Bountiful harvest

I'm going to confess that my harvest was somewhat less than bountiful, however a harvest it was, and considering it was the first from my recent efforts of vegetable gardening I was quite proud of it. I had grand visions of my first harvest being an abundance of tasty produce however it was, indeed, something quite different.

See that strawberry in my hand above? Yeah, that's my bountiful harvest. I know, rather less than bountiful but I grew it and that's pretty damned awesome in my estimation! I'd wanted to enjoy a pile of strawberries topping a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream, the most legit flavour ever, but instead washed my single-strawb-harvest and ate it all by itself. It was good! It was an auspicious beginning, the rest will come.

I thought it might be good to offer a little insight into what my garden beds are doing lately, and a few comparison photos. So far everything is going really well and I've not had any pest problems and neither have I lost anything. One of the lettuce plants has been a little slow to get going but I think it was just a little shy. It's coming good now.

This image above was taken the day I planted out the beds on the 31st of August. The plants I put in were all seedlings as I thought that may be a little easier to start off with. I had put the raised garden beds together, added the soil and treated it over the previous couple of weeks and was excited to get the plants in so they could grow.

The vegetables I planted

Aztec tomato, crystal apple cucumber, baby broccoli, burpless cucumber, green mignonette lettuce, perpetual spinach, sweet mixed capsicum, red onion, radish, cauliflower, baby broccoli, baby carrots, celery, dwarf green beans, eggplant (long purple), baby carrots, and strawberries.

Below are the two garden beds taken yesterday, so eighteen days after being planted.

Everything is looking great right? Can you see that shy little lettuce in the top photo? Third row from left, first plant. It'll catch up though, I'm sure. I gave it a little pep talk; spoke about ownership, responsibility and discipline, three things that are very important to me and...Well, I'm pretty confident it'll come good and not let its buddies down.

Here's a few closer shots in which you can see how healthy the plants are looking. I spent a lot of time preparing the soil which was a good quality product to begin with. I used chicken manure and worms plus a top layer of a good mulch. A few days or so after planting I watered in Seasol, a seaweed concentrate, and that effort is paying off.

Clockwise from top left: Strawberry, baby broccoli, perpetual spinach and the green mignonette lettuce. I was careful to plant a lot of things that I could pluck leaves from and leave the main plant in the soil. They are all raised garden bed suitable also.

I'm pretty happy with how things are moving along and I'm excited to see a little growth each day. The garden beds are working really nicely and I'm even recycling the overflow fluids from the water reservoirs which is very rich in nutrients. I'll do a separate post about that sometime soon I think because it's a pretty good story.

I also have some fruit trees and the lemons and oranges are blossoming at the moment; the smell in my yard is incredible. It's blooming with flowers and my herb pots Re coming along nicely I have to say that I'm really pleased with how things are moving along; it's a great start to spring indeed and I think I'll be eating some of my tasty produce soon.

So that's a little update on how my plants are growing in the beds. It's not quite a bountiful harvest just yet but I feel it's well on the way.