I’ve had some mixed results from the garden this year. We got a few peas (a meal and a bit anyway!) but were then hit by a huge heat wave in June which wiped out the next wave of them so that was a shame. I think next year I’ll try to get them in even earlier than I did.

I harvested my autumn planted white onions and shallots in early July. The onions are fabulous – the shallots not so much, the bulbs aren’t that big which I think is a water issue with our hugely dry April and I never got around to mulching them!

Swiss Chard has been a revelation, so pleased with how much it is producing, had lots of meals from it and it just keeps growing!

Garlic – I was really pleased with the number that worked but the bulbs are a bit smaller than I’d like – probably again from the very dry April when they should have been plumping up. Other friends have said the same thing. I calculate I’ve probably still got 6 months at least of garlic so all good!

So exciting picking whole meals worth of food – this was a mixed salad / baby kale and we had home grown new potatoes too – it was only the meat on the BBQ not homegrown!

We harvested over 10kg of potatoes!

Masses of basil doing really well this year that I make homemade pesto with our walnuts

Beans are now doing really well too after a bit of a disaster where I didn’t put my poles in when I planted then never got back so ended up with beans all over the floor! Luckily my sister and step-niece helped me sort them out! I won’t make that mistake again.

Gorgeous baby purple ‘Joël’ variety eggplants / aubergines:

The courgettes / zucchini are doing really well although only one of my plants is producing (I’m hoping the others may come good) it is giving me pretty much one a day! Here is another meal all home grown (other than the red pepper / capsicum):

Phew I think that is enough for one post! I haven’t quite made my aim of being totally veggie self sufficient this year but I’m heading that way and don’t have to put very much veg in the trolley at the supermarket!