The Summer Vegetable Garden

It’s been a while since I’ve given an update on the vegetable garden. The garden as a whole is more of a potager really, with fruit, herbs, vegetables and edible flowers secreted wherever there is a gap or just because I’ve grown too many plants and can’t bear to discard any. So it is that my redcurrants are mingling with the climbing roses and clematis on one trellised boundary of the rose garden, and my glass gem corn is sprouting in the grasses bed among globe artichokes, giant oats and angelica.

There is a section of the garden specifically designated as the kitchen garden or ‘veg patch’. It represents my best go at self-sufficiency on the outskirts of Greater London. It is just starting to come in to its own: the first courgettes have formed, the cucumbers are starting to flower, the peas are swelling…it is so full of anticipation. The soft fruit is already well underway, and today I will be picking the majority of the black, red and white currants and the gooseberries. Each morning there are a handful of strawberries and summer raspberries from the new plants to go on a bowl of yoghurt, or straight into the mouth of a happy toddler and husband. I’m desperate to pull up the garlic and dig up the potatoes but they are not quite ready. I’m also quite late sowing the autumn and winter brassicas, but given the temperatures we have at the moment, if I can get them in and give them sufficient water, they may come on quite quickly.

And the bed that I’m really excited for, the Three Sisters: squash/pumpkins, climbing beans and sweetcorn, the epitome of companion planting and space saving. So far everything is doing really well and enjoying the beautiful warm sunny weather, as long as I can keep giving it all enough water, but the no-dig seems to be really helping with that too.