Eating my greens

They need to grow a bit yet these beans

Apart from new home and a birthday party, there is of course also this little garden of mine. Which is not that little to be honest, it seems to take up most of the garden now! But it does look great and is good fun. 

The Crimson Clover has started to bloom

Last Sunday I was sitting on the terrace with my breakfast enjoying the peace and quiet of an early morning. Bees and wasps were already busy and there was buzzing all over the place.

A wasp (?) and a ladybird on the Buddleia

When the sun became a bit stronger, the Red Admirals and Cabbage Whites arrived. They love the Buddleia we have, but the Cabbage Whites are also partial to my cabbages! 

Which are doing great by the way. Despite being eaten by the unseen caterpillars and/or other bugs. Plenty to go around.

The first tomatoes are here as well. Still very green and quite small, but as they are the cherry variety, they won't grow that big anyway. 

Radish flowers and seed pods

Two plants have started to set seed now: the rocket and the radishes. They will have to remain on the plant for as long as possible obviously (so my Mum says) to actually produce viable seeds. 

It looks like a gherkin!

My courgette that was didn't survive due to lack of water, but fortunately another one has started to form and I will make sure this one does survive. And my first cucumber is on the go as well.

My brother and his family gave me a small lemon tree for my birthday, but according to the sign with it: not edible. I had been thinking limoncello or pickled lemons, but alas. It still looks really good though!

Quite a few pea pods already. Growing big and fat!

The carrots have been harvested and eaten already and that pot will soon be moving with me and probably be filled with flowers for the time being. The rest will come as and when. 

Dinner time

I can harvest some things almost daily

My parents came back from their 3 week holiday last Saturday and the first thing my Dad said once he saw my garden: it's a jungle! Not meaning the new house, but my allotment. And I guess if you haven't seen it for a while, it does look a bit like it: a jungle. In fact, some of the plants have already grown so big, I had to move them elsewhere so everything would have air and sun.

The courgette flower only blooms for a few hours

I have been checking and eating and watering and eating. The main eating is done from the Swiss Chard which grows really well. The rocket is now really flowering in earnest, but the leaves can still be eaten. The basil is also going strong. 

The first tiny flowers on the tomato plant

I have also eaten most of the snow peas. There are a couple left that I missed among all the green! And the other day I also eaten the first of the Lucinato Kale (or Cavolo Nero). It will continue to grow until well into autumn. 

The strawberries are not doing well

The tomatoes are now beginning to flower, as are the courgette. The beans are slowly becoming beans and the regular peas are also slowly coming on. The radishes have a mixed result: some grow really big and others stay tiny, but the plant is bigger! 

It smells like liquorice! (the Agastache)

For me this has been a real success and I have loved it. Definitely something to continue with next year. And I already have massive plans for the new garden, although that would involve winning the lottery big time. I do however know I want an edible garden with fruit bushes and room for other edibles. But that is for another time.

Green

Wow, rain and sunshine. All a garden really needs to grow and grow. And grow it does! It's hard to keep up with. 

The rocket can be picked on a near daily basis, although some of the plants are now overshooting and starting to produce flowers. I had some of the Swiss Chard as well, although not enough for a meal. Instead I used it in my cheese sandwich. 

I made a rookie mistake of planting too close, but even so, the Snow Peas are starting to flower and hopefully will soon be forming pods. Not sure how much it will produce, but anything is better than nothing.

The strawberries are finally doing something and I had my first two red, juicy ones the other day. They were yummy and full of flavour. Better than the ones you get in the supermarket anyway! The tomatoes still have a way to go. They are still only small plants. The cabbages however are growing well.

The winner of them all however must be the courgette. The leaves are huge and the flower next to it is almost covered/smothered by it. Tip for next year: separate pots!

So far this garden has been a lot of fun for me. And tasty as well...

The garden

After we had been away for a week, it was nice to be back home again and see how the garden did. Which was not too bad really. But even though it had rained occasionally during my week away, after I had come back, it just started raining in all seriousness. Cats and dogs, pipe stems (Dutch expression, don't ask), bucket loads. 

I like the leaves

All the while I kept thinking: my lettuce, my lettuce! It was surely not going to survive that onslaught of water. Even with the little holes in the bottom of the pots, it was touch and go. And then the rain stopped. And the few bedraggled leaves of lettuce were still clinging on. For dear life, granted, but they were clinging on. 

The rocket going like a rocket

Once the rain had stopped, all the plants decided that sun was good and that growing was better. Some more than others, but they did all grow a bit bigger. Right now the first harvest has been done: the radishes have been picked and eaten. Including the leaves (yes, you can eat those too), which for me makes them a bit more palatable as radishes on their own taste like... well... radishes. I am not fond of radishes.

Not quite red and juicy, but soon

The next thing to be harvested (well, start of) will be the rocket. The outer leaves are now big enough to cut away and eat, leaving the inner leaves to grow and produce more leaves. Also the strawberries are coming along and some of them will soon be picked and eaten. 

If you look closely you can see five green shoots coming up. 

I have sown some new things as well: garden cress inside (harvested and eaten), peas (several leaves peeking up already) and radishes. Yes, even though radishes are not my favourite, I loved the multi colour seeds I got, which will produce several different colour radishes. I can hardly wait. 

The last thing I wanted to show you is our basil plant. I had bought this in the supermarket, so we would have fresh basil at home. However, we are not eating that much basil and one day I saw there were small flowers forming, which have now begun to bloom! How good is that?

Guarding the garden

I showed you one of the main guardians on Sunday and if you really looked closely at the big allotment shot on Monday, you might have been able to spot two of the other small ornaments I bought.

Keeping a lookout over my beans and snow peas

I wanted some gnomes, because I actually really like them. However, I didn't want a full size gnome (ie about 30-40 cm/a foot high), I wanted small and cute. And when my Mum and I hit the garden centre on Saturday, I found two small ones. 

My Mum was wandering a bit and she called me over to some kitty cats. They were cute, but for once I preferred the small rabbit and I knew exactly where to place it as well. With the loose leaf salad.

My final buy was this frog, as I thought it just exuded so much joy. I think joy and garden go together. The joy to put your hands in the earth and the joy to see things grow. Perfect with these four small ornaments. Mind you, if any of the salad does get eaten, that rabbit will have some severe explaining to do!!!

Green

The big leaves at the bottom are the cucumber plants.

My garden continues to grow and become greener. It is really nice to think on day three that nothing is happening and a day later, four green dots are becoming visible. Soon growing to leaves. And when you have so many different plants, everything comes up at a different rate.

Most of the plants are now residing outside, with a few still waiting inside. Although they are now being hardened (outside during the day, inside during the evening and night), so they will get used to being outside. 

Spot the tendrils and yes, there is one on the left plant as well...

Some of the things I have already planted are slowly showing growth, which is great to see. The radishes are doing great and are forming new leaves all the time. The snow peas have started to form some tendrils they will use to hang on to the small sticks to keep them upright. 

There are a couple of plants that look like they might not survive. The bell pepper was a plant I had bought from some children, but I think it got drowned and has not survived. I used the pot for the courgette and that can be planted in an even bigger pot on the weekend.

The courgette needs three leaves at least before being relocated to its permanent home.

The Swiss Chard is barely hanging on at the moment, but I have several more plants coming up and being hardened as I speak, so I should get some crop out of it. Fingers crossed. The cucumber is doing fine right now, but they need fairly large pots to help them survive. Once they can be relocated, as they are still living in their 'birth' pot at the moment. 

So far, so good!

Recognising the plants

All these pots on our living room table, holding seeds and mud, trying to become plants. It's a good thing there are small markers there so I know what is coming up. Because one green leaf looks much like another green leaf to me. Especially right at the beginning.

I have done some re-planting now though and those small markers have not been used. Mainly because they are made of thick paper/thin cardboard. Paper and rain don't really mix. So, I planted the first couple of things and left them without a marker to indicate what was what. 

Which is okay if you have 2 pots outside with a total of four different plants. It becomes a different matter altogether when there are over a dozen large pots containing beans and carrots and whatever else I am aiming for. A solution was needed. 

Come in potato salad! Honestly, the potato salad saved the day. It could have been another type of salad just as easily, but this one was the first I got to. The potato salad was eaten quite a while ago, but I had kept the container (washed of course) and now it came in really handy.

All Dutch names of course

You take said potato salad container and start cutting it in strips. Make sure you make a nice sharp edge on one end as well: this will be used to plant the marker more easily. Take a black marker (isn't it annoying how it is all called the same?) and write the name of the vegetable or herb on the plastic marker. Stick in pot.

So, now I am not only growing my own veggies (which is good: less food miles), I am also recycling, because these markers can be used again and again. 

Photo taken last Sunday. More pots will follow...

In other news: I did buy the strawberry plants I wanted: five different types. These I stuck in two wicker baskets and hung on our fence (thank you Dad for the screws). The radishes, buckwheat, cabbages, dill, clover, Swiss chard and rocket have been rehomed already. As are the bell peppers and chamomile. So far the radishes are top of the class.

If you plant a seed...

...you might get a plant. And in this case I have. Well, the beginnings of plants anyway. As you can see everything has come up. Some after only a few days, others took a bit longer, most notably the dill. But, up it came eventually and now it is just waiting for it all to grow high enough to be repotted. So far only the buckwheat has reached that stage.

What I needed to get everything seeded

As most of these plants can be planted outside in only a short while, I thought I would fast track a bit and instead of 4 buddy sets, I now planted 8 new buddy sets (and one repeat). And they are quite varied again as well. There is  rocket (or arugula) and sage; cucumber and sunflower; courgette (or zucchini) and phacelia (or blue tansy); carrot and chives; snow peas and cornflower; green beans and wild marjoram; loose leaf lettuce and poppy and the last: cherry tomato and agastache.

That little disk grows in front of your eyes when you add water

Some of those had me thinking: oh yes! Love those. Others had me thinking: what on earth? Phacelia was a flower I had never heard of, but my Dad looked it up and it is not native to the Netherlands. In fact, it is native to the Southwest of the USA and Northwest of Mexico! In Dutch the name is also bee bread as it seems to be highly attractive to bees.

The new eight

Out of the total of 24 different plants I have sown, four will not be edible at all: poppy, cornflower, blue tansy and clover. Everything else is edible, be it flowers, leaves, roots, fruit or seeds. Yet they will all play their part in attracting more insects to our garden (my Dad is overjoyed, ahem) and getting some food on the table. 

I have more buddy sets, but they are all repeats of what I have already sown. As there will only be a limited amount of space I can use, I think I will leave it at these (although I might get a few strawberry plants, I love a nice juicy red strawberry) and see how we go. 

A quick update

Remember those virtual challenges I do? The first one being Mount Everest. Now the second medal has come in: the Pyramids of Giza. And another beauty it is. 

The front can open up to reveal a tiny scarab that comes out and the back is beautifully decorated as well. I don't often indorse something, but this is definitely worth the money I paid for it. 

If you are into walking, running or cycling, it might be something for you as well. There are both shorter and longer challenges, but for every 20% of any challenge completed, a tree will be planted. And at the end you will get a beautiful medal. Click here for more information.

I am currently walking the Ring of Kerry in Ireland and I can't wait to finish it and get my medal for it. I am just over half way now, so I still have about 100 km to go, but I have started walking a bit longer just to get that medal. Win win for me!

In other news: I spotted the first green. The clover has started to come up. I can't wait for the rest...

My allotment

We frequent a supermarket here that now has an allotment action. Basically for every 15 euro spend, you get a small double tub with seeds and some compost. Once you get it home, undo the cardboard and find out which of the 15 different combinations there are and start your own allotment.

You put the compost on a saucer, add some water and watch it grow. You then fill the tubs with the earth, put the seeds in and cover with the remaining earth. Put in the sun and wait for it to grow. According to the notes that come with, that first bit should take about 2 weeks. Then when the plants are about 4 cm (1.5 inch) high, you have to move them to a bigger pot where they can grow some more.

Now, the tubs are all double as the plants to be grown are 'buddies'. One plant will have a certain type of insect (like a louse) gunning for the nice bits, the other plant will attract another insect (like a ichneumon wasp) gunning for the first insect! Win win for both plants and for me hopefully.

So far I have planted Oxheart Cabbage and Dill, Radishes and Buckwheat, Swiss Chard and Chamomile and Lacinato Kale and Crimson Clover. As long as they will produce something edible (most, not all), I will be quite happy. I will keep you posted on how they are all doing.