So much from the garden - a production garden update.

This was the comment made to my better half the other day as she dropped off some gooseberries to her friend, as they were planning to make jam with them. The friend in question is also our landlord, and they previously lived here, growing some fruit, vegetables, etc., and, it was in this context that she referred to the harvests we get. 

The range and quality of crops and flowers I've harvested, over the four years we've been here has definitely varied, depending on time of year, weather and, most importantly, treatment of the soil. 

I wrote a rather cheeky, short blog, called 'It's the soil, stupid', when I was originally planting the raspberries in the garden, emphasising the importance of good soil for plants to grow in. You will hear the same (less cheekily put) sentiment from many gardeners, which can be summed up as 'what you put in to the soil, you harvest back from the plants' or, even simpler, 'look after the soil, and it will look after the plants'. 

As I do a fair amount of garden talks, and give plenty of advice, this is a topic I rightly give plenty of attention to. 

  

And, as you might know from some of my other posts, the original soil here is really not good. On planting the raspberries, and other berry plants planted the first year we moved in, I did a lot of double digging - incorporating as much organic matter as possible, and that is part of the reason the crops are so good now. However, in more recent times I've taken to the no-dig method for a lot of the vegetable crops, we'll see how this progresses.

On a slightly different note, after the cold spring, and beautiful (if not a little dry) June, the tomatoe plants finally have trusses of ripening beauties that we'll soon be enjoying. My peppers are cropping quite well, far better than last year; late planted onions are motoring along nice too; and, the various squash plants were finally planted out a couple of weeks ago, so again, let's watch their progress.

In the meantime, please do read up further information on identifying your soul type, how to enrich it, and conditioning it over a number of years work to create a growing medium in order for plants to grow strongly giving plenty of rewarding harvests.

Happy gardening