Some things grew in my garden this year. Town Mouse who is in the semi-pro category when it comes to gardening and once, if memory serves me, won a prize for her vegetables, had a spread sheet calculating how much she spent on her garden and comparing her prices to those in the supermarket. I seem to remember that the calculation was that growing your own was definitely not cheaper. If this was the case for Town Mouse, it is much more so for me. Things fail with monotonous regularity (slugs devoured this years pumpkin crop when it was two tender leaves poking above the ground). I spend hours in vain trying to weed out brambles, dandelions and bindweed. My crops are small. As Town Mouse points out, they do taste slightly nicer than things you buy in the shops but, you know, they are still, vegetables. But yet, I find it all very enjoyable. Oh middle age, thy name is gardening. This season’s triumphs are detailed below. And I haven’t even mentioned the sweet peas.
The ever-reliable gooseberries providing enough for two harvests and four pots of jam:
The small, but successful, turnip and carrot harvest:
Providing enough for dinner for five (if three of the five don’t eat vegetables).
The pea harvest; the Princess demonstrates using “women laughing with salad” for inspiration:
Every year, I have loads of lettuce. I think it must be the easiest thing to grow. If you’re going to start, start here:
Healthy head of lettuce in the sink with entire potato crop. Let us draw a veil.
Our two apple trees have not been particularly successful producing one apple between them. On the plus side, we have 11 pears on our pear tree. Yes, I have counted.
