Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Growing something useful

So far the useful things we grow are as follows: At the allotment we have permanent fruit planted that includes: blueberry bushes, strawberries, the miracle pear, raspberries, red and black currants, rhubarb, the reluctant fig (yet to produce fruit bigger than a peanut) and last year's new plum tree (otherwise known as one plum).
Our permanent veg so far include a mini asparagus bed and some very keen jerusalem artichokes that we planted in a slab box last year. When I cleared it there were around 200 to harvest from the original eight we planted. This year I put 6 back in but many more germinated themselves. I removed a few and intend to pinch out the tops this year. hopefully we'll get fewer but bigger tubers that way.
We are hoping that our globe artichokes will survive this winter as last year's plants did give us a few tasty treats but the extra snow finished them off.
The each year we have had crops of frence, broad and runner beans. There are five different kinds of potatoes coming up at the moment and we have tomatoes and chillis, cucumbers and peppers in our original cold frame.
The cabbage family patch hasn't been too successful yet though we have had quite a few brussel sprouts and kale the rest seem susceptible to club root. I'm trying black kale this year and purple sproting brocolli and purple brussels sprouts with fingers crossed.
Our onions have been succesful and we have also grown garlic but didn't this year.
There are also herbs including chives, coriander and rosemary.
Back at the house we have a little walled back yard where we are now starting to be more productive too. There are tomato plants in grow bags on a chariot to help us move things around as the space is small. We also have aubergines and tomatillos in a mini green house. In the front garden so far we have experimented with mushrooms and planted two hazelnut trees. It's pretty shady so that's difficult but we hope to replace things with herbal, edible and medicinal alternatives over time.
Indoors we also sprouted a ginger root, a mango, avocado and a lemon pip and some go gi berry seeds are in some compost too so who knows what else we can grow!

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