Cheating

I'm still frantically trying to make my garden look productive after my nightmare. I'm getting serious about my cheating as the Garden Guru filming day gets closer. Not only have I resorted to buying punnets of vegetables, instead of growing them by seed, now I've taken it a step further. If I can't have plants in my garden, I will have structures! Here's my bamboo bean tee pee:

Who cares if there isn't any actual beans growing over it yet... you can imagine they're JUST ABOUT to grow all over it. Will I trick the viewers? I don't know. I did plant some runner bean seeds under it. A few have come up, but slaters ate the tops off. That means there could be another trip to the nursery to buy cheat runner beans!

Tidy time

It is time for me to venture out early in the morning, before the heat sets in and tidy up the food garden. The advantage of having the food garden in the front yard is that you feel compelled to keep it looking vaguely neat looking, whereas if it had been in the back yard, it would have become an overgrown mess, not to be touched until Autumn.

Here is the garden before the tidy up:

 

 

It is a bit overgrown and starting to go to seed. It's time to rip out the tomato plants, and cut down all but one lettuce plant (I'll keep one to collect the seed from) The corriander seed heads are browning off, so I will definitely harvest those seeds, the lemon grass mound is so vigorous I found some chilli plants hiding in it. I'll wait until the heat passes to cut it back because it is providing some shade for the herbs underneath it. As I pull the old plants out, it's too hot to replant right now, so I cover the bare soil with another layer of lupin mulch to protect it.

 

I think I might try a late season tomato or two and see how they go. I always feel bad pulling out the spent tomato bushes, mainly because I know I won't have such delicious tasting tomatoes again for another year. On the other hand, I get a lot of space back to start planning my Autumn crops as the weather cools again!