Apologies for my small blogging break this week. There’s no big reason for it, it just seems to be taking me longer to do everything than I anticipated lately! I thought it would be fun to share a garden update with you. In April I bought some strawberry, tomato and hot pepper plant and I’ve been growing them in grow bags ever since! The strawberries are doing really well at the moment. Because they don’t all ripen at once, I just eat them when I see that they’re ready. They’re so tasty! Strawberry growing has definitely been my most successful attempt at growing food so far. I’m growing three different varieties, and I try to feed them with tomato food every day. I’m absolutely going to grow some more strawberries next summer.
I also bought some scotch bonnet chilli pepper plants. As you can see, they’re not doing so well. I think they belong in a greenhouse really – they don’t enjoy our cold British weather very much!
I’m also growing three different types of tomatoes. The plants are looking tall and healthy, but they haven’t produced any fruit yet! I’m hoping they will do towards the end of summer. I know you’re supposed to trim tomato plants but I haven’t been because I haven’t got a clue which parts you’re supposed to trim and which parts are important. Growing things is a lot harder that it looks! Apparently you can’t just plant things and hope for the best…
My Dad bought a Bee Saver Kit from Friends of the Earth which included a packet of wild flower seeds. I dug a bed in our garden, planted them and pretty much left them to it – they are wildflowers after all! They’re all bee-friendly flowers, so the hope is that the bees will use them as food and we’ll be helping halt the decline of bees in some small way. I haven’t been weeding this bed because the weeds and the wildfllowers are indistinguishable. Hopefully the bees will enjoy both!
When I’m old I’d like to have a house with a garden and a huge vegetable patch so that most of the fruit and vegetables I eat I have grown myself. It’ll be a long time before I have either a house, or the ability to grow all of my own food, but this is one step in the right direction! Have you been growing anything this summer?
Ah Jess this is fantastic! You’re so enterprising! We have such a crap space to grow anything and I’m never home but when I’m older I’d love to have a huge garden also
The strawberries are beautiful! I don’t know much about growing fruit and veg but I bet you’ll see more poppies next year since you had good ones this year. They self-seed and should increase!
Hey Jess mmmmmmmm can’t beat good strawberries! Your plants are looking really good, Ive not tried growing in bags before but maybe something I will try. The wild flowers are great, have you noticed any more bees since they flowered? I need to buy some seeds to try growing some more veg, eeeek excited at the thought of all the variety that you can choose to grow at home xxxxx