So my first foray into growing my own vegetables has been (to quote Craig Revel-Horwood) a complete disaaaaaaaster darling!!

After much sweating and hard work digging up the grass I planted out some sweetcorn seeds and some spring onion seeds. Nothing!!! Nada!! No shows!!! In fact the area where I had planted was so covered in bloody weeds I couldn’t even remember where I had planted them!

I also grew cucumbers from seed. Planted about fourty seeds and for quite a long time there was nothing!!! Nada!!! No shows!!! (Yes there is recurring theme here.) But suddenly miracle of miracle two little shoots showed their faces in the middle of June (it was a slow start t summer throughout Europe this year it appears.) I planted them out and one died! But one survived yey!!! It grew one cucumber- one!! I little fat round cucumer that looked like a green potato. Rich was adamant it was not a cucumber, but it was and tasted lovely, what there was of it, trust me, we couldn’t go mad!

As some of you may have read, I also bought some cucumbers from the Supermarche, because home grown cucumbers cannot be beaten, they were clearly marked, concombre, but were in fact courgettes. They thrived, took over the vegetable patch and provided so many bloody courgettes, most of which were the size of the biggest marrows you have ever seen, that  I couldn’t give them away and Rich is refusing to eat any more courgette curry.

I decided to be completely green and planted some tomato seeds which grew in abundance, too much, and by the time that they had started to grow (in April because I was late planting them)  I had bought some tomato plants that were established and planted them out. Add to that I was busy working and there were so many,  I did not have a clue how to transfer them I ended up with another four tomato plants, out of about sixty!!  I found myself apologising to the seedlings for murdering them as I threw them in the compost! (I don’t think I’m cut out for this farming lark, I even feel guilty with the vegetables so I would be a nightmare with livestock, and the garden would be over-run!)  Bless them two of the four tomato plants I planted out grew me some lovely looking pomodorino tomatoes but it was so late when they formed, middle of September, that they got blight and I had to put them in the compost!

My Asian tomato plant, which was a triffid, grew me the grand total of six very big Asian tomatoes, which then took forever to ripen and gradually decided to give into the blight as well! Such was the way with my tomato plants!!

I even tried picking them and putting them on the warm windowsill in the living room, where they went green, green, slightly orange……..dead!

Out of my four peppers, there were two, grown by me, that produced nothing!! Nada!! No shows!!! (Told you there was a theme.) But the two I bought did produce. Yey!  I here you say;  but don’t get too excited, they produced one normal size green pepper and one pepper the size of a chilli!!! Woop, woop, we’ve eaten them!

So here it is, my sad looking vegetable patch:

 

All is not lost though, the remainder of the plants will go on the compost heap, which given the number of broken up branches, cava apples, and unripened walnuts, as a result of the storm, is thriving.

Add to that I have two Welshies who love to get in and turn it over for mummy (although I think that there really hunting for mice and rats, given that Wiglet bought me a rat over the other day to show me what she had caught! Bless! Look at her butter wouldn’t melt.)

I also have a husband who is now dutifully urinating on it to help with the decaying process as it is really good for  compost (has to be man’s wee not a woman’s – which is a good job as you won’t get me getting in it and crouching over it, very ungainly. Plus I think that the neighbours will complain!! Especially when my arse blocks out the setting sun!) as it helps rot it down.

So onwards and upwards, I will rotivate next year, and hopefully have some good quality compost to put on it. But I will NOT be growing anything from seed, and will be buying the fledgling plants. I will also be putting out potatoes in bins (as I might be trying to be Tom and Barbara but I don’t like worms in my potatoes!)  I may possibly put my tomatoes in containers on my patio, which heats up to the equivalent of a nuclear plant and is over fifty degrees when summer is in full force; that should get the bastards to go red!!! So what will you put in the potager? I hear you cry.

Hydrangeas?!

As always if you are enjoying my blog please share and please comment using the buttons below.

 

Look out for more coming soon

 

Moisy