Glut gardening

tomato jungleThere is a particular hum of happiness as you head out first thing in the morning the check the rain gauge. 8mm. Not bad at all. We had our first rain in two weeks last night, just as I was packing up for the day.

The timing was perfect. This week has been Operation Potager.

Hot weather has meant that I have been neglecting this part of the garden all summer. It’s just so hard to be energetic when all you want to do is hide from the heat. Bludging if you will.

Crops have produced, but so have the weeds.

SoI headed out with intent: secateurs, weeding mat, bags for unwanted vegetatitomato on vineon,gloves.  It’s a brilliant sitting down job as I can just fit in between the rows.

And I discovered that I have a whole bed of perfectly tomatoes in the top left quadrant of the potager. It is supposed to be one of the cabbage beds.  But they didn’t thrive. Despite my good deeds over the winter when I added a large amount of home made compost to the soil.  And then added commercial mulch over the top to prevent weeds.

But it obviously didn’t work. I had tomato seeds lurking. And all it took was a bit of good constant watering (thank you automatic watering system) and up they came.

I can’t even tell you how many plants I have here. I think two.  They are sprawling all through the cabbages, the verbena bonariensis and achillea plants.

One has the size producefromweedingand taste of a Gardener’s Delight. And the other is a bit larger and darker. Both are delicious.

I’ve been snacking as I worked my way along the rows.

And here is the booty for the day.  I didn’t plan to pick any more beans. I’m leaving most of the plants to grow on and produce seed for next year.

But these were just the right size and it’s so addictive – picking and picking and picking. It does beat weeding and weeding and weeding.

I found the giant cucumber under some bolted lettuce plants. And these ridiculous yellow zinnias are just too plentiful in the garden right now. It’s a bit like the beans. I can’t give them away.

I had some company every few hours. Artur came on some site inspections when he was in need of a cuddle.

You could say we have both been in the dirt.  But his dirt of choice right now is the zinc pot in the potting shed which is half full of spent compost.   Each to their own patch of soil.

artur in soil