We've been having enough rain lately which means that we don't need to water our garden, but can finally enjoy it a little bit. The weeds are growing like crazy and there is no way we can keep up with them, so we simply accepted that there will be always some growing in our beds.
Today, we went to the garden early in the morning and harvested some vegetables, herbs and flowers. It's the best time of the year!
Let me show you around!
I didn't have much hope for peppers when I planted them. They were small and somehow yellowish. We built tunnels which we covered with fabric to protect them and it paid off.
They are still quite small, but we can finally see some rapid growth and there are even quite a few peppers already.
This is probably the biggest pepper at the moment. A few more days and it will be ready to harvest.
My mini peppers are growing nicely too. I hope to see them changing their colour soon. I planted yellow, orange as well as red ones and can't wait to see how they will turn out.
There are many baby ones too!
I was annoyed with the weeds that you can see on the left as in some places it turned into a ground cover, but recently I found out that it's edible and very nutritious! It's called purslane and it's very versatile in the kitchen. I will let you know if we like it as soon as we try it.
Tomatoes keep growing and it requires a lot of patience to watch them and wait for them to turn red.
It looks like we have a great success with San Marzano tomatoes.
There are so many of them!
Chillies are becoming bushier and bushier, and they are also bearing lots of fruits.
Look how long they are...
A couple of weeks ago I planted some bush beans for October harvest. So far they are growing nicely, but I have noticed that slugs have been munching on them already. I remove slugs every evening, but there must be some still hiding at that time and enjoying my veggies during the night.
Corn started to bloom too. I hope that it will get properly pollinated and we will be able to enjoy some cobs in a few weeks.
It looks like we will have enough carrots 🙂
We took out a few and they were all perfect...
We've been harvesting zucchinis almost every day and I keep forgetting to take photos. I have realized I wanted to take a photo right before harvesting this one.
This kind of zucchini is delicious. I will be leaving the seeds for next year planting.
We had such success with cucumbers this year. They are juicy, crunchy and delicious.
There were so many pickling cucumbers that I have decided to make some pickles. Unfortunately, none of my glasses sealed properly, so we had to throw some of them away and some of them we put in the fridge in the hope that they won't go bad. I have no idea what went wrong, but I guess that I simply didn't close them enough. Lesson learned - don't trust the recipes online, but ask my mom how she does it 🙂
Luckily, she did her pickles already, so we will have enough for the winter.
Beets are coming along too. I have pulled this one out and it was still tiny, but we wanted to try it. It is so good!
And now to my flowers...
Hibiscus is blooming already, so I was able to harvest some flowers to dry for tea.
I have them in various colours, but the purple ones are my favourite.
These flowers are beautiful to look at, but they only bloom for a week or so, so I will remove them in autumn and will plant wild flowers for the bees next spring.
It took so long for calendula to take off, and once it did it started to produce new flowers every day. I managed to harvest some flowers but majority of them I left for the bees.
I didn't know that they had various blooms.
This hydrangea started to bloom later than other ones, but I like it much more. It's so pretty!
Quince fruits are not growing that much but they are getting hairy. I have no idea if this is normal, but let's see.
And this is my harvest today...
Abundance of cucumbers, some hibiscus flowers, African basil for sauce, chocolate mint for tea and tangerine sage for salads.
And they are drying already...
It's so nice to eat food that we planted ourselves. It took so much time and effort, but it was all worth it.
See you next time...
Oh my goodness this is a gorgeous garden and such a great harvest!
Thank you Sara! It's been so much work and it cost us way too much money, but it is rewarding 🙂 Next year should be even better...
How is your garden doing?
My garden is struggling. Not sure why I planted in the summer. I usually let it rest now, too hot. I hope I get to see your garden next summer! :)
So beautiful garden!
Thank you! 🙂
Wow A beautiful garden. Nice to the eyes.
Thank you! 🙂
Krása. Z těch květů ibišku taky něco děláte, nebo to bude jen dekorace? Ty zkažené zavařené okurky mě mrzí, snad jich nebylo moc :(
Edit: Už to vidím, z ibišku bude čaj :)