I thought it might be nice to do some regular updates on the veg patch, what I’m sowing and what is already growing. I never thought I would be a person that watched the weather so closely and hoped for rain in amongst the sunshine, but I am well and truly in my ‘Granny Era’ these days and my priorities are so far from what they were this time last year. Do you know what though, I think this is the person I’ve wanted and needed to be all along.

I had a wonder around the garden this morning and really took the time to revel in my achievement, looking at what I had produced from some mere seeds starting back in May. I cannot express the joy my garden is bringing me in what has been such a testing time.

The newest starter photographed above is the Sweetcorn, now my social media feeds are full to the brim of gardening videos I’m regularly seeing tips and tricks when growing your own fruit and veg at home. The latest video I saw was about pairing plants together. The Sweetcorn plant was celebrated as being useful as a natural support for climbing plants, so I headed out and for 89 pence got myself a little pocket of Sweetcorn seeds to sow. I planted these a little over five days ago and already we have shoots, some of which are almost 2cm tall. I can never believe the change from morning to evening with the right conditions, it’s incredible.

Still in the greenhouse with the additional warmth, the spring onions and leeks are starting to make some great headway. It is slightly baffling how both of these plants start out exactly the same way. If they weren’t labeled I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two, they are identical. I think the Leeks in particular are 24-48 hours from being transplanted out in to the veg patch. One thing I never realized before starting my little gardening journey was that you shouldn’t just take the plants from the heat of the warm greenhouse straight in to the outside bed, you have to transition them slowly so they become accustomed to the temperature change. This nearly cost me a few seedlings initially, so now I tend to spend a day with the door of the greenhouse partially open and then a few hours with the pots on the grass before moving them over.

There was an incident about two weeks ago. We had some high winds which weren’t forecast (well a gentle breeze had been forecast but this wasn’t that) anyway, I came home to find the entire greenhouse tipped forwards on to the guinea pig run and there was a very sad looking pile of soil in the middle with all of my Spinach, Carrot and Little Gem Lettuce seedlings all mixed in. I did my absolute best to split them back out, re pot and save them but as time has passed we have a few trays of ‘random’ plants. A job for today is to get the Little Gem and Spinach out in to the veg patch and then add the first lot of carrots to the new carrots I planted five days ago. My OCD wasn’t happy about this, but we will work with what we’ve got.

Back out in the Veg Patch we have a very exciting arrival in the form of the first radish! Fully formed and looking very healthy, I adore radishes so I’m really excited about my first harvest and being able to eat some of them. It was such an amazing feeling spotting that little form peeping out of the soil.

The Beetroot is thriving, although I can’t fully work out what the plants are doing. They are getting very bushy and taking up more and more space. I’m excited to see whats next with these. I just love how the leaves have that almost red bleed throughout them, the camera has really picked this up so well.

The Mange tout is growing by the day, every morning I come out and the little tendrils have twisted further up the canes. I have four varieties of peas/beans planted. French Beans, Runner Beans, Mange-tout and freshly transplanted today the Broad beans. It’s amazing how differently they all grow from seeds.

A few days ago I started harvesting from the lettuce for Pete the Tortoise and the Guinea Pigs, they absolutely adore it. And whats more impressive is that within 24 hours the lettuce had already started to regrow from the middle. The rocket peeping in on the left hand side of the image is causing me a little bit of grief in that the middles keep shooting up tall, I must do some reading tonight on how to manage them and encourage more growth.

And lastly the Potatoes. These I started from shop bought spouting potatoes which makes it even better watching them flourish. My mum had seen a hack on social media on how by keeping potatoes in brown paper bags it stopped them sprouting. Yep, that doesn’t work at all. I went to get some for some cooking and they were ALL sprouting in all directions, so I pulled out the ones I wanted and planted them in this garden waste bag, waited and then voila shoots appeared. Now they have reached the height they have I must add more soil to bring them up to the top of the folded over bag.

As you can see there is a lot going on in the garden. It is keeping me happily occupied day in day out round work and life responsibilities, and like I mentioned earlier I am SO very excited about reaching the point of harvesting something for meal times.

My goal with the veg patch was that by the time everything was ready to harvest I would be in a situation whereby I can actually start to eat these things (I will go in to this in more detail at some point, but basically my diet has had to stay very limited for almost six months, when my digestive system gave up on me and my appetite diminished I was left with very few options for ‘safe foods’) so this veg patch has added excitement to it because I’ve not been able to eat natural organic foods for a really long time.

I’m heading back out to cover my hands in soil and keep pottering in the greenhouse.

Love and Light Always

Georgie