Garden update (finally)
2007-08-31

Despite the summer from hell, I actually did quite well on the garden front.

 

Here is the garden a month ago. I was going to take some more photos to give you a more accurate picture, but waiting for a sunny day to take photos in England is like waiting for the Dawn French to lose some weight. It's not gonna happen.
Sunflowers in the back, corn near the shed. Rocket (Arugula) and Brussel sprouts in front of the sunflowers, French (Green) beans on the bamboo poles, and corgettes (zucchini) in the bottom right of the photo.

The spinach was picked to death and the onions were in the house drying at the time of this photo. Two of the onions are currently resting quietly in my lower intestine at this very moment. Thought you might like to know that.

If you look really closely, you'll see a water butt (I still laugh every time I hear that) attached to the downspout on the house. The more astute of you will also notice that there is a white pipe that empties into it, that's the bath tub. I alternated bathwater and freshwater on the plants to great effect. Just call me David Suzuki.

 

The tomatoes. You'll notice a distinct lack of photos of these bad boys. In true Rob fashion, I decided not to seek advice on growing them. I didn't know you were supposed to clip side shoots and stop them from growing too tall. They are currently about 6 feet tall with almost no fruit on them, much to my garden guru Owen's amusement. Fucker.

 

Close up of the brussel sprouts. They are about twice the size now with no sign of the actual sprouts. These have been almost eaten to death by butterflies. My mom told me that would happen, but I didn't listen. Note to self: Listen to your mother.

 

The strawberries and the herbs. Put straw down so the strawberries didn't die when they hit the soil. Worked beautifully, too bad the fucking slugs got to most of them before we did. I ate exactly 7 strawberries. Next year, escargot will be added to the menu at the Cutforth household.

 

Hey look at the pretty flowers!

 

Here is the bottom bit. We put in rosemary, two lavender plants, two Hebes, a magnolia tree, a yellow plant and a little green one. Yeah, I lost the tag on those last two. They will forever be called yellow one and green leafy one. All of these are slightly bigger now except for the lavender -- It's monstrous. You can barely see the magnolia tree behind it now.

My father-in-law went to the Eden project and said that they use upturned wine bottles as borders to great effect. That's what I'm gonna do when we get enough of them. Should take us about three weeks.

 

These two plants have been absolutely puking zucchini. If you can't grow zucchini in England, you might as well hit yourself in the head with a hammer until its a bloody stump because you are too stupid to live.

 

Everything here is from the garden. We have actually had a couple meals that cost us zero. Very pleasing for cheap-asses such as Kate and myself.

 

"The pride of the patch" as Owen calls it. He may have done better on the tomato front but we kicked his ass in the onion department. "What's that Owen? How many onions did you get? four? Oh, isn't that CUTE." IN YOUR FACE, SUCKA.