For the last few days I've been dodging the showers to be out tidying up in the garden because most of my harvest is over for this year. If I'm
lucky I'll get a few more handfuls of raspberries from our canes and
maybe 2 more pullings of carrots. Funnily the carrots have done really
well this year – just when I had decided that I'd not bother growing
them again they decide to prove that they are a worthwhile crop, so
they will be on my list of seeds to buy for next spring afterall.
The beetroot is also still going well and is such a pretty crop. This year I gew a variety called Chioggia which has pink and white rings when you cut it. It doesn't stain your fingers as much as the full-bodied red kind but is just as sweet and earthy to eat.
It's time to tidy up the beds and fix the protective fronts and backs – back in spring I was lazy and didn't seal up the gaps and so the cabbage white butterflies have feasted on my cabbages and broccoli – that will learn me!
I do love growing things in my garden and it's a bonus when you can eat them too. I've roasted the beetroot I picked earlier and will shortly be peeling them, tossing in some balsamic vinaigrette and eating them with some goat's cheese, salad and crusty bread for lunch.
Do you grow things to eat and if so what are your favourites?
little cotton rabbits 
So yummy!!!Did you know that Chioggia is a little town in Italy?? Probably your beetroot variety comes from there!!
Happy weekend, xxx Alessandra
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I dabbled with container growing for a few years but the last couple were very demoralising 😦
Last week we just got a few chickens, so trying a different type of self-sufficiency! 🙂
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Hi, I’ve done a little blog post this morning about blogs I love – I’m hoping it’s ok to have linked to you. I so love your blog and I’d love to share it. Let me know if it’s not ok and I will gladly remove anything you’re not happy with. Thanks you, Naomi
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I love to grow things that I an use in lots of ways – especially cake!! Surprisingly that means courgette (stir fry, soup, cake!!) rhubarb, beetroot and squash – a great way to get extra veggies into my boys!! Enjoy the last of the fruits of your labours – then time to snuggle up next to the fire with a glass of wine and this years seed catalogue!! 🙂
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Beautiful pics 🙂
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I like your blog ,though I am not a knitter but a quilter and whe I have time a bit of crochet.
My love is gardening. I have a big garden and an allotment. I grow quite a number of different things. Potatoes,onions,garlic, leeks, beetroot ,courgettes, French and runner beans,pumpkins, purple broccoli and a lot of soft fruit.
My autumn raspberries still going strong, but this year I didn’t get such a good crop of courgettes and a few other things. But this is the beauty about gardening no two years are the same.
I also love to grow lots of salads and herbs. This year the problem was slugs and snails.
Carry on growing as it is so nice to grow what we eat.
Have a nice weekend.
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I hope you are enjoying your lunch …. it sounds delish
My carrots were hopeless last year but, like yours, they were fab this year, its all a mystery to me!
i like growing fruit best as it just happens without much work … i’m a bit lazy like that ;o)
happy weekend
love jooles x
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I grow quinces! Except not this year -bad weather in April stripped the tree of its blossom. To be truthful I don’t grow them they grow themselves.
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It’s all looking good. We’ve had stacks of beetroot this year and a few carrots, but the potatoes have been amazing – we’re still digging them up.
Have a lovely weekend
Nina x
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Here in South Eastern Pennsylvania we had drought early in the season. I thought my tomato plants had some kind of wilt disease. Then the squirrels started behaving like I had laid out a tomato buffet for them., Later the plants grew large and green and actually shaded my carrots and beets. We cleared away the tomato plants last weekend and I planted one box with more beets, chard and peas. I’ve never tried a fall garden before and it may have been too late to put things in but we’ll just have to wait and see. I really loved pulling beets during the season and cleaning and boiling them as soon as I got them into the house, a splash of chive or tarragon vinegar and I had a lovely addition to a salad.
Yes, working in the garden feels good, but I am REALLY much more of a spring gardener than a faithful summer worker.
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Nothing beats home-grown beetroot, and, if you like pretty leaves, asparagus looks lovely too!
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Your beetroot does look good Julie, mine was very poor this year, I must make a note of that variety and try it next year!
My tomatoes though very late have done very well and I’ll have them for a little while yet. I’m still getting some peas and strawberries too.
Hope you enjoyed your lunch, it sounded delicious. 🙂
Happy weekend Julie,
Vivienne x
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Swiss Chard, like beetroot, is very nice to look at especially if you sow the rainbow variety. I grow many different types of herbs and think they make a wonderful addition to a salad. An interestingly fragrant herb is the curry plant with yellow flowers which can be dried.
Unlike yours my carrots were a dismal failure this year but I had a bumper crop of potatoes and although this is a bad year for apples all three apple trees have delivered!
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I am planning on growing fruit and vegetables next year – last time I tried didn’t get any fruits from them, so I am investing in a greenhouse this year.
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just love to grow peas and eat them them as i am picking them , just love the fresh taste and smell !! The beetroot looks fantastic.
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Our crops have been pants this year, between the slugs and birds down at the allotment there has been little left for us. I planted 3 sowings of peas over a 6 week period and we barely had a handful to eat as the wildlife love pea tops as much as me.
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I haven’t really grown any edibles this year, but I do love to grow Choggia beetroots. Have you tried the golden ones? They are delicious and unusual too. I have some excitiing plans for growing next year (I will whisper to you on Monday!), so am tentatively Making Lists. Raspberries are at the very top!
I’ve a weekend of garden tidying ahead of me too, with a little bulb planting perhaps.
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Hello Julie,
Although we have a garden, with cherry trees, ir is not our own so we will have to wait for the pleasure of plotting a kitchen garden. I have become quite obssessed with historical potagers though through my research and I get quite excited when I read a variety of vegetable names which sound like poetry to me. Daft, I know!
I love beetroot with a vengeance!
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My garden is very wild, backing onto a railway line I have loads of blackberry bushes, and they’ve been great this year, lots of apple and blackberry crumbles! Earlier in the year I have elderflowers to make gorgeous wine. But next year I plan to make some veggie plots for some carrots and cabbages…..xx
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the cabbage whites got my cabbages and brussells too 😦 am going to net them next year i think.
my favourite veg to grow are runner beans. my grandad always grew then when i was small and having tasted those, i was ruined for anything but homegrown since then!
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Julie
Are you only selling your rabbits on Flicker this time and not on your own website where you describe the yarn you used?
I don’t want to put comments in the wrong place. I don’t want to miss out on winning a change to purchase a little one.
Jennifer
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MMM I want to come have lunch with you!
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Tomatoes, basil, parsley, and eggplant. LOVE it!
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My poor crops failed dismally this year due to the excessive rain and an army of slugs and snails – I usually love to pick and eat cherry tomatoes and homegrown cucumbers, but no tomatoes to speak of in 2012! I have managed to grow aubergines for the first time though!
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Julie those beets look mouthwateringly delicious, yum!
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We love to grow pumpkins. It’s easy and always spectacular. We put it in cubes in the freezer to cook good soups and muffins during winter.
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We love beetroot. Much nicer than the tinned cut beetroot.Ran out of vinegar for one lot of beetroot I was doing so substituted with red wine vinegar. Absolutely delish.Grow tomatoes for salads and relish, this year will make sauce. Don’t have bottles but guessing big preserving jars will serve as well.Telegraph cucumbers did well last season and good old fashioned lettuce, not the frilly coloured type.Oh and spring onions. Shirley
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Hi Julie,
Lovely to see wahts been happening in your garden xx
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We have apple, orange, and lemon trees, and they give wonderful fruit. I also have a big rosemary bush & like to use it for seasoning meats.
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Hi Julie
I grow my own potatoes for Xmas We are the opposite to your growing season in New Zealand also like you we grow mixed lettuces and tomatoes . Your Beetroot lakes great.
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Hi Judith, your “that’ll learn me” took me back, my dear old mum used to say that – only what she said was “that’ll learn you” when I thought I’d done something clever (when I hadn’t). I’ve just planted out spring cabbages, winter cabbages, broccoli and garlic -our garden is plagued by snails (which I don’t like to kill) and one year I had the most amazing cabbage sculptures – ribs only – after millions of little green caterpillers discovered them! I love growing some vegies – leeks are a great one – so convenient in winter for soups and little ones great in salads in summer. Another favourite is sprouts – which we love – easy to get to when the weathers horrid and you don’t want to shop. Love to you all
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I do not grow things. But I have stolen raspberries, tomatoes and apples this month from my neighbors who do. It’s not really stealing, as I have been asked to please come and help myself. But I am pretending to be a small thief, since I feel like one, just walking into someone else’s garden – so much work, so much neat effort – and I, who has done no work at all but the climbing of a fence, or the traversing of a street, run off with a shirt hem full of treasure.
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They’ve made very pretty lace of your cabbages, though! We didn’t have much growing this year – the French beans (a purple variety, Violetta) did amazingly well though, and we were giving them away we had so many – I think I planted 13 plants. I’ve dried some of the beans to see if we can plant them again. Courgettes took an age to get going and some have rotted on the vine, but the ones we ate were lovely. Carrots – first time I’ve grown them in a bed, rather than a container, and they’re finally coming good. And no carrot is as sweet as one you pulled five minutes earlier!
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