During my last garden report I mentioned I was going to get a raised bed installed in my garden. Ta da!!! Here it is. Now I have some proper places where I can start growing my own food.
Wolfberry
The first thing I planted are my wolfberry plants. They're in the corner as they don't need much sun and attention as these are hardy plants. In an ideal world they will grow taller into mini bushes. The photo on the right was taken 6 weeks after they were planted. So far so good.
Bok Choi
I planted a lot of bok choi seedlings in early March but I knew they probably wouldn't make it as the seeds are quite old. They were sent to me by a few years ago. Anyway, I still planted them in my raised bed. I was so proud when they went in, all 60 of them, and had this vision of a bumper crop.
Soon after I went on my US trip and was away for 3 weeks. I had help to come round to water them, but due to the weak seedlings, hot weather, and the army of slugs, they were never going to make it. A lot of them were eaten by the slugs, and those that did grow, the leaves were all eaten by the slugs as well. Here's what they look like over 10 days.
And here's what they look like a few days ago. Quite a few have flowered and I've left them to collect the seeds to try again next year. End of my bok choi journey this year.
Garlic
For me, it's very difficult to know when to harvest things grown under ground. I read online the time is right to harvest garlic when the plant flops over. I dug one up when that happened, it has cloves of garlic but it doesn't form a firm bulb. Looks like I harvested too early. For my first ever garlic, I'm pretty pleased with it and now I'm hanging it up to dry. A week later, the others flopped as well, I left it for longer before I dug them up. They were even more underdeveloped than the first one so I just left them next to plants to deter the slugs. There's one more garlic plant that I have dug up yet. This has always been the biggest and healthiest one. I'm going decide next week if I'm going to dig it up. I'd appreciate thoughts from any experienced gardeners out there.
Other crops
With all my bak choi crop gone, I've been relying on my sister to give me bits and pieces from her garden. Chinese chives on the left hardy and very easy and quick to regrow. The sprint onion in the front are from scraps. And my sister gave me 3 tomato seedlings. 2 have succumbed to the slugs and I think this one might have been saved because it's the nearest to the chives. Plus UK is very cold this summer, not sure if it will make through..
My sister also gave me 4 broad beans and 1 courgette seedlings. There are only 3 broad beans seedlings left now. With hindsight, I probably planted them out too early and should have waited a few more weeks till they were bigger and stronger. Lesson learned for next year.
Lemon verbena and ecuplyptus
I bought these two plants last year and they have survived the winter. After pruning them back they have started to grow new leaves. I'm particularly happy with the lemon verbena, it's really come along nicely and has a lovely fragrance when I walk past.
Strawberries
I've had these two plants for 2 years and this year they are producing more strawberries. There was one single strawberry that turned bright red the other week, then over night a horrible slug got to it and started to nibble away. Now I have sat the pots on top of a plastic container, and the plastic container sits inside a tray of water. So far this seems to have worked and my strawberries are safe!!
I haven't figured out what to plant in this big planter yet, it's quite deep. The other week I bought some nice flowers to brighten up the summer. I probably won't be doing this again next year as it's too expensive. Maybe I will grow the flowers from seeds in spring. Will need to think about this.
And finally, I still have a bit more work to do in this corner of my garden. It gets no sunshine and the grass is in bad condition. In my next garden report, it will be transformed and can't wait to show you the changes. See you next month.