May's Gardening Report

Mandarins living in an old wine barrel.

It's very exciting to see so many joining us for our Paris in July event (if you haven't signed up yet -now's the time!), and it's pretty exciting preparing for my real trip to Paris. One of my preparatory duties is to get the garden ready for it's winter hibernation. Last weekend I was in my element, harvesting, weeding, pruning, and planting. I thought I would share with you some of my successes in the garden.

I successfully harvested:- beans, bok choy, lemons, artichokes, leeks, brocoli, sweet potatoe, gooseberries, guava's and rubharb

I planted: - onions, lettuce seedlings, more brocoli, leeks and radishes.

I prunned:- stuff that was bothering me.

The Loofa vine has decided to keep on producing. I thought that when I got two loofa's off it about a month ago that it would be the end of it, but there's more. I've been told you can eat loofa's when their young, but I tried some at different ages and decided they're better as loofa's for scrubbing with. I guess now I'll have a supply of sponges for a while now..

The radishes have come up and are looking good this season.

I harvested over 2 kg's of Jerusalem Artichokes. They are root vegetables that look like Ginger but taste like nutty potatoes. This is my first season and I think I'll try them again next year. I've been enjoying them in soups, salads and risottos this week.

This is a Chinese Gooseberry on the bush. These are self seeding in my garden now and I literally didn't have to do anything. I love these little surprises in my garden. These fruit are my treats for working in the garden. When they're ripe they taste like sweet little tomatoes with a hint of crispy citrus.

This is the little Gooseberry package just waiting for me to find it and open it.

Voila!

I hope you have enjoyed this little visit to my productive garden. From here on in, I think it'll be slow going in the garden, it's winter and I'm going to France!!!