An advantage of having some of the food growing in the garden is that it is not only easy to harvest bits as you need them, it is also handy when it comes to watering. I’ve watered, a lot, every other day during the hot weather and it has paid off. The lawn around the raised beds might be dried out and yellow, but the plants in the beds are full of colour (mostly green). The compost in the beds is clearly much better than the chalky soil of the plot, and most of this compost has been home made. It hasn’t been completely weed free though, a lot of seed was in the compost and it obviously did not get hot enough to kill any of them off. The weeds have mostly finished now, but I was having to pick out a lot of self seeded tomatoes and squash plants earlier on in the year.

This has had some benefit though. After pulling out the peas which had finished, I was left with a number of self seeded tomato plants and I’ve kept the four most strongest ones. One of them already has tomatoes growing on it. Removing the peas has made more room for the butternut squash plants, all which are growing more and more each day. Still waiting for some actual butternut squashes though.

We have been mostly harvesting beetroot, french beans, and spring onions. The spring onions have done very well and having them edging one of the beds means they look nice too. Up until now we have grown dwarf french beans thinking they would be easier to look after. This year we mixed in some normal climbing french beans and actually they have been easier to look after and harvest than the ones nearer to the ground. I’m thinking they are able to get much more light.

In some of the gaps (and there are not many) I have planted out some marigolds and sown some mixed lettuce.

I’m not sure I’ll plant potatoes in the garden next year, they are left over ones from the plot, but we have row after row of potatoes on the plot and so really don’t need them here as well.