Tough Year in the Veg Patch

With varying degrees of ambition and devotion, I've been growing vegetables for nearly 10 years. I'm not the world's most conscientious gardener, but there have been abundant harvests of garlic, peas, beans and courgettes over the years. This year is probably the first that could be categorised as a total disaster!
It started really well. The plans were ambitious, encouraged by some rewarding harvests over the last couple of years. We have been in this house for four years, and I'm getting used to cultivating poor, chalky soil. Fertilisers (organic, of course), compost and manure have started to work their magic, although there is still a good way to go on that front. The veg patch had been expanded to 75m², rotavated and zapped with weedkiller (sorry). By May, neat rows of seeds had been planted and cutely labelled with little terracotta pots on sticks. It looked pretty, although I wouldn't go as far as to say professional, and I was keeping it remarkably weed-free.
My problem was water. We had virtually no rain from April to July. If there is an overriding lesson to be learned from this year, it is that no amount of watering can compensate for a lack of rain in such free-draining soil. I watered nearly every evening, but to almost no avail. A lot of my seeds simply failed to germinate. They were the lucky ones - the poor little plants which did make a start in life  got nowhere near their potential size.
The peas are a good example. Last year, they outgrew the 2 metre-high canes I so artistically constructed for them. This year, I struggled to get the canes into the ground, even after watering, as it was rock hard, even in May. The pea plants eventually reached calf-height, and I harvested enough peas for at least 4 people. For one meal. The garlic withered and died before the bulbs had developped. Four courgette plants produced an average of 2 fruits each before succumbing to frost last weekend. I won't go on; you're getting the idea.
The other outrageous arrow delivered by fortune was that the horse manure I applied so diligently was full of grass seeds. This grass was the only thing to survive the drought during my absences (I don't apologise for going on holiday for a week or two - give a girl a break) and choked any veggies brave enough to venture above ground in the Sahara-like conditions prevailing in Lorraine this year.
You'll have grasped that I was not a happy bunny. In the end I gave up, and by late August I had lost interest in a veg patch overrun with grass and weeds, interspersed with runty little veg plants.

More form than substance

There were a few bright spots in the otherwide bleak prospect: the tomatoes were delicious, if not exactly numerous - I guess the aridity was worse news for the pests than for the plants - and the parsley seems to have seeded itself and gone through a 2-year lifecycle in one year. The thyme, rosemary and sage have thrived in the mediterranean conditions, and the long-suffering, devoted consumer of my culinary efforts is delighted by the absence of French beans. There is also a pumpkin. A small one.

Sunday

Monday

 Much peeling, chopping and bottling...






On the fruit front, last year's damson avalanche was succeeded this year by an Everest of apples. The cherry tree, a rather sickly-looking specimen, actually produced sweet red fruit, as opposed to its usual orangey-coloured sour little efforts, and even the young pear tree managed a couple of edible offerings. There was also a bucketful of tasty little hazelnuts.

Actually, when you add it all up, maybe it wasn't such a bad year after all.