A walk through my vegetable patch

It has been a strange Summer in Auckland this year, cooler and cloudier than normal. This means that my vegetable plants are very confused.

Usually by now I have an abundant crop of tomatoes forming, including cherry tomatoes. However they are only just starting to flower now.

The grape vine at the back of the vegetable patch is full of lush new grapes. I think we will have a bumper crop this year if the blackbirds leave them alone.

My sweetcorn is growing well and the pumpkin plants have turned into giants, they are escaping the vege patch onto the lawn and over the compost heap.

The cabbages are still growing, though getting a little bit munched by caterpillars. And the celeriac in this bed are doing really well. I will have to trim off the side leaves that are growing parallel to the ground now to make the celeriac roots grow nice and plump. I love celeriac soup!

The Goliath snow peas are growing huge. The plants are over 6 feet tall. I have been harvesting the snow peas over the past 5 days and they are delicious. I used some to make the cold salad for my Boxing Day feast. I also used the 2 courgettes which I picked for this salad.

I noticed today that there are some flowers starting to open on my beans....yaaay!

My cherry tomatoes are growing slowly but surely. It is time for me to trim off the bottom leaves to prevent mildew from setting in. These are bush tomatoes, so I won't be cutting off the laterals as this is where the tomato fruit will form.

This is my little strawberry patch. The blackbirds have been enjoying them as much as I am, so I bought new netting to cover them over. But now the slugs have moved in so I will need to pinch some of dad's beer to make some beer traps for them.

I have more celeriac growing behind the strawberries against the garage wall. These ones are growing slower than those in the other patch even though they were planted at the same time.

My lemon grass is growing really well. I planted it last year using a couple of stems of lemon grass from the supermarket after rooting them in a jar of water. I didn't think that it would work, so I was pleasantly surprised.

There are still some vacant patches of soil in my vege garden, so this weekend I will be sowing more to fill the spaces up.

I love gardening.

Lots of smiles.

Hugs Rose x