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| Harvest Home |
Harvests are finally come in thick and fast now at Eco-Gites of Lenault - I have dug the last of the potatoes and these showed minimal blight damage thank goodness. Courgettes are now slowing down, which I suppose is no bad thing but I am now picking French beans by the bucket full. Tomatoes are still going strong and I even got some extra broad beans after I had cut the crop down to near ground level but not got around to clearing it properly. These beans grew up from the base. I do love it when a bit of slovenly gardening behaviour brings forth unexpected harvests!
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| Tomatoes |
Not everything was been super successful. My onions were on the whole very small and many of them went to seed so won't store ... although I suspect I will finish them pretty soon anyway. And the apples were pathetic. One tree did OK (as seen here) but the others had just a couple of apples each. Last year I had a fantastic crop of Bramleys but as Bramleys are biannual (i.e. they only crop well every second year) I was not expecting great things this year ... and I was right. The basket to the right is our entire 2014 apple crop!
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| More Beans than Apples! |
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| An average onion harvest |
There are also the crops I am waiting to harvest. Certain seeds just would not germinate early on so now I am waiting to see if the Autumn is warm and long enough for the beetroot, carrots, late French beans and parsnips to come to anything. The chard was another spring non-starter so in the end I bought some seedlings from the market and they have grown fantastically. I think next year, I will go straight for seedlings and bypass the seed stage!
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| Beetroot, Carrots and French Beans waiting in the wings |
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| Late parsnips and huge chard |
It's not all veg though - I do have a few flowers mixed into with the edible stuff - I love this little dahlia and I always grow some sunflowers along with my climbing beans. They may not be the tallest but for some reason they have put out multiple heads ... and they also serve to support some of the beans. Pretty and functional then!
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| I love this little dahlia |
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| Sunflowers and Climbing Beans |
All in all then the veg patch is doing us proud and if the frosts stay away until late Autumn we should still have plenty more harvests to come. I wonder how other gardens around and about are doing? Why not head on to the How Does Your Garden Grow linky over at Annie's blog, Manneskjur for some more gardening blogs?
oooh, los of lovely goodness there. My apples didn't give me anything this year for the first time in 5 years, not even a blossom. I'm hoping it just needs a rest. I've found it another strange year of produce-with some things working really well and other's not. But I suppose that's the nature of gardening.
ReplyDeleteNot just my apples then! And you are right about every year some things do well and others don't. I do dream of the perfect year when everything cropped magnificently but I know that will never happen!
DeleteThat's a really impressive harvest and that tray of tomatoes looks lovely. We didn't get any apples this year and asking around, I've discovered quite a few people haven't. Fingers crossed next year will be a bumper harvest!
ReplyDeletePhew - not just me then with a poor apple harvest. Pears are looking good mind you :)
DeleteWow! The veggies look amazing but I can only imagine that it also involved lots of hard work to produce such a harvest.
ReplyDeleteThank you - it is quite a a lot of work but at least my garden is just here so I can always fit 5 minutes in whenever I have the time!
Deleteyour vegetable garden is so impressive!!! it has really blossomed this year. but then again, you have worked really hard at it. well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you - overall I would say this is one of my better years.
DeleteYou've had a great harvest! Our onions have all been smaller than usual this year. We had our first sweetcorn cobs for tea last night :-) x #HDYGG
ReplyDeleteMy sweetcorn is swelling but it went in very late so will be a while before it is ready. Bet yours tasted fabulous!
DeleteIt's so nice to see all of your hard work come to fruitition. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Katie. It's a good feeling.
DeleteWhat a crop of tomatoes, ours are coming at a steady rate. Just hoping they all ripen before it gets too cold.
ReplyDeleteAs long as they get to a certain size they should ripen off the plant if the weather does turn cold.
DeleteMy FIL was harvesting his onions in France last week when we were there but he won't have time to actually eat them before they leave! Love your impressive hoard and of course the sunflowers :)
ReplyDeleteI think I'd be taking the onions with me!
DeleteWhat a bounty! There seem to be some things not doing so well over here this year, brassicas for example. We've managed the grand total of 1 apple crumble from our tree outside and will maybe manage a couple more - but it's only 3 years old so I'm not going to grumble too much. My purple sprouting all bolted though and my carrots were a big disappointment. I'm salivating at all the lovely things you'll be cooking up now!
ReplyDeleteThanks for joining in again Rosie ! x
Yes, definitely a year of extremes although overall I am happy to say this has been a good year. We will not starve this winter although we will not be eating apple crumble either!
DeleteSuch a gorgeous veggie plot and has most definitely inspired me to work hard on my plot next year. That's a bumper harvest, I've had hardly anything this year which is mainly due to my lack of time to tend to it. Great sunflowers :)
ReplyDeleteOh I do hope I can inspire you to grow more veg - that would be great :)
DeleteThose tomatoes look fab. Our beans have been rubbish this year but on the plus side cucumbers, peppers and chillies have thrived!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Stephanie - my long cucumbers have been poor and rather bitter tasting but my little round ones have been great so far. It's all swings and roundabouts!
DeleteWow your harvest looks awesome and tasty! Such garden envy of here!!
ReplyDeleteThank you - there are also a LOT of weeds out there!
DeleteWoah - what an amazing haul of yummy produce! I am super envious :) We have picked a few Bramleys but this is my first year in this garden, so have no idea how it compares to last year. Inspirational stuff - I must up my game next year!
ReplyDeleteGood luck upping your game!
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