My January Garden Wrap-Up

My little peach tree survived

January was a very tough month for the garden. More difficult than I antiticipated or planned for.

Part of it was the heat and the water shortage. What the sun didn't scorch directly, died/shriveled/slowed down in growth  even though we were watering as much as we could. A shade cover over the food gardens is desperately needed.

The sun also made it difficult to be out there doing physical labour. It was very debilitating.

But this morning as I walked through the garden, I could see that most of the garden will survived. Crispy around the edges, but Ok.

Despite all the troubles, we are still getting some of our food from the garden. Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to make a difference.

Today I harvested watermelon, green tomatoes to let ripe on the window sill, basil to make pesto and parsley to dry for winter use.

 

The first melons from the garden. We got two

lots of parsley and red basil to preserve

The seeds that we planted have also started sprouting.

10 marrowbushes flowering and fruiting.

Cucumber also flowering. I think we have over 20 new bushes

I was also happy to see that the marrows have started flowering and fruiting. Some of the old spinach  and lettuce ran to seed and the seed has started germinating.

Cabbage ready to be transplanted. This time we're planting under tres

brown beans have started sprouting. We're planting more seeds this week

Spinach that's self-planting

But now that I've finished clearing the yard of rubble and transformed most of the space into gardening areas, I can see the potential for this space. What I see is that I'm not using  even half of the potential this space has. What I mean is, the beds could produce more food, if the soil was healthier and more cared for.

So that's what I'm going to focus a lot more in February: making more compost, heavily mulching the soil and finding ways to help the soil to retain more water and nutrients. I'm also going to continue with the seed planting spree, creating more seedlings to make our Autumn crop a bumper one.