Hocus Crocus

Spring phase one has come to Harbill's Garden.

Going Snowhere

Pictures of the garden this weekend:

The garden yesterday afternoon

The garden today

Leeks, Shoots and Leaves

A belated happy new year to all of our Blogciples!

For the Harbills, the new year brings fresh hopes for a bountiful harvest. We are already imagining baskets brimming with luscious red tomatoes, enormous, crisp runner beans and squash the size of footballs. But let's not get too carried away, first we have to grow them and the process began yesterday with our first batch of leek seeds.

As you might expect at this time of year, the garden looks devoid of all life:

But if you look a little closer...

..you can see Primula pushing through the dead leaves.

And the crocus and daffodil shoots (planted together in two layers) are coming up:

We mentioned our broad beans before Christmas. They seem to be still growing, the leaves in tact and unaffected by frost so far, so will hopefully give us an early crop.

Unlike the garden, Muffin, who has spent most of the winter asleep, is still asleep.

Windy November

No, Muffin has not been using our patio as her new toilet, this is actually our very first crop of jerusalem artichokes. They are the Fuseau variety and less knobbly than other types so hopefully shouldn't be too difficult to peel. However, we all know what jerusalem artichokes are really famous for, so beware to anyone in our vicinity in the next few days.

Here is what else has been going on in Harbill's Garden:

Our broad beans, planted mid-October so that we can get an early crop in April, have already started coming up:

Bizarrely, despite having trimmed it back, our lavender is insisting on flowering.

And the cornflowers will not give up.

We are also still managing to eat salad throughout the winter; this rocket seems impervious to the cold, windy and sometimes frosty weather.

But - and we are saving the most thrilling news for last - we are hugely excited about our compost heap.

On the right is this year's waste; we have already started another one on the left

Throughout the year, we have been putting all perishable waste excluding meat, fish and citrus fruit (meat & fish attract rats and citrus is too acidic) into a big compost sack at the back of the garden. And look! It has actually turned to mud!!!

We will be using this when we dig up the garden in the spring to prepare for Year 2 of Harbill's Garden. Briwwiant (as they say in Burton).

The End

The sun is now setting on Harbill's Garden and we have reinstated the fortnightly veg box order (put on hold since June! That's £13 a fortnight saved! Although we dread to think how much we have actually spent on Harbill's Garden...). We have harvested all our squash, eaten, frozen or preserved all our runner beans, carrots, lettuces, spinach, cucumbers, courgettes, 3 tomatoes, baby beetroot (babies because they never grew), kohlrabi, borlotti beans (not very nice). All that remain in the veg garden are our Jerusalem artichokes, old runner bean plants and a few patches of rocket leaves.

Runner bean chutney

As we look back over the long and challenging months we have spent nurturing our garden through disaster and grief as well as triumph and joy, the Harbills have learned a number of lessons:

1. Do not plant things out before the last frost if they are not supposed to be planted out until after the last frost.

2. There is no need to manically and obsessively start planting squash in February inside the house; it is better to plant seeds just a month before they need to go outside.

3. Do not plant squash seeds gathered from squash planted the year previously, they are very likely to have cross-pollinated and the result tastes disgusting.

4. Carrots do not grow any bigger if you pull them up, see that they are too small and promptly return them back into the soil.

5. If you put food out for the birds, they will also eat all your blueberries and you will get none for your cereal.

6. Despite being easy to grow, one does not actually get very many broad beans from broad bean plants.

7. Shouting at tomatoes to turn red does not seem to work.

8. Without a greenhouse, there's not much point in bothering with tomatoes. Tomatillos however, are the new tomatoes. They seem to grow happily outside, are plentiful, low maintenance and most importantly, taste lovely.

9. Edemame beans do not grow in our garden

10. Muffin's main purpose in life is to destroy our garden.

"Hmmm, what can I kill next?"

But do not despair, dear Blogsciples, this is not really the end of our blog. We plan to keep you updated with garden activity over the bleak winter months and perhaps even post a few recipes using produce from the garden. If you are very lucky, we might even do a special feature on our compost heap...

Ahhh, summer, it's our favourite day of the year

There is no denying it, the short, cold summer is officially over and most of the garden is beginning to turn brown.

However, there is still a bit of colour in Harbill's garden, mainly created by certain flowering stalwarts such as our beautiful Aster:

The Scabius is still going strong and is perhaps our longest serving flower.

Our garden's attention seeker, the Dahlia, is looking resplendent at this time of year but it is rather lonely (we only have one). Perhaps it should stop showing off and it might make friends.

And the sweet-peas just keep 'buggering on'.

Having looked at all these flowers you might believe it is still summer, until you see what else is going on in the garden.

Most Things Great... are small

This Turks Turban is currently about the size of a football

We have realised this year, that big is not necessarily best. Whilst we are feeling rather proud of our swelling squash:

l-r: Choggio di Marni; Acorn; Turks Turban

and the runner beans taste just as good at any size:

we have found that the cucumbers are at their most succulent picked small, that the courgette are at their best picked at about the size of Billy's finger (not Harriet's) and that the carrots are sweetest as babies.

Purple Haze carrots - these are not quite as nice as Atlas carrots