Harvest Time

One thing I've been trying to do this year is grow my own food and with the amount of snails in our garden it has been a challenge. They've decimated the peas, beans, lettuce and courgette.

Thankfully there's some things that the snails either didn't like or couldn't reach. We've had redcurrants, blackberries, strawberries, tomatoes and potatoes. I also seem to be good at growing herbs - we've had a healthy crop of sage, mint and chives and I have rosemary, thyme and lemon balm that seem to be doing ok.

Indoors I have peppers the seeds of which I got from a shop bought pepper, citrus saplings (I think they're lemons) and I've also managed to revive some celery.

Reviving celery is so easy to do. You use a head of celery, after you've snapped off the sticks take the remaining stump and pop the it in a jar of water - just enough to cover the bottom by a few centimeters. Within a few weeks it will start to grow roots, then not long after it will sprout more leaves. When it starts to sprout leaves pot it in soil. I've found the stalks dont get as big but you can still chop them and the leaves up and add to soups, stews and sauces!

I'm also lucky as close to my house are a large amount of wold growing apple trees. This was my haul from just one dog walk!

I stewed it down and it's now waiting in my freezer to be turned into a pie or crumble!

All in all I'm fairly pleased but I need to find a way to defeat the snails although I don't like killing them and can't put pellets down as we have hedgehogs. Next year I'll try copper tape I think!