Vivi's Kitchen Garden

We all need clothes! Living the frugal life and working with a non-existent budget means I have to get handy with the sewing box quite often in order to keep myself clothed. Here I share a few ideas about how to have a wardrobe the bargain basement way.

Eek! We’re half way through the year and I definitely feel a bit behind…….but where there’s growth and healthy green stuff there’s hope!

It’s hard to believe we’re half way through the year…..it’s time for a bit of ‘house keeping’ in the people department……and some ‘thank you’s for some lovely deeds and words.

The tomato plants have been in the ground for three weeks now and are starting to grow away……so it’s time for me to give them some cares. Everything I do with my tomatoes is aimed at producing the best possible harvest and delaying the inevitable blight that comes with growing tomatoes outdoors. Please note (as I forgot to mention it in the video): all my tomatoes are cordon types rather than bush types…….if you are growing bush types you don’t need to prune out the side shoots.

Hurrah! Summer is here! The garden is planted, everything is in place…..now I enter that beautiful period of tinker time…… My first tinker time day starts with my flowers and the herb bed…..ahhh, bliss.

It’s the last big planting push today……the climbing beans are desperate to go in and there are a few gaps elsewhere that can be plugged with the remnants of spares. I experience an unexpected (though perhaps not surprising) emotional response to it all.

It’s time to do the vegetable Hokey-Cokey…….I take some plants out and put some plants in…in, out, in, out, shake them all about. I’m trying a new brassica for the first time ever…..I hope they grow well because I love them!

Hmmmmmm……….what was supposed to be the start of a day in the garden turned into a bit of a rant/thoughts on. In a nutshell……it’s been a fiasco and I’m thinking aloud about ways to make it easier in the future.

It happens every year! There’s always something that doesn’t germinate well, if at all….something that gets destroyed by slugs and snails…..or by the weather…….but that’s OK….we just get on with sowing again! And while we are at it we can go slow and make the most of the moments with our fellow green fingered friends…..

The garlic is overdue for harvesting……I have been slightly putting it off because of dreading getting into the rock hard soil. The bed was heavily mulched last winter with a coir product so I am interested to see if that has helped at all……