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My Kitchen Garden.

This summer has been a battle of survival in my kitchen garden. At last, after months of waiting, we have had some rain here at Mansard House in Suffolk.

Since May we have only watered the polytunnel and everything else has had to take turns with the washing up bowl contents. Many parts of East Anglia claim to be the driest in the UK, but Bardwell must be a contender. In the kitchen garden, certain vegetables really did not get going, such as courgettes, celeriac and celery. Whereas surprisingly, the brassicas excelled and the potatoes have not done too badly either. Probably the copious amounts of mushroom compost saved the day. Polytunnel tomatoes have been huge this year, particularly Pink Brandywine – my secret is Maxicrop seaweed solution.

I had all but given up on my kitchen garden embellishments i.e. ornamentals to make the garden look pretty. I allow insect-friendly plants such as borage and marigold to self-seed about the place along with strategically placed climbers and gourds to ramble over the pergola. To say that they have just lingered, would be an understatement  – all until we had 16mm of rain last week. The Ipomoea lobata and purpurea are swarming all over the pergola.