Last harvest

Last harvest might be a little bit misleading as we still have some plants in the garden, but yesterday we harvested all of our remaining vegetables for the season. We don't have a lot of time to spend in the garden due to our house renovation, but we still try to slowly prepare it for winter, so that it will be easier to work there in spring.

We are removing old plants and weeds, and once done we will cover it with green manure to prevent damage to soil structure over winter. I have chosen some sort of winter grain this year, and it should look fabulous in spring. I wish we had more time to spend in the garden as we're behind the schedule, but we do what we can.

Let me show you around!

We try to use the garden all year around which means that we plant seeds or seedlings in certain intervals to ensure continuous harvest. Once we finished our icebergs and curly lettuce we planted endives. I love these sturdy leafy greens as they are perfect for stir fries. This year, I only planted 17 seedlings, so it will not last us all winter, but the plan was to plant some lamb's lettuce too. Let's see if I'll still manage that.

They are growing nicely so far, and we will start harvesting in a week or two.

I only have 3 kale plants as I wanted to try growing them before putting too many seedlings in the soil. At first, I thought I lost them to slugs, but they slowly recovered and grow nicely. They are cold resistant and we're in no hurry to harvest them. I want them to grow a bit more before I start removing the outer leaves.

Our greenhouses worked perfectly this year. We had so many peppers and tomatoes that we couldn't eat and preserve them all, so we shared them with our friends and family. I'm not even going to talk about basil as I'm convinced that we could have started selling it at the farmer's market.

Tomatoes are done because they caught blight, but peppers were still growing strong. I harvested all of them yesterday as I could see a lot of damage from slugs already and didn't want to lose them all.

I wonder who would eat a pepper like in this way?

They ate all the seeds too! I was annoyed when I saw that because I was leaving this particular pepper for seeds for next year. When you leave green peppers on the plant, they will turn red when they're very ripe and this is the moment when you need to harvest the seeds. Well, maybe next year then...

I have also found some Swiss chard leaves that I could still use. I had to cut off the stems because there were some kind of tiny worms enjoying them, but the green parts were just delicious as ever. I will remove the plants tomorrow as I don't think that they will be able to recover from the damage.

We thought we have already harvested all beetroots, but we found this beauty when we were digging to loosen up the roots of sturdy weeds. What a nice surprise!

And this is all that we took home (I harvested the Swiss chard and found the beetroot later)...

There are many peppers, lots of chillies, some kohlrabies, one fennel, and one beetroot.

And now to other plants in our garden...

I have already mentioned before that your garden gives you what you need. This year, ours gave us this borage which will come back every year from now on. It's not only a pretty plant, but it has medicinal use as well. It helps against eczemas and cough, and it is delicious in salads. The entire plant is edible, but I have only tried the flowers as the leaves are fuzzy which puts me off.

(I had a little accident while removing the plaster from the walls)

This is our olive herb. We used it so much in summer, and as it only grows one year I'm thinking of harvesting it all and preserving it for winter. I read that I can put it in vinegar or freeze it. I might try both options to see which one works better for us.

Here is another voluntary plant called lemon balm. It reduce stress and anxiety, and helps with sleep, so I must say that I'm not surprised that our garden thinks we need it in our lives 😊

Some of my daisies are still surviving...

It's been so cold, but my roses think that it's their season again. I wonder how it will impact them next year. I don't have a lot of experience with roses, so it's a learning by doing for me.

I love my hydrangeas so much! They are still beautiful even though the blooms are dying off...

English roses are confused too...

Last year we had many rosehips, but I didn't harvest them because the previous owner used pesticides in the garden and I read that it might take up to 4 years for the plants to recover which means you should not harvest them before. I have new roses this year, so I will make sure to harvest these as we love rosehip tea.

This year our garden thought that we may need some beauty in our lives and send us Love in a mist flowers. They should reseed on their own, but to be sure I have harvested the seedpods (not all of them) and I will randomly sprinkle them in the garden next spring, and I hope that they will take it over.

Lavender will always remind me of my grandma and her stuffed lavender cushions for her wardrobe. I dry it for my flower arrangements, but I might try to make such cushions next year too.

I hope that you have enjoyed gardening with us this year. I might have a couple of more gardening posts in winter, but I guess it's going to be more about the practical aspect of gardening as there are not that many plants to show you anymore.

See you next time...