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Vegetable harvest 2017, July-August

Well we learned a lot this year – not to plant vegetables too close together (in other words, adhere to the instructions on the seed packets!), always net your brassicas to prevent cabbage white butterflies eating them all, only plant one bean plant per cane (not two!) and use canes that are at least 6 feet tall because when those beans get going they reach for the sky!

Nonetheless we got a very nice harvest considering this was our first attempt. The broccoli won’t come to fruition until the Spring of 2018, and more about that in another post. What we did get to eat were courgettes, French beans, spinach and purple mangetout. The beans and mangetout only produced for a few weeks, the courgettes kept going but thinned off a lot after the first frenzy. Next year we hope to do better and keep everything going for longe. They were just too overcrowded this year I think.

The broccoli starting to really grow, and the courgettes behind

 

Broccoli selling onto the lawn. Not too much caterpillar damage at this point

 

Monster bean plants, and the mangetout coming along …

 

The mangetout grew to over 3 foot tall and we tried to stake them with canes and string, which turned out to be not really strong enough. Spinach growing happily in the foreground.

 

The poor beans sometimes had nowhere to grow!

 

Those beans were huge, and tasted fantastic.

 

The courgettes were overcrowded, which meant we had to trim off some of the leaves. Not all the plants were happy with this.

 

Courgettes were best harvested when small, but sometimes one was hidden from view until we discovered it, rather marrow-ish. Still tasty though!
The purple mange tout were amazing to look at at, and although they didn’t last very long they were worth growing.

 

Just a sample of the produce…

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