What a strange end to 2022. Summer definitely didn’t start off the way I thought it would!
So. Much. Rain!
It wasn’t until nearly the end of the month that the sun really came out and the weather warmed up. And when it did, man it was hot!
So I feel a bit like I can’t compare last year’s December to this year, as the weather was so different!
I’ve also developed my gardening and food knowledge a bit more, so what I’m growing right now is also slightly different than previously too.
So on the strength of that, here is what is happening in the garden at the moment:
I started harvesting potatoes at the beginning of the month, which in reality I think was just a little bit too early, but my impatience got the better of me (and they had been in for their full 90 days), and I was worried I wasn’t going to have enough space for other things (I didn’t need to worry though!).
I ended up with approximately 50kg, which is a lot less than I thought I was going to get, but along with pulling them up early, the frost we had back in October affected their growth too. I’ve got enough seed potatoes to plant again though, so I’ll do at least one more lot. If I can time it so that i have nearly finished growing a third lot by the time the frost comes in May, then that should take us nearly all the way through to the end of the next year when I harvest the first crop of the season.
The snow peas and sugar snap peas didn’t really survive the frost (I got a few, but not nearly as many as I thought I would), so I pulled them out and have planted them again for summer.
I have two types of beans growing – Tendergreen and Fire Tongue Dwarf – and we’ve harvested a few meals and snacks off them. I also had Blue Lake Stringless in but they all got eaten by something, I’ve just replanted some more seedlings, and hopefully they’ll catch up soon.
My corn is doing amazingly well. I have about 30 plants in right now, and I have some more seeds in trays which will be ready before the end of summer I hope! I didn’t wan tot do them all at once and have them go to waste so have tried to spread them out a bit.
Courgettes ae also producing well. They are taking up a lot of space though for the yield that we have had so far.
And then there’s the tomatoes. This year I grew Roma tomatoes which I didn’t last year, and they seem to be quite slow growing with smaller fruit, but quite a few on each bunch. This is quite different than the Black Krims I have growing next to them, which are a lot taller and the fruit is a lot bigger.
I’ll keep track of the yields from each type of plant and this should help me make decisions about what to grow next season.
I’ve been pretty good with keeping up with my pruning of the tomatoes this season too, but I think next time I will leave two leading steams instead of one to allow more fruit to grow. I’m not low on fruit by pruning it down to one, but this way it will allow for more if my plants don’t grow well.
I’m about to harvest my first broccolli this week. I’m surprised by how well they have grown, as I thought they might have gone to seed by now!
My strawberries are actually a bit of a flop this year, so I’ve kind of given up on them. The wet weather for most of the month and then scorching heat just didn’t encourage amazing growth. Maybe they’ll come back to life…
And then there’s my sunflowers. I love the depth of colour and mood that deep-coloured flowers bring, and my Moulin Rouge sunflowers are perfect for that. Look how dark they are!
And finally, I’m quite impressed with my basil plants too. Last year they were overshadowed by my tomatoes and didn’t grow so well. This year they’re doing much better.
I have few seeds out in my greenhouses getting ready to plant in the next few weeks – beetroot, corn, celery, coriander, more soybeans and tendergreen beans, and extra bail. I wasn’t going to plant anything at this time of the year, but as with everything gardening, it’s always an experiment. So we’ll see how they go!
Preserving and harvesting:
Apart from my potatoes that got harvested all at once, I haven’t had to do a big harvest of anything else yet. It’s more picking food to use as I need it, and that’s a great feeling in itself.
Looking forward to more!
Next month:
January will be a quieter month for me in the garden in terms of new plants seeing as it will be our holiday month and quite hot. But near the end of the month I will probably get some slow-growing cooler weather crops started.
I’ll do another lot of potatoes and hope to start harvesting my tomatoes.
I’m starting to feel like a real gardener!