I've been really chuffed since I moved into my new place and have great plans to finally properly grow some veg and plants. But first of all, I have to sort out my garden and get some planters in. I'm hoping to do that over the winter so I can start growing stuff in the spring. In the meanwhile, I've only grown limited things this summer.
Tomato
My sister gave me lots of tomato seedlings earlier this year and now I can finally grow them outdoors in the garden in full sunlight. Previously when I was living in a flat, I only had a little patch of north facing patio and my tomato harvest was disappointing.
Here they did much better and within two months they had grown a lot. However, they didn't start to flower till quite late and there weren't many fruit. My sister said it was the same for hers.
I harvest them all last month, a bit prematurely in hindsight, as I should have left them on the vine to grow longer. And then I had to go away to HiveBeeCon, so I gifted the basket away and never got to sample my harvest.
Pak choi
Quite late in the summer I sowed some pak choi seeds. My first batch a few months ago (in front of the tomatoes in the first image) were all eaten by caterpillars before I could say boo. Surprisingly, this batch survived two weeks indoors without watering when I went away recently.
It's a bit too late to plant veggies outdoors now as it's getting quite cold but I figured I'd test the laws of nature today. I will cover them with big plastic bags for extra warmth at night time. Fingers crossed they will survive in the cold, and I can give you you an update soon.
Wolfberry
The other thing I planted today are these Wolfberry twigs that I cut from my brother in law's garden last month. They've been growing in water for a month and made quite a nice table display. Some have shoots and they have all grown roots. Hopefully the remaining ones will shoot as well.
Wolfberry is from the same family as goji berries, the super food that has become very popular on recent years. These twigs are from a slightly different variety to the goji berry plant, and I'm growing them to harvest their leaves to make soup. Hopefully I can share a foodie post of the soup in future.
Potted plants
As a total garden novice I thought it would be nice to create my own potted plant. There were so many to choose from in the garden center and I choose a few which I thought would look nice together without understanding their properties. I have some height at the back, some with flowers,and two shades of different green. I was pretty proud of my creation.
It even continued to grow, which was a good sign as most plants tend to die in my hands. However I noticed the plant in the front had spread to the left. Luckily I had saved all the plant labels and googled them. It turns out the plant in the front is sedum, a plant known to spread quickly. I also Googled the one on the right. It's a choiysa, a shrub, which means it will grow quite bushy. Woops! Looks like I'll have to repot my creation, maybe after winter.
I shared my eculyptus tree in a post last month. It's actually my husband's tree as he wanted it.
And this is my tree 😊. I've always wanted a lemon verbena plant ever since I first used some lemon verbena toiletry products in a hotel some years ago. I love stroking the leaves when I walk by as it has this lovely smell. The leaves adds a hint of fragrance to water, and I'm trying to see if and how I can extract some oil to add to my toiletry products I future. Not sure if I'm being a bit too ambitious here. What do you think?
I hope to be back with my LUT garden report #2 soon with some interesting progress.
