to self sufficiency that is.
We don't get our usual Food Connect box over the Christmas & New Year period but I haven't had to buy any vegetables and very little fruit. The pre Christmas box had enough onions to keep us going and everything else has come out of the garden.
It's not all about tomatoes of course, summer wouldn't be summer without zucchinis and squash, cucumbers and beans. I've given a lot more thought to the things we use day in day out and planted those rather than weird and wonderful exotic things that we might use once or twice a year.
One year I dedicated a huge amount of space to sweet corn, but for some reason my family are just not that keen on it. When I was a kid in NZ we used to buy it on the side of the road in rubbish sacks but now we wouldn't eat more than a dozen cobs a year. I had some leftover seed this year that I couldn't just throw out so I've planted those but that will be the last I think. Excuse my Rabbit Proof Fence made out of sundry bits of rubbish that were lying around, my new rabbit MooMoo (my kids think he has cow patterning) is living in the vege patch so anything that he likes the taste of has to be protected.
Rattlesnake beans are my absolute favourites, I love how they look on the vine and I think they have the best beany flavour. I'm so organised this year that my first crop is now happily producing large pods for dried beans and next year's seeds, while my succession plants are just about to produce a new crop of tasty beans for salads. They're so prolific that we are actually a bit sick of beans so it's good to have a small gap between crops. I tried purple king beans this year too which look sensational in the garden but are disappointingly tasteless. Thanks to this post of Jason's at Zucchini Island, I haven't wasted any space on them, they are growing on the chicken fence and providing the chooks with both exercise (jumping up) and greens.
My frugal side is very pleased with these cucumber plants, a friend of mine gave me a couple of very prolific plants last year so I saved some seeds et voila here we have free cucumbers - can't beat that.
5 comments:
your garden is looking great, we might have the new big garden but we dont have all that much in it at the moment
Happy New Year!! I tried the purple beans once too and they didn't do much in my garden... your beans stalks are looking great! Hope it all keeps growing well...
Hi, I dropped by your blog after following from a comment you left on Veggiegobblers. I will have to seek out Rattlesnake beans, I agree with you on the Purple King beansthey look great but the flavours pretty so so. For bush beans I like Jade - good flavour and nice size, but the germination rates tend to pretty awful.
Can't get over how productive your garden is...don't know what's gone wrong this year but ours just seems like a bog!
Well done! We took a break from gardening this year, but I'm always happy to see the success of other's efforts.
Finding out what you like to eat, and getting it to grow, takes a few years practice. But when it works it can take care of itself. :)
Post a Comment