The garden in mid August

This year has been very good for us in the garden, but now is the time to make sure your harvest continues. We are now down to our last 3 pots of new potatoes ( see Growing vegetables in Containers ) but instead of just storing the empty pots we have been replanting with french beans, carrots, turnips and beet. The french beans are an experiment as they were put in late, but they seem to be doing fine.

We have leeks carrots swedes and parsnips growing in our deep beds of course, but the more we grow in containers the more I’m drawn to the idea. Of course you do need a good supply of compost but if you use all your garden and kitchen waste it is surprising how much you can make, and it doesn’t cost you anything.

Runner beans and french beans are still plentiful and we have stored several sacks of main crop potatoes in the shed. The sweet corn is nearly ready and we are really looking forwards to eating it. Onions have been marvellous. We lifted them last week and they are now drying in the shed. They should be ready for stringing up very soon. Lettuce is stupidly expensive in the shops. We are growing it very successfully in small pots on window sills.

Our peppers and aubergines are also cropping well, but next year we will be putting them into larger containers. We are getting good harvests from them but they do look a little cramped in small pots. Cucumbers seem to do well in pots and spring onions are a piece of cake.

Finally we have 2 cheery trees grown in large pots and we had a good crop of those earlier this year.