Garden Share Collective: The Changing Summer Garden

Another month has passed and it's time once again to take a peek into my vegie garden. Linking up as always with Lizzie of Strayed from the Table and the Garden Share Collective. Have you visited yet? It's well worth a look.

The zucchini that just keeps on giving.

And now to my garden. I'm very happy with how the little garden is going right now. We're harvesting from it most days and despite some extreme hot weather, I am happy to report that it is thriving. No losses in the vegie garden from the heat, mainly due to watering in the evenings [husband does a great job of that..] and a good amount of pea straw much. I love the stuff. Without it, I would have a wilted and dried up mess of a vegie garden by now, with the heat we've been experiencing lately.

Pretty leeks all in a row [or two].

Potatoes! Who said you can't grow potatoes in January?

Harvesting this month: 

Zucchini, plenty of zucchini. I only have one plant on the go and it's doing a fantastic job of providing us with yummy produce. Every time I harvest [usually 2 or 3 at a time], I can always see another four coming through. 

Leeks. I'm so happy with how my leeks have gone. I started off harvesting some small ones that were planted close to the ever-expanding zucchini, and now I'm branching out to some of the larger ones. These are so pungent and the smell of the cooking is lovely in the house.

Beetroot. During January I pulled in the last of my beetroots that I had planted. We enjoyed eating them in salads mostly, cooked up and then cooled and chopped into chunks. Tasty.

Lettuce. We ate plenty of lettuce. I chopped it up and added it to vegie burgers for a hint of green, we ate it in salads and husband enjoyed his lettuce and tuna salads for work lunches. All the lettuce then went to flower, I let it go for a while before pulling it all up to create more space.

Rainbow Chard [silverbeet]. Always a favourite, it has finally found it's feet and is doing an amazing job. Interestingly, the yellow-stemmed plants are producing really well, whereas the reddish-stemmed plants have bolted and gone to flower. 

Herbs - oregano, thyme, basil, dill and sage have all featured in our meals lately. Conditions are a bit harsher over in the herb garden but they're slowly growing along and coping pretty well. Mint and rosemary are also growing but we've not eaten them much. Must eat more mint over the summer. 

Oregano amongst the rocks.

Sage has found it's feet.

Planting this month:

More zucchini. I'm not sure how they'll go, being planted out as seedlings in January, but they're growing quite well. I planted three, and lost one to a rogue chicken in the vegie garden. The other two survived the attack are are looking happy. These were some heirloom seeds from Diggers that I was keen to try.

Potatoes! Against all wisdom, I took a punt and planted out some potatoes on 4 January. In the patch of terrible soil at the very end of the vegie garden where nothing much was growing, I wanted potatoes in there to help break up the clay soil. They are thriving. Granted I planted them quite close to the surface, but they're all up and looking set to flower soon. So I'll see what comes of it.

Still waiting to go in the ground - more beetroot, more lettuce, some broccoli, kale and a passionfruit to climb in the chook pen. I'm waiting for a day when it isn't ridiculously hot.

Waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

To do list for the next month:

Plant out beetroot, lettuce, broccoli, kale. 

Possibly dig some new vegie beds in the front garden [since we seem to be running low on space, and the front yard is in dire need of some TLC].

And hopefully harvesting a few more things - still waiting on tomatoes that are taking an eternity to ripen, but they look wonderful. Celery is doing much better [thanks for the tips last month, I've been keeping the water up and giving it a feed of seasol when I remember] and I'll bring it in over the next few weeks, mainly to make vegie stock with that I'll freeze for when we need it.

So that's where my little vegie garden is at right now, two months of summer down, one month to go. Apart from planting out a few more seedlings, I won't be doing much other than harvest, then let it have a little rest before a big tidy up in autumn. Which I'm already looking forward to.

Thanks as always to Lizzie for putting the Garden Share Collective together, please do show some love and take a look at some of the other gardens on display. I love taking a peek into people's vegie gardens!