The product of neglect

Regular readers will have noticed the sporadic (read non existent) nature of my posting of late.  This has mainly been due to a lack of inspiration although I prefer to blame work commitments, family, kinder committees and a raft of other excuses.  The real truth is that my garden has been less than inspiring to write about, which coupled with my transient creativity has produced,  well…nothing.

Normally the things in my garden effectively write their own posts, Monday Harvests, end of month round up of growth rates, seeds sown, seedlings planted and so on.  The problem is that with the exception of parsley and the last of the chillies I haven’t been harvesting much of anything.  Had I planted anything in Autumn this could have probably been avoided but I didn’t and I think you can probably imagine the rest…..  A weed infested chaos with the odd over ripe capsicum rotting quietly on the plant.  Not attractive and certainly not inspirational.

I finally got round to cleaning all the mess up last weekend ( a big thankyou to my sister in laws for her excellent broom work) and guess what I found…..

…..

along with the mass of weeds, dead plants and tomato stakes which ceased being useful quite some months ago, I found inspiration.

I hadn’t gardened but fortunately nature often takes care of itself.  Under the debris I found broad beans, parsley and parsnips:

More surprisingly (it being winter and all) I also found beans and a single, remarkably healthy, tomato plant.

I had run out of traditional plant guards but figured some glad wrap may help protect it.  I don’t really want to grow tomatoes in this spot again this year but when a plant is happy to withstand single digit (Celcius) temperatures it hardly seems appropriate to lecture it on the importance of crop rotation.

I hope it survives, if nothing else so that I have something to blog about……