This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Sunday 11 September 2016

Summer Harvests

Its been a busy summer and I've had lots of good eating from the garden! 

I'm involved in two community growing projects and have my own garden to look after so most of my spare time over the Summer has been gardening!

The community growing projects are great in that they involve other people who have an interest in gardening, and we've been able to share our crops. The veg in the first photo is from the community growing scheme. In our first year we've had lots of salad crops, spinach, chard, runner beans, courgette, cucumber, broad beans, parsley and potatoes. 



Two varieties of potato were harvested from my own garden - Pentland Javelin and Red Duke of York. I dry them and store them in a cloth bag in a dark, dry place. They usually keep through to December.
More veg from one of the community growing projects. Lots of salad crops this year. I also grew garlic for the first time and had reasonable success.

My tomatoes were grown from seed and kept in a plastic greenhouse facing South-East. They grew well, however, the fruits have been slow to ripen.

This large Summer Squash was given to me by a fellow grower, and has been turned into soup and put into the freezer for eating when the weather is colder!


The weather has been good and I'm hoping for a late frost!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

7 comments:

  1. We are hoping for a late frost too!

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  2. Look at all those delicious and healthy looking vegetables! My veggies are fading as the weather cools. But I have a few fall crops planted, so like you I am hoping for a late frost. Ours generally happens around October 15.

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  3. Such a wonderful harvest of good and healthy food!

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  4. You are definitely "deeply immersed" in this gardening thing. How nice to see someone so enthusiastic about it! I'm impressed that you have enough potatoes to keep until December - mine are always gone long before then.

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    1. To be honest, I don't eat loads of potatoes. Maybe once or twice a week. I do love mash and baked potatoes but I tend to eat them occasionally.

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  5. A sweet harvest this year for you. I always admire your dedication and success. Here the garden suffered so badly. We will do things differently. The best tomatoes we grew were the ones our daughter started from seed, Martha Stewart organic. They were planted late so will ripen late or not because it is cooling down and already there are hints of frost in the early mornings. Did your potted apple tree produce this year?

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    1. Thanks Ann. My potted, self fertilizing apple tree is very exciting this year - it has the highest number of apples ever! I must post about it. :)

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