Potager, Summer 2016

Here are some photos from my summer potager. These photos were taken a good month ago but it's taken me a while to get them edited and uploaded! Still, the garden looks mostly the same (just fuller, bushier and more rampant) so let's have a stroll through the potager.

The lavender hedge attracts tons of bumblebees. They are such funny little garden companions, going about their harvesting business and not caring at all how close I get or whether I shove a camera in their face! They also love the bean and zucchini flowers.

I have Sunset runner beans planted on both arches. The pink flowers add the finishing touch, especially when they mingle nicely with the pansies.

In the First Quarter is a Kumato tomato plant - the only variety I bother growing outside the glasshouse now. Even with very little care besides staking (I haven't even remembered to trim laterals for a while) it's growing strongly and has plenty of fruit. Still, I better get in there and trim some branches so it can ripen! To the left is some broccoli and a cauliflower. To the right is a bare patch where I harvested the garlic - I've since planted bright lights silver beet and more broccoli in the space.

The Cheddar caulis that I sowed in spring did really well and I was able to harvest them at a good size, before there were any caterpillars around to do damage.

On the right in the Second Quarter is sweet corn. It grew strongly from seed but is a bit smaller than previous varieties I have grown, and each plant is only averaging one cob. They taste good but I'd prefer it if I was getting double the yield. I also planted heirloom beans between the corn plants, and there are self seeded pumpkins in there too, bursting out of the garden and hugging everything in their reach. The pumpkins are doing surprisingly well too, setting fruit and all. I've grown pumpkins before, both self seeded and purposely planted, and they never seem to manage to either set much fruit or get it very big. So I'll keep a cautious eye on these and hopefully they will continue to surprise.

Leeks are growing next to the corn. If they can continue to withstand the attack of the pumpkins, there will be a good stash here for winter!

Words to the wise.

Here in the Third Quarter are Borlotti beans. Since taking this photo, the leaves have started turning yellow meaning that it's nearly time to harvest. After that I'll put the bed to bed for winter.

Looking through the arches, past the beans and the pansies and the pumpkins and the rosemary. 

At the very back is my apple tree Monty's Surprise, which is so heavily laden that it's bent right over and I had to tie it to the cherry tree to try and hold it upright! I guess I will need to dig in some really good stakes over winter.

In the meantime there is plenty of harvesting to do - beans, tomatoes, zucchini, spring onions. Time to finish this up and get into the kitchen to deal with some of it!