The Vegetable Garden - End of June

Dear Family & Friends

It's now end of June and I'm updating the vegetable garden situation. These kept me really busy with lots of work... sometimes overwhelming work that I get stressed and angry... but I now realized that I really have a bad attitude towards this...silly old me!

I should be grateful that I'm blessed with so much (including work!)...I just have to chill out and do what I can do...if veggies can't be harvested in time, it will still be OK... if weeds are teasing me to no end, well, this is a real garden! I will still get there eventually!!

Everything has just taken on with vigor! and beauty! It's still a perfect garden.... as long as you don't mind watching weeds in every corner of these photos!!

A few onions bolted into flower but there are still a lot busy forming their bulb. I think some of them are already getting ready to be harvested...but I will have to wait for them to really wilt out before harvesting.

Oh...now what is this?!...oh yes...this is the potato patch...actually you can't see the potato plants anymore, most of them have disappeared... and weeds -enormous weeds have taken over... I think it is time to harvest them...just waiting for weekend help:)

The corns are forming by now...weeds are growing happy along side them too:)

There's really no pathway in between rows of tomatoes...my fault...Ive planted them too close..one too many...didn't managed to pinch the side shoots...so they are really very bushy!! Fruits are still green...but I wonder how I will manage to harvest them when they turn red...oh well... I just will have to squeeze in and get covered with green tomato sap all over me:)

The two rows of cucumbers and cornichon are just about passable....my girls are complaining that soon they can't get in there to harvest the fruit everyday because if you remember right, I planted one pumpkin plant in between...and they are taking over like crazy..zooming thru the pathway....never do this again!!

The green beans are faithful with their daily harvest offer... I just have to keep visiting them everyday... we prefer eating it crispy-green-and-all, and if I let them mature so much...they will start producing the bean seeds...no...not yet...

Although this is not part of the vegetable garden anymore.....but I really get the joy of looking at these bunches growing by the day...they literally covered the roof edge space allotmented them...well...it isn't much a space...

As you can see...I can't keep up on top of the race when it comes to June gardening...but since I'm not going for the pristine garden award, I've already won for the natural garden look category...yay!

Now I'm off to do more work in the kitchen garden, the herb garden, the flower garden, the mini vineyard, the wild meadow, the berry patch...and I'll try not to get stressed and angry:) afterall, it's suppose to be HAPPY GARDENING!

Yours

The Vegetable Garden -end of May

Dear Family & Friends


This is in the vegetable garden towards end of May this year.

Yes, we already had our first corgette last week...it was delicious! This is a corgette plant too...late comer and as you can see the leaves is still so tiny but already flowering!

We have a lot of ants around and they are very busy farming aphids...but nature takes it's own course...we can also see a lot of ladybirds feeding on those horrible aphids...Hurray!!

These are the more established rows of corgette...lots of flowering fruits...we will have enough for grilled corgette BBQ with friends this weekend :)

It would have been nice to have some pickled cucumber to go with the grill menu, but for the moment cucumbers are not big enough...yet I can see some fruiting flowers...so who knows!! 

A row of cornichon... At one point, I thought I almost lost them when I transplanted the seedlings without keeping the soil moist...but they've forgiven me and recovered well. We will enjoy them as pickled, in a jar, for winter use when there's not many fresh veggies.

My husband doesn't like me planting a lot of pumpkin...but you know...I just can't say no to BIG local pumpkin, then, there's the butternut squash type and the asian pumpkin....I just got to have them all...but these plants like roaming around and they take up space! I told him I will peg them straight on the path where they can go or allowed to go as per order of the Management:) Oh...they better behave...or else, I get into trouble again! 

These are my naughty edible weeds, the Purslane. I shouldn't give them any special place as they just grow everywhere without control....but I did. I have a patch for them and I water them too:) 

Don't you think this is a work of art? My husband copied the idea from the neighbour in stringing intricate triangle patterns between post for the veggie climbers.

Here's the rows of tomatoes...yes, there's a lot of them....I got carried away with one too many...and there's volunteer tomatoes here and there too! I sometimes don't have the heart to pull and throw them away...now, I have no choice as I'm ranning out of garden space!!

Two long rows of green beans....! YUM!  We love green beans and surprisingly, we don't see much green beans sold in the market, even in season...I suppose the locals grow them mostly for the bean seed, not as greens.

The corn seed sown directly seemed to have sprouted sporadically.Next year, I will pre-soak them to sprout a bit before planting them out...but one good thing...I can carry on sowing more seeds. Corn is so tasty and sweet, specially harvested from the garden straight into the cooking pot!

The potatoes that I planted with special pre-instruction from the husband... of planting 3 rows only... ended up going overboard to 6 rows and a bit! No, I just don't have the heart to throw the rest as usual!! They used to look great all in neat rows...but rain/wind and their statures now plops them everywhere a bit.... OK...a great bit!

These are my onions...yes, there's a lot of them too...but they do keep well. In fact, we are still eating onions that we harvested last year...a few more to finish before these lot are ready!

The green peas are now climbing onto their post.... I've lost a lot of them somewhere...perhaps birds ate some of the seeds??...but there's enough for stir fried fresh young peas in a pod now and again...that's how it's best eaten...me thinks!

This is a bit long posting...but this serves as a record pupose for my gardening venture...perhaps an inspiration to some of you or maybe opportunity for me to learn from you in case there's something I missed or need to know further.

Yours

Drip irrigation

Dear Family & Friends

Even with smaller gardens, you might want to consider drip irrigation. Sometimes life gets busy, and you might not be able to water for a few days. If you had automatic irrigation, you wouldn’t have to worry about losing the garden you had spent months nurturing.

My first year of gardening, I was manualy carrying and pouring buckets of water from the well unto the plants. OH That was very tiring! and I don't thinkI needed more muscle building!

The second year, we bought an electric water pump and use a hose to stand for hours till the garden is watered. In the height of summer, mosquitoes were very keen on feasting me for the duration of the watering chore!! Yikes! 

The third year, we decided to make a deep trench on rows of plants and flood it with water to avoid becoming the party food of the mossies! But this uses up and waste so much water.

This year, we are getting clever, my husband installed a drip irrigation system. We placed a big water reservoir on top of a built-metre tall-pedestal. We pump water from the well into the reservoir and there is a switch for the main dripping pipe that channels to little plastic pipes that's laid onto the plant beds. Water is dripped using gravity and slow watering drips mean, the plant can take in the water into it's roots gradually... and we don't need to be there to do the chore either! Now, do you agree that we are getting clever?!

When life gets tough, there's always means and ways to find some solution. We are not experts here but gradually my husband is becoming quite a handyman...trying this way and that way...watching and learning from others too:) 

OK...I believe there's always hope..and we'll go for it. Be encouraged in whatever good plans you have too:)

Yours,