 1007

Leeks: 2

It wasn't such a good year for raspberries as previous years as several of my plants didn't grow back- I think I cut them back too late. But still, there were a lot.

It wasn't a good year for Courgettes.  I think they need more space or water.

The rocket was hugely prolific! A lot of it didn't actually get eaten as I couldn't keep up with it- I shared lots of it with work colleagues.

For the first time in 3 years, my tomatoes did not get blight- I was so happy and my September and October were full of home grown tomatoes.

It's the first time I've been able to eat my own figs- they weren't huge but they were still mine!

It has been the best haul of blueberries I've had and the strawberries did well too.

My Nasturtiums were really good this year and I finally managed to get seeds which I put into vinegar to make capers (as recommended by Vix!)

I am sad I didn't plant garlic last year but I intend to this year.  

The feeling of picking your own is amazing! I hope that I do as well next year!

xx

Will they, won't they?

When I used to live in my childhood home, we had a fig tree in the garden.  When I was the last inhabitant in the house (sister and mother had both moved out!), I grew to love that fig tree. Amazing, massive leaves and I tried the fruits as an adult for the first time and loved them!  They were really sweet, tasty and easy to eat though I had to compete with Mr Squirrel- I often shook my fist at him when I found them discarded with a bite out of them on the lawn! They always seem to be very expensive when fresh in shops so I really missed having that tree when I moved out.

Fast forward a few years and Mum gave me a small fig tree from Grandad's garden that he had grafted from cuttings from the original home one. 

We've had it in a pot for the last few years but never had any fruit. They never seemed to grow much. The one year, 2020, when it actually had 2 viable fruits on it, they dropped off in the heat when we were away. Last year, nothing grew.

This year, I noticed, fairly late, that there were quite a few embryo fruits developing.

Monty Don says that any Pea-sized fruits must be removed for Winter as they won't grow but I was hopeful, with the heat, that these might have a chance.

Here's a photo of a few of them.  They are still very small BUT, do you think there is any chance they will get bigger and ripen in time for me to FINALLY get to eat some?

It was lovely to pick ripe figs from the trees near our house in France. Will I get to picky my own?

Whilst I am here, here are some of the flowers currently in our garden. Most of the flowers have gone but we still have...

Purple Clematis.

Yellow roses.

Chilean Jasmine (We need to remember to bring this one in for Winter as last year's one got too cold outside!)

So, let's take your votes on the figs. They are about 4cm by 1.5-2cm-ish.... will they ripen and grow in time and if so, any tips to help them!??!

xx