I think the lack of sunshine this summer must be taking its toll on my plants with the maturity dates totally way off. The lettuces that I grew from seeds should almost be full grown by now, instead they are still little seedlings while my beans are a few weeks off as well. My baby bush dwarf beans are absolutely gorgeous though – at the moment they have these very cute 2 cm long bean pods. I can’t wait to pop them into stir fries in a week or two. Insect wise some of my plants have thrived, others have to be watched daily for dreaded invaders. I lost my chives last week after months of being perfectly healthy and gave up on one of my tomato plants as well. Overall though my first year of herb and vegetable gardening has gone relatively well and through sharing my seeds, seedlings and plants two other households have also benefited from my growing experiments. I have learnt that I wouldn’t be without fresh herbs in the kitchen now and hope to expand a little further on my inside herb growing range this year.
I agree with you, the weather has been too cold to allow plants to grow. We always grow tomatoes and peppers here in Katikati, and should be harvesting the tomatoes now, they are at least a week or so away, as for the peppers, the plants are only 1/2 the size they normally are at this time of the year.