Early August harvests from the small garden and allotment | Urban Homestead UK


It is early August and the garden and allotment are providing a lovely harvest each day. We are having to visit our little allotment at least every other day at the moment because there has been no rain in over two weeks which means everything needs watering. Thankfully we have a couple of water buts at the allotment and a couple at home too which we used until they ran out. We are now using the taps provided on site at the allotment and a hose pipe at home. 


I'm quite worried that there will soon be a hosepipe ban here in the South West of the UK because they have already begun implementing them up north due to the lack of rainfall. I really don't want to lose all of my crop due to not being allowed to water anything. We do everything we can to save water when it does rain. Once the water buts are full I use large storage cans for extra storage, I fill them from the water butt leaving more space for the rain to fill the buts back up. I have quite a few at home but due to the heat recently I'd used everything I had stored within the first week of heat. 

We've run out of lettuce now at home and at the allotment, the succession planting I was doing didn't germinate which was a shame. I think maybe it was too hot. I'm still trying though and hopefully some will germinate and we'll get some more lettuce soon. I refuse to pay the inflated prices in stores for lettuce and so I've been looking around the garden for alternatives to lettuce leaves. I've been using chard leaves, beetroot leaves and nasturtium leaves instead of lettuce with our salads. Noone has really noticed a different once chopped up and mixed with onions, tomatoes, cucumber and pepper. 


The blackcurrants have ripened and we've been getting a lovely crop every couple of days. The majority of them I will be freezing for later use but so far I've used some to make blackcurrant muffins which the family have loved and will be making a blackcurrant jam soon too. 

 

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