Saturday, June 06, 2020

Weekend Cooking: The Veggie Patch

I think it is fair to say that we are more aspirational gardeners than actual gardeners. We like the idea of growing food, and sometimes take steps towards actually trying to grow some vegetables but we aren't very successful. I guess the thing is, it isn't imperative for us. After all, we can just pop down the shops whenever.

Recently I read a book which was set in WWII called The Railway Girls by Maisie Thomas where there was the following passage about growing vegetables:


"We need to put old net curtains over these young cabbages," said Letitia, "or they'll end up full of cabbage white butterfly eggs. The baby carrots have to be protected as well, in case the nights are cold. Does it show that Steven''s dad gave me a gardening lesson?"
"I feel sorry for the butterflies," said Joan.
Letitia grinned. "I feel sorry for Gran, having to sacrifice one of her old net curtains."
Joan sat back on her heels, rolling her shoulders to ease out the knots after an hour's weeding, which was another thing Steven's dad swore by. She and Letitia were perched on top of the mound that was the Anderson shelter in their back garden. Steven, his dad and various neighbours had all helped to prepare the shelter and cover it with earth, which, in common with the roofs of many air-raid shelters, now did duty as a vegetable plot. The flower beds had been turned over to veg as well.

Whilst it was sounds like it was very normal,and necessary, at the time, in some ways it seems quite unusual to a modern reader. I mentioned earlier that we are think about growing things.

A couple of years ago we bought some garden beds. A few months later we filled them with dirt and eventually, last summer, we put some seeds in. My husband was quite good about remembering to water and check on it but in the end we didn't really get much in the way of crops apart from a profusion of spring onions, which we only use rarely. We even bought a compost bin so that we could use that on our vegie beds. We filled the bin very quickly and then did absolutely nothing with it.

Not too long ago, he came inside and said that there were tomatoes growing! So a year later we finally got a handful of small tomatoes. Better late than never. He was very pleased with himself though.

We are currently in the preparation stages for the bathroom renovation we are doing in a couple of weeks following on from the laundry reno we did not too long ago. We were talking about what we were going to do with the old bath and the old toilet bowl. One of us then said maybe we can use the bath as a garden bed and the cistern for a herb garden! There is a part of the back yard which can't be seen from the house so you could have it down the back and only really see it if you went all the way down the back. So it sounds like we are possibly going to give growing things another go, albeit in quirky garden bed! I mean, if you can grow vegetables on top of your bomb shelter surely there are other opportunities that can be explored, right?

Do you grow your own veggies? Do you have any unusual garden beds?






    Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.


21 comments:

  1. We do indeed grow our own vegetables, and this year had the immense pleasure of eating our own Pink Lady apples. The possum got the one and only one last year, but this year we managed to harvest three of the four...
    Which brings me to the problem of the unsatisfying harvest. What you experienced is the feeling of having wasted your time because all that expense and work and effort resulted in nothing much at all. What we are learning in our little patch is that the micro-climate we have is no longer like the ones in the books or on Gardening Australia. Tomatoes which were The Old Reliables are Not Happy and it is going to take time for us to find out why they are not fruiting much and why they are not ripening.
    For us, the happy solution is to experiment with other things. We do well with potatoes and zucchini in one bed but not another, and yes, success with spring onions, but also capsicums, celery, kale, beetroot and radishes, but not great with peas and beans. Pumpkins just turn up by themselves, sprouting from seeds from the compost, but we have aimed to plant things we don't use much (except for the potatoes) because it's so good to be able to slip outside when you just want one spring onion and not have to buy a whole bunch from the shop.
    You are west of us, where the weather is a bit different to us, so what works for us may not work for you. If you can find other people near you who are gardeners you can maybe find out what works best in your area. But if all else fails, start with radishes and some hardy herbs like mint, and experiment with other things.
    Though I like having a nice garden, I myself am not really keen on gardening especially since I tend to end up with the weeding part. But all that panic buying made me realise that there's a lot to be said for having our own supplies of this and that, with some left over to share with neighbours.

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    1. The weeding is definitely an issue, but there is something to be said for self sufficiency.

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  2. Here the season is so short so when I finally got tomatoes they were not many. But I do like growing things :D

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    1. I like the not killing things part! lol

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  3. Ha! Love the bathroom fixtures garden! We used to grown tons of veggies but the trees in our yard got too tall so we don't get enough sun. Now we grow flowers and herbs and go to the farmers' market for our seasonal produce. (got the linky to work by using my tablet instead of my computer)

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    1. I think our garden beds aren't quite in the right place and they don't get enough sun.

      And yay! for getting the link to work.

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  4. I used to love to grow a vegetable garden. I had a 15 by 15 space and loved every minute of tending to it and waiting for the rewards. Cherry tomatoes are usually pretty prolific. I glad you go some and hope you get some more. When we moved, everyone has sprayers come to chemlawn and I stopped gardening because I was concerned with the run off after each rain.

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    1. We will try again with the cherry tomatoes next summer.

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  5. Before we downsized we would make a half-hearted attempt to grow vegetables. Now we only have a balcony I have cherry tomatoes and my herbs growing.

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    1. We need to start on herbs I think Jackie!

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  6. Oh my, you sound exactly like Doug and I. We always want a garden and year after year we wait too late. One year we had luck with beans and tomatoes and eggplant in raised beds. This yera, same as you, a handful of tomatoes and probably only one green pepper.

    We are also trying to get our bathroom done! Funny coincidence in our lives a hemisphere away from one another.
    Usually I link with you from my food blog (Squirrel Head Manor) but today it's the book blog. Lots of fod references.

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    Replies
    1. I have grown one very expensive tomato several summers in a row - by the time you buy the plant, the dirt, watered etc it probably cost the same as about 5kg!

      It's a good time when you are staying at home more than normal.

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  7. We seem to have almost the same gardening experience. I mean to grow more veggies, butr have more luck with trees:) I tell people it's survival of the fittest around here. Tropical perennials make it out alive.

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    1. Lol! We have some Australian natives at the edge of our deck that are still going more than 18 months after we planted them! Other than that it really is survival of the fittest for us too.

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  8. These crazy times have made me wish we grew our own food. In the past we have successfully grown tomatoes, but that was only because my dad brought them over and set them up for us :)

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    1. Maybe I need a fairy garden father! lol

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  9. We did not have time to build beds at our new place in Montana (we have long range plans) but we filled planters and tubs and have a fairly good crop of Swiss Chard, Kale, Potatoes etc going along with tomatoes. We even took 2 tubs of chard to camp with us for fresh vegetables! We also eat it when it is small as salad greens.

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    Replies
    1. I had to go and google chard because we know it here as Silverbeet!

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  10. I've never had a vegetable garden. We live on the Oregon coast and our property is in the woods, so we don't get enough sunshine to have a garden. I had some herbs in pots when we lived in Nebraska, but never put in a garden since so many of friends had them and gave us a lot of their corn, tomatoes, zucchini, etc.

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