2012 - A month-by-month review


At this time of year most Gardening bloggers publish a review of the year just ending, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon.. My "Annual Review" is simply a demonstration that there was something good for me to harvest from my garden in every single month of the year...

January is prime time for Parsnips in my garden...


 February was very cold, but the Lettuces over-Wintered under cloches were surprisingly good:



 In March I began harvesting the very picturesque Purple Sprouting Broccoli.


 In April there was not much with which to fill the "Hungry Gap", but I did still have some Swiss Chard.



 May's harvest included the first of the long-awaited Rhubarb:

By June the Asparagus was at its peak - This is for me perhaps the most rewarding of all vegetables.

June saw the advent of the first of the new potatoes - like these "Charlotte" ones.

By July the harvests were coming in thick and fast, and it is hard to choose just one crop to represent this month, so I have hedged my bets with Broad Beans, Carrots and Blueberries.

For August I'm again spoilt for choice, so this time it's Runner Beans, French Beans and Tomatoes.

In  September I picked (amongst other things) Cucumbers, French beans, Aubergines and Chillis

In October I was still harvesting Runner Beans, along with Beetroot and more Chillies

 By November it was feeling more Wintery and the Brassicas began to look more attractive - such as this Cavolo Nero.

And then in December came the archetypical Christmas veg , the Brussels Sprout:

My garden certainly doesn't make me self-sufficient in fruit and veg, but its produce does provide a considerable and very welcome addition to what we buy in the shops, and best of all it gives me pleasure to cook things whose origins I know intimately!  I look forward with eager anticipation to 2013. (That's if the Mayans were wrong and the world doesn't actually end on 21st December).