Small Plot? No Problem!

We've had several dinners lately that consisted mainly of home-grown vegetables and herbs, e.g. a ratatouille containing home-grown courgettes, tomatoes, onions and garlic (peppers from the supermarket, alas), and I'm starting to feel that semi-self-sufficiency might be achievable next year.

There are some things we'll never self-sufficient in without a lot more space and time - peppers and tomatoes (we'd need a proper greenhouse for the quantities we like to eat), and of course maincrop potatoes - but when it comes to things like beans, root veg, brassicas, salad and herbs, you really don't need a vast space to provide two people with some fresh (or home-preserved) veg every day, all year round!

Moon phase: Week 3 (waning)

I haven't blogged about my allotment for a while, mainly because there hasn't been much happening - I've been weeding and cutting the grass, and picking the snails and caterpillar eggs off the brassicas, but all is pretty quiet on the harvesting front. However yesterday I couldn't resist digging up these beauties, since it was the right time of the month.

They are "Chantenay", from the Organic Catalogue, and reputed to be very tasty, so I'm looking forward to trying them. Sadly they represent the whole of my carrot crop for the allotment - most seem to have been mown down by slugs before they got going (my crop of Early Nantes in the garden was much better, though the individual carrots were a lot smaller). The biggest of these is 16cm which, given their girth, makes for a pretty hefty carrot!