There is a sentence in my favourite Polytunnel book that says something along the lines of "Anyone can have a polytunnel full of tomatoes etc in the summer but a good polytunnel will provide fruit and vegetables all year round."
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| I have tomatoes! |
For the first couple of years of owning a polytunnel I was definitely a "grow tomatoes all summer and then have nothing all winter" type pf a gardener ... however gradually I have been growing more such that for the last couple of years I have rarely had a bare piece of ground in the polytunnel at any time. This does however take a bit of forward planning and so this week I have been or will soon be planting all of the following to give us fresh veg from the Autumn, through Winter and into next Spring.
Now sowing at Eco-Gites of Lenault:
- Kale
- Cavolo Nero
- Calabrese
- Purple Sprouting Broccoli
- Spring cabbage
- French beans
- Carrot
- Rocket
- Chard
- Pak Choi
- Beetroot
- Swede
- Turnip
- And a selection of Oriental Greens including Mizuna, Mibuna and Komatsuma.
That should stop us starving but I have to say that seed sowing is not at all photogenic (in other words I forgot my camera!). So I have just been out with my camera and snapped a few pictures from our garden.
The Passion Flower Simon planted 2 years ago looked dead in Spring but it has defied the Grim Reaper and is now flowering beautifully:
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| A passion flower |
Our patio pot plants are looking good .. and yes that is 2 (non active) mortar bombs to the right of the curry plant! We found them here whilst clearing an area that is now our parking area for the 4x4. I will be blogging more about these later.
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| Our patio |
And this is our vine - also planted a couple of years ago. It's doing pretty well with plenty of young grapes although I do feel Château Le Lenault may be a few years before it gets into full production!
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| Grape Vine |
Oh and of course there was last Thursday's mystery plant ... one friend on Twitter did correctly identify it as did "Mrs Stripper" (with a slight miss-spelling). It is a Jostaberry which is a cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry. It bears large blackcurrant like fruit on thorn-less stems that can grow up to 2m tall. It is not massively productive but the fruits are easy to harvest and really tasty.
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| Jostaberry |
For more gardening inspiration why not head over to the How Does Your Garden Grow linky run by the lovely Annie who used to be known as Mammasaurus and now goes by the Icelandic name of Manneskjur.
INCOMING! *ducks for cover*
ReplyDeleteOh my husband would love those motars, he's the worlds biggest war nerd ever.
I can't believe you flummoxed me with the berry last week again, I'm not liking this losing lark one little bit, maybe go back to leaving the image name correct just for me ;)
So good that you are managing to grow all year round in the polytunnel *wonders if we have room for one here*
Thanks for joining in again sweet cheeks x
You need to get Mr Manneskjur over here then - this area is just awash with WWII memorials, museums, cemeteries and suchlike, not to mention the D-Day beaches themselves .... oh and a good few gardens that can be visited too ;) Once again thanks for running #HDYGG and Happy Gardening this week.
DeleteEverything is looking excellent.
ReplyDeleteThank you Honey :)
Deleteyour garden is looking great!! i love passion flowers. we have a red one that is becoming quite the climber
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know we only get this colour passion flower for our cooler temperatures here ... but some-one may correct me on that.
DeleteWow you have so much produce growing! We love growing our vegetables. Your passion flower is beautiful x #HDYGG
ReplyDeleteThank you - with a couple of hot days here, loads more flowers have come out which is brilliant, especially as we thought it was dead in the Spring!
DeleteI literally packed all of my plants from my garden into a box last night and am delivering them to a much better gardener today. ;)
ReplyDeleteThis sounds intriguing - are you giving up on growing or moving house?
DeleteOur garden is producing already! Lettuce for weeks and pulled our first onion and picked cherry tomatoes this week!
ReplyDeleteIsn't that first tomato just the best?!
DeleteThe passion flower is stunning!
ReplyDeleteThank you Sophie.
DeleteI'm really impressed - we are just playing at gardening at the moment, but it's a start! #HDYGG?
ReplyDeleteGood luck. Gardening is so worthwhile, especially if you can eat what you grow!
DeleteMy father has a polytunnel at his allotment, I will have to ask him what he plans on growing. I need to sort my grape vine out, it has gone wild & dragged the arch it was growing on down. Oops! :)
ReplyDeleteOur grape is too young to do that sort of damage yet!
DeleteIve always wanted to ask this from you. Are you using those plants food. The one where you put in water. Or you use just water. I have few potted plants and I am using water but I dont know if I am doing it right or I need to do some more to help them grow. #hdygg
ReplyDeleteAny plant that you grow in a pot will do much better if you give it some sort of plant food - and liquid plant food is easy for the plant to absorb. I feed my tomatoes in the polytunnel a granular feed and I improve the nutrient levels in the outdoor soil by adding lots of manure. Does that help?
DeleteI've been giving a lot of thought recently to autumn and winter sowing and planting. Problem is I'm such a fairweather gardener I start hiding in the house from October onwards!
ReplyDeleteYou need a polytunnel :)
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