Vegetable Garden Update – August 2026 – Heart and Hearth Crafts

We’re coming to the end of the hottest summer on record. The garden is full of life despite a lot of losses to the heat and lack of rain.

Vegetable Garden Bed 1

This has been a really good year for beetroot. There’s another huge batch ready to harvest. The spring onions are flourishing as well. Radishes, not so much. They have just about all bolted in the heat.

Vegetable Garden Bed 2

The lettuces have also bolted really early. I’m annoyed with myself for putting off sowing more seeds. Now I have to clear these monsters and I have nothing to replace them with. I have direct sown a lot of my lettuce seeds to save time and see how it worked out. I usually sow seeds in modules and grow them on before planting out. I’ll be sticking to that method. Hardly any of my direct sown seeds have germinated, or survived long enough to be seen. This bed should be covered in seedlings.

Vegetable Garden Bed 3 – 4

I tired polyculture this year and have very much regretted it. I didn’t have enough nets to get on all of my brassicas and so I have these rather pathetic looking skeletons. Next year I will go back to keeping all my brassicas in one bed so that I can protect them from the butterflies.

The carrots and parsnips and looking very nice though.

There’s more devastation at the back of the bed along with some leeks.

Vegetable Garden Bed 5 – 6

The potatoes have coped surprisingly well in the heat and drought. I’ll be harvesting these shortly. I’m not sure what to plant in their place, I don’t have anything ready.

The parsnips are looking fabulous here too.

I had some space at the back of this bed and planted a variety of roots to fill it. Unfortunately when I moved the nets to the other bed to protect my brassicas I did not adequately protect this bed from the vegetable patch’s most damaging predator – the puppy! A very surprising amount of them have actually survived his enthusiastic invasion.

Vegetable Garden Bed 7

Now this bed I did get prepared for the second half of the season. I cleared it of erm, volunteer potatoes and some very poor onions. Then I planted it with brassica seedlings. They’re doing ok, growth is slow but steady and I an optimistic for a good harvest next year.

Greenhouse

Almost all of my courgette, cucumber and pumpkin plants have died. I suspect rodents as they were planted into pots in delightfully good health and then just sort of disappeared. There is just these two left. My darling puppy has taken to snacking on their leaves. Next year’s plants will have to be protected from him along with everything else in the garden.

The tomato plants are flourishing and have survived the drought very well so far.

Herb Garden

I’m embarrassed to share the state of my new herb garden. But I have a terrible habit of waiting to photo my garden until it’s all looking it’s best. And then of course I forget after a long day of gardening. So I’ve committed myself to taking photos and sharing updates every six or seven weeks even if my garden is a mess.

I will be clearing these weeds and spreading wood chip within the next few days.

My original herb garden is overflowing. The sage is taking over, the chives have been amazing as has the oregano and lemon balm. My only small disappointment is that my favourite mint plant is really struggling. There’s no even enough leaves to be worth harvesting. I will have to buy my mint sauce from the supermarket again.

I would normally have moved my sweetcorn next to my temporary squash beds. I didn’t bother. They’re happy where they are now. I planted some tomatoes underneath them. The tomatoes are doing amazingly well, better than the one’s I’ve put in the ground where I thought they would survive the drought better. I think it’s because these pots are filled with compost and most of the areas I’ve planted my in ground tomatoes haven’t been mulched with compost.

Orchard

Check out all those apples! I had one after taking these photos and it was lovely and juicy. The plum tree has finally produced it’s first crop. I am so excited, I check the ripest looking plum every day as I walk past.

The pear tree has produced fruit as well be it has also acquired a fire blight infection so I have pruned the majority of it’s branches in the hopes of saving the tree.

The strawberries have been delightful this year but the harvest wasn’t as big as I would have liked. Still they were very tasty and I have quite a lot in the freezer ready for making jam once the fruiting season is done.

Fruit Patch

The raspberry harvest was really disappointing too. I’m thinking the birds might have beaten me to most of it. Maybe their other food sources have been more scarce this year and so they’ve been more attentive to mine.

The autumn raspberries are starting to think about ripening.

My blackberry vine looks decidedly pathetic. It grew to gigantic proportions in it’s first year. I pruned it quite heavily and it just hasn’t been the same since. I need to give this plant some TLC and see what I can do to help it along.

My blackcurrant bush produced a lovely harvest this year. I should have a good amount of my favourite jam.

Garden Plans

I’m looking forward to extending my vegetable patch over the winter. The new space is taking shape slowly. My neighbour has back filled the area with hard core. Not ideal I’m thinking. They say they will be topping it off with top soil and a barrier. I’m not sure what type of barrier or how good the top soil will be – I’m not holding out any hope of it being good quality. I’ll see what they give me and work with that.

I’ve been looking into buying raised beds. They do make the space look much neater and it will be easier to improve the quality of the soil I’m planting into. The expense if concerning but we’ll see.

For now I’m just focusing on gathering as much compost as I possibly can. The rest of my plans can take shape over the winter.

A Little Bit About Me . . .

Hi there! Thank you so much for stopping by my little corner of the interweb. I’m Bridie.

I’ve been crafting since I was toddling around craft shows while my mum sold knitting yarn. She used to buy me a new craft kit to keep me busy. When I grew up I set up my own online craft shop and loved every minute of it. There’s is nothing like the thrill of getting to be one of the first people to see new craft collections.

I sold my business to focus on raising my two children. They’re still young so for now I’m blogging my craft projects and sharing tutorials to inspire you. I love creating handmade cards with digital stamps. I scrapbook to preserve precious memories of my kids childhoods. I knit and sew to keep my kids in comfortable, unique clothes they love. I create batch cooked meals that give me more time to craft. And because I’m not currently earning I do all of this on a teeny tiny budget.

I’ll show you all the best ways to craft on a tight budget so you can still create a life you love.

I’ve included links to my favourite retailers for the products I’ve used to make my crafts. Click on any of the product images and links for full details. If you decide to buy any of these products I may get a small percentage of what you spend. There’s no cost to you at all.

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