On 29 Dec I harvested the garlic. It had been very sunny before Christmas and I had intended to harvest it then, but it didn’t happen. The days after Christmas were very wet, so the first non-rain day I picked the garlic even though it was still quite wet. I was worried that it would start to rot in the ground. I pulled 157 heads – 3 were rotten and the stalks pulled off 2. The rest were laid out in the bike shed to allow the outer leaves to dry, the following morning I hung them all from the rafters of the shed in bundles of 5 plants.
Drying overnight
Curing in the bike shed – remember to duck when you go in or you’ll get soil down the back of your shirt!
We are swimming in zucchini and basil at the moment. I’m still freezing the basil leaves whole. We are eating zucchini every way imaginable – grated in fritters, stuffed and baked, pan fried with basil, barbecued… I’ve harvested a few cauliflowers – there are another 3 to go. The cabbages are all ready at the same time (6 large ones!). And we’ve eaten the last of the artichokes.
Zucchini come in all shapes ad sizes!!
Big, fat, juicy cabbages
Beautiful cauliflowers
The last artichokes
New Year’s Eve (31 Dec), I planted out seedlings – 9 clumps of lettuce, 3 of rocket, 6 brussel sprouts, 10 artichokes (in bed 4 – these will be moved to the orchard area when they are larger) and 25 leeks (in 5 rows of 5).
I removed the covers from Paul’s blackberries (they are looking very happy) – I needed the covers to protect the brussel sprout plants from white butterflies.
Yesterday afternoon (6 Jan), I weeded the potato patch. Ben is really keen to use the mower whenever possible, so I also dug all of the potatoes growing at the edge of the patch so that he can mow there for me. I dug about 4l of mixed sized pink skinned potatoes. We ate several for dinner – very tasty!
The whole garden is looking very nice at the moment – lots of bushy growth and beautiful colours.
