all go in the growing garden…

We have had a very busy couple of weeks in the growing garden. It started with our digging team preparing our new vegetable bed, edging it with old bricks and digging in lots of manure. However, first they had to dig out those triffid-like courgettes (or whatever they were) which were taking over the space. They were growing ever upwards (looking for the light, I was told by one gardening friend) and showing no indication that they were ever going to fruit. So out they had to come!

And here is the vegetable bed, manured and covered in magic Mulch, all ready for planting.

So on to this Monday. Paula had orderd a large black board so that we could set out the day’s tasks and here she is working out what needs to go on it.

And here are the new plants – cabbages, broccoli, cavolo nero and leeks – all ready to be planted out with a nasturcium to ward off the slugs between each vegetable.

While the girls got ready to plant out, Fabian and Ness stripped the tomato plants of all those green tomatoes. There is no longer enough sun to ripen them on the plant but, hopefully, if left on sunny kitchen window sills they will still ripen. If not, there is a lot of green tomato chutney to be made by someone!

The tomatoes harvested Ness and her clearing team then set to work on cleaning out the corn and bean planter. Along with the tomato planter it is scheduled for winter planting next week.

Back at the vegetable bed, here is the broccoli going in….

…. the cabbages being firmed in…..

…and the leeks getting a nice watering.

And here are those broccoli, looking very happy the following morning. All labelled and with an extra label to say who planted them. Although I need to be careful to tuck the string I used to secure the labels well in as otherwise our local fox gets curious and pulls it out in the middle of the night.

And here is Paula’s blackboard – with all those jobs crossed off. How satisfying!

Next Monday we need to finish planting the potatoes (the package tells us that they will be ready for harvesting in November), fill the two planters – and harvest yet more apples. The apple tree is still laden.