on gluts and a few other things...only few, mind

I had to deal with the first mini-glut of zucchini. It's surprising how quickly you can run out of things to do with them, except palm them off on unsuspecting friends. I do enjoy them grilled, also made some delicious roasted beet and zucchini salad. Still, if you have 7 of them in the space of a week, it's either zucchini every night for dinner or bust.

And that's not considering that other things need harvesting too. I still have some mustard greens in the fridge and more stuff on the way. Tonight after watering (hot, hot day!) I harvested a lemon cucumber (apparently they only grow to about tennis ball size) and some few assorted things. On Sunday I had a very nice basket of produce together, including a few broad (aka fava) beans. The Orient Express cucumbers are delicious.

More zucchini and patty pan squash on the way. I have an eye on a tomato which may finally ripen over the next few days. There there are finally little peppers and even little aubergines (aka eggplants).

I finally remembered to sow the winter squash last week. I'm always amazed and surprised by the ability of squashes to grow so quickly. Maybe that's why I always end up with gluts...

Since all my large plants are blocking off the whole of the plot, it may be nice to view it from a different angle. You can see the sunflowers sporting some heads soon to open, how well the greens are doing and that the beans are getting a move on. The next glut is just around the corner...

good fences make good neighbours

As I was doing my usual bit of pottering around yesterday in the garden, a woman passing by informed me that she got the plot next to me and is getting someone to roto-till it for her soon. She also asked me to turn on the seeper hoses for her since it "needed a good soaking". Er, right. pre-installed seeper hoses coming right up... Since the initial weeding effort on that plot had already resulted in the compost pile nearly ending up on my cherry tomatoes (close to the boundary but still on my side) I thought it best to construct the wood-chipped garden pathway that the community garden requires between plots.

There are so many plants flowering right now and it is easy to just brush them off as just some also-rans compared to the vegetables. I took some pictures of the nasturtiums (munched on one while watering - very peppery!), potatoes, borage (only tried the leaves so far which have a lovely cucumbery taste) and, of course, the rocket/arugula.

The cucumbers are doing well. "Orient Express" is sporting quite a few fruits which put on several inches almost overnight and "Lemon" finally is producing little globe-shaped cucumbers (even though you have to hunt for them in the foliage at the moment). The last cucumber "Bog-standard" has flowers but I have great hopes for it.

In the overview picture, the zucchini seem to dominate the entire garden. Which is true - I am faced with the first glut of the season.

I managed to harvest good-sized bunches of mustard greens, collards and rainbow chard, plus four not-quite-baby/not-quite-war-clubs zucchinis. Considering that I still have half a zucchini in the fridge and more on the way tomorrow, I am shopping around for friends to take them off my hands (haven't stooped to leaving them on doorsteps yet...)