Good days in the garden

This growing season keeps testing our patience and pushing our boundaries. I don't even remember how often I wanted to give up, but every time it happens I realize that gardening is good not only for the body, but also for the soul, and we simply can't manage the nature. What worked last year might not work this year, and we have to adapt to the conditions.

I have learned how to properly harvest basil, and it started growing like crazy. Now I can harvest once a week, and add it to so many meals. My favourite way to make pesto now is to add almonds instead of pine nuts, and also to add cherry tomatoes to the food processor because it adds such a nice flavour to the pesto. I pulse everything together to keep some chunks as we like it much better than when it's smooth.

And yes, everyday we have lettuce for lunch...

It's an amazing feeling when you can pick your own fruits of labour and bring them home. Every couple of days we are able to harvest a few zucchinis. It was always a rather boring vegetable to me, and I usually only added it to stir fries or put it for a few minutes on a grill pan.

However, in Sicily we ate zucchinis every day and I learned that you can prepare them in various ways, so I've been trying new recipes at home. You can make zucchini rolls with pesto, prepare them with mint and vinegar, grill them and sprinkle them with whatever herbs and nuts you have, or add them to your millet or cous cous. There are so many options!

As I mentioned last time, my very first yellow zucchini got stolen, but the plant quickly replaced it. We picked it up before lunch and prepared it within an hour. It can't get any fresher!

Tomatoes keep giving me headache as we're not able to keep up with the early blight, but I've read that we still might get some good harvest even though some of the stems are infected. At first, I wanted to remove them, but we decided to give it a go and let them grow if there are tomatoes on those stems already. We have some nice fruits already...

This is a black variety, and I'm looking forward to try it when it's ripe.

Fingers crossed that those tomatoes will survive the season. I have noticed that some of the new flowers are infected with the blight, so I keep removing those even though it hurts my heart to see how many potential fruits are wasted.

The iceberg recovered from the baking soda solution that I sprayed on the tomatoes against the early blight. I hope that the chilli plants will recover too as they're not looking too good at the moment.

The more eggplants the better! Our new favourite meal is caponata, so we need many eggplants to prepare it as often as possible 😊

This plant is not so strong, so I didn't expect fast growth, but it still grew a bit in less than a week.

Our first white baby eggplant- it is so cute!

I am so happy with my third batch of beans because it's the only batch that grows well.

It's a bit drier in the last few days, so they haven't been damaged by slugs yet.

I have randomly checked the other beans because they had plenty of flowers last week, and I was surprised to see some decent sized pods. Some of those pods are longer than the entire plant 😊 I will harvest them tomorrow and grill them with some garlic.

Kale is looking good too - if all goes well, I will soon be preparing kale chips at home.

This is our little pepper jungle in the smaller greenhouse. I have randomly placed some basil plants there too and they have been growing well. I keep fertilizing them and they thank me with many baby peppers.

Some of our neighbours have fully grown peppers already, so we are a bit behind, but it's because we built our greenhouse later than we planned. I don't mind as they will grow and we will be able to enjoy them later in the year.

Not all carrots sprouted, but we will still have enough. Last year, I planted them already in March, and we started harvesting in July, so I expect that this year we will start in September/October.

Beetroots really love this kind of weather...

Corns are getting tall!

I have just planted patty pan pumpkins. I thought it was too late already, but trying doesn't cost me anything, and who knows... Maybe I will get a few of them in autumn.

Our second red currant bush has become covered in tiny red berries. Well, they are actually not so tiny. Birds don't seem to like them which is good for us.

A small part of our garden is dedicated to some succulents. They don't require a lot of work and seem to be doing very well. They are ready to bloom, so next week I will show you how they look like.

Last year, we harvested oregano before it started flowering. This year, we simply let it grow because we have way too much and it became so beautiful. Furthermore, bees love them and we enjoy their buzzing 😊

Even though it's July I can say that summer hasn't started yet where we live, so let's see how it will be this week.

Happy gardening!

See you next time...