The garden share collective....a Summer garden

  

 

 

There has been a huge amount of growth in the garden in the last few months - you can see the difference from my last Garden Share Collective post here.

I ended up moving all of my plantings from the raised garden bed under the Apricot tree to the one above.  The soil just wasn't holding the water and was just so dry.  Since moving them they have flourished here.  There is a bit of shade from the hedge and because the garden bed is low it holds water really well.  At the end of winter I also put down a lot of manure which I'm sure makes a huge difference too.

I now want to extend this garden - I have compost on the other side so the plan is to dig the compost, and lawn clippings up, turn the soil and put down more manure and get this planted up for winter.

My tomatoes have gone crazy and are taking over.  They are stretching themselves over my celery, zucchini and cucumbers - this seems ok at the moment as they provide good shading and protection from the birds and bugs.  Is it okay to trim the tomato plantings back???  Or should I let them go wild???

We have been eating spinach from the garden.  And as it's summer and BBQ season I have been using the lettuce that is growing for our salads.  The tomatoes are now ready to be added to our meals too.

Our fruit trees have been pants this year.  After two years of bumper plum and apricot crops, this season the trees are almost bare.  I was told that with apricot trees it's year on year off so I guess we are due for an "off" season.

With the raised garden bed under the apricot tree now bare I was thinking of putting in more strawberries.   Any other suggestions would be appreciated - it needs to be a crop that can tolerate dry conditions, and a lot of sun.  This spot isn't sheltered well from winds either.

In the last year I have really taken to gardening - vegetables and flowers.  I had no idea how rewarding and relaxing I would find it.


Growing in the garden I have:

Tomatoes
Capsicum - red/orange/yellow
Chillies
Broccoli
Spinach
Zucchini
Cucumber
Lettuce
Spring onions
Strawberries

Jobs to do:

Weeding and soil turning
Netting over crops
Extend the vegetable garden (remove some of the compost and clippings, turn soil and lay down manure).

 

Happy gardening!

Joining in with Lizzie from Strayed from the table.

"The Garden Share Collective is a group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills. Creating a monthly community to navigate through any garden troubles and to rival in the success of a good harvest we will nurture any beginner gardener to flourish. Each month we set ourselves a few tasks to complete by the next month, this gives us a little push to getting closer to picking and harvesting. The long-term goal of the Garden Share Collective is to get more and more people gardening and growing clean food organically and sustainably."