Other than our herbs, our garden
edibles have done well in the extended wet and cool weather.
Runner
beans have climbed up and over a bamboo frame from plastic buckets of soil.
They are flowering in readiness to produce one of our favourite vegetables,
when harvested at about 6" in length.
Three
varieties of tomatoes, grown from seed on a shelf in our kitchen window, have
romped away after being planted out in the only strip of soil in our otherwise
paved garden.
One
bucket was upended on our marble garden table after six weeks growth and
produced enough small potatoes for a couple of dishes.
Another
bucket, upended after two months growth, gave us enough potatoes for four
dishes.
These
culinary delights were first eaten boiled – with butter, chopped mint and sea
salt. The rest became part of salads.
The
only other edible crop was asparagus. From its large flowerpot a mere eight
spears grew. Six we ate raw as soon as they were large enough to share, and two
were left to grow into our annual asparagus tree – tied to a bamboo. This tree
is very decorative with its delicate fronds and red berries.
Colour
in the garden has been provided by the pastel shades of busy lizzies (impatiens), scarlet flowers from the stem of a
Bolivian begonia, geraniums (pelargoniums) from the holes in the side of a
strawberry pot, lavender and roses.
We may
have been fed up with the weather, but the garden plants seem to have loved it.
