Garden update - in bloom!

Remember the veg patches I wrote about a while back? Well, they have gotten bigger. A lot bigger. As did all of the other stuff that we bought for our vegetable patch. Somehow you always start off with lots of small things, thinking that most of them won't take and you'll have plenty of space for those things that do grow. But then suddenly everything is growing and getting bigger and sprouting unpredicted leaves and flowers and what not, and we start dreaming about a bigger garden again...
So how are things doing? Well, of the 7 'veg patches' (aubergine, broccoli, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, thyme, spinach and endive), the thyme never really did anything, and neither did the strawberries. I don't really know what happened to the spinach or the endive, they may still be around in some of the smaller pots, but I've kind of lost track of them.
We planted the 5 proper broccoli plants out into the garden, only for them to be eaten by the ferocious slugs that prowl our garden at night. So the only things left are the aubergine and the cherry tomatoes, and they're doing really great!

Cherry tomatoes and peas

(Now I took these pictures with my phone camera, which appears to be the worst camera in the history of camera phones, on a really bright day, so bear with me.)

So apart from the small supermarket veg patches we also have some other plants which we either got as small plants or which we planted out from seed from last years crop or from housewarming gifts we had a couple of years ago. The peas in the picture above came from a packet that we bought about 4 years ago, but surprisingly they still managed to become proper plants.

Our vegetable patch on 1 June

So this was the 'bit plot' about 3 days ago. We've had a lot of rain and even more sunshine in the days in between, so everything has grown out a lot more since then, but I didn't want to bother taking another picture. The sticks are all anti-kitty protection, because they do like to dig their holes in this area.
On the far right you can see our potato plants, which we grew from potatoes that had sprouted roots after being left out too long. Next to the potatoes are the broccoli plants. The biggest one, the one on the left, is actually the remainder of the supermarket veg patches which we grew from seed, the others were bought as small plants. In front is a small row of onions (actually lasts year's crop; they were too small to eat, so we left them in the shed and planted them out again). Behind them is a line of cucumber plants which we  grew from seed, and behind those is a line of beets, also grown from seed. Then we get to beer slug, who tries to keep everything from being eaten (these things are wonderful: you fill them with beer, the slugs want to drink the beer, they fall in and drown. Much better than spreading poison. Works perfectly with pots or jars not in the shape of snails too). The courgette plant on the far left has already been savagely slaughtered, as you can see. All the way behind the beets you can see our leeks, which were bought as really small plants and are really doing well. There is a kind of empty area in front of beer slug that may or may not contain any seed, I'm not really sure what happened there.
Apart from this plot we have some smaller pots containing the aubergine and possibly the endive or spinach. We will plant these out into the ground if and when space appears, but as I mentioned before, these plants do tend to get larger and larger...

So much for vegetables, what about fruit? Well, our apple tree, after its bumper crop of last year, decided not to do anything at all. No flowers, that is, it's sprouting plenty of leaves. But there will be no home-grown apples in our future.
The strawberries on the other hand...

...doing better than ever!

We're usually on holiday when the strawberry season hits, but this year we won't be going anywhere in June or July, so there will be loads of lovely strawberries to eat!

In short: our garden is in full bloom (both figuratively and literally). Even with the attacks of the snails and the extremes in weather, I think we will manage to grow some things this year, so we will be able to eat from our garden again. Which I still think is one of the best things; eating something you've grown yourself, preferable from seed. It always tastes better than store-bought stuff. And maybe next year, we'll have even more space...