It’s July already!  In fact we’re almost half way through the month.  Where did June go to?  And my next question, when will Summer start?

Here in the English Midlands and North we’re not suffering the floods of last year, when thousands were left homeless, but we are getting a lot of dull wet days.  It’s great for the weeds, but the sun-loving plants are feeling rather deprived.

As I look out from my desk onto the vegetable patch I can, however, see my four golden yellow courgette plants flourishing.  No large fruits for the kitchen yet, but things are looking good for the next few weeks.

I decided to leave my broad beans last month as they were not quite ready, but yesterday we had a great meal including freshly picked beans.  It seems a long time since sowing them in one of the raised beds in January, but the wait has been well worth it.  There are many more good pickings to come.

On our bookselling site we have a great selection of kitchen garden books. Take a look.

Happy growing …. and eating.

- David Murray -
Gardening-Notes.com

ps.  Switching away from vegetables, don’t forget to take a close look at this excellent Fuchsias DVD.

Tags: broad beans, Courgettes, Fuchsias, Kitchen Garden, raised bed

For the past several years I’ve had very little success with butternut squash, but courgettes have been very different. Both green and yellow varieties have added to our kitchen table year after year.

This year I was rather late getting to grips with the greenhouse and vegetable garden due to a period of poor health, but eventually dug around to see what seed packets I had in store. I didn’t find any green courgette seeds but did discover a three-year-old almost empty packet (just four seeds) of the golden yellow variety, Golden Dawn III F1, dated 2005 and to be sown by last year

Not sure whether they’d germinate or not, I put one each in four small and even-older peat pots filled with general purpose compost, watered them liberally and left them in a shady corner of the greenhouse to see what happened. All four are now thriving as rapidly developing seedlings and last night I put them in the ground outside.

For each plant I had dug an 18-inch deep hole, put a layer kitchen waste (straight from the kitchen composting bin) in the bottom, covered this with a layer of well-rotted farmyard manure, covered that with a layer of shredded paper, and then backfilled the hole with a mixture of one part manure to two parts of the soil taken out when digging the hole. So from last night my four courgette plants, about three feet apart to give them a fair amount of room, are luxuriating in a nutritious soil which I hope will lead to another great harvest.

We still have a slight risk of late frost here in mid-May, but I’ll have to put a bit of fleece over them if the weather forecast looks threatening.

Happy growing,

- David -

Tags: Courgettes