There were loads more mange-tout to pick.
After some decent rain we picked a decent amount of produce. Starting off with some nice looking potatoes. There were loads more mange-tout to pick. Gooseberries, raspberries and the first courgette of the year. More beans as well. Artichokes are ripening nicely, even if we're not overkeen on them.
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Difficult to believe that a couple of weeks ago we'd had three months worth of rain in about three weeks but already some of the beds look dry on the surface. It hasn't helped that we've had a couple of really hot days and as many of the plants are quite new we need to water, and possibly feed too. Already two outdoor cucumbers have perished, though that may be as much to do with the earlier cold and wet as the hot and dry. Sweetcorn is looking excellent. Potatoes, hopefully, will be better than we've had for the last few years. Onions, too, are looking really good. Carrots are also a lot better than last year. We have our first two courgettes of the season. The comfrey leaves from last week have dried out so we placed them around the tomatoes as a mulch - looks a mess but very effective. Some more produce. First blueberries of the season. Just popped down to weed and generally tidy up and pick anything that's ready, although it's early in the season. Also just checking up on everything. Potatoes are looking very promising. We're looking to pick some tatties in the next fortnight. Sweetcorn is looking very good. Tomatoes doing well. Onions look huge. Carrots are doing a lot better this year. Celery is doing very well. Mange-Tout and Beans are coming along nicely. Should start getting a few of both of these in a few days. Leeks look good, if still a little small. Squashes............ Courgettes.......... The wallflowers are growing strongly. We've stopped picking the asparagus so that they can prepare for next year. The wild garden area is looking lovely at the moment. We picked some comfrey to dry out in the sun and we'll use it as a mulch on the tomatoes. The roses in the wild garden are looking nice. Picked a bit of produce. Should only increase from now on, especially if the weather stays so good. We went down for a couple of hours this morning as there appeared to be a lull in the wet weather. This time last year we were sweating in temperatures nearing the thirty degree mark; for the last week or more temperatures have struggled to reach thirteen degrees and the rain has been pretty much continuous during that time. Some areas of the country have had three months rainfall in a week According to the rain guage in the garden we've had over 80mm in the last week which is almost double the monthly average. We were surprised to find that nature hadn't taken over and the plants hadn't gone berserk in the rain, but I think that the cold has kept a lot of plants from shooting up. An exception to that were the potatoes which seemed to have shot up. Unfortunately we couldn't really mound them up as the soil was just too wet and claggy. Planted a bed of tomatoes. Planted seventeen parsnip plants. Planted just five squashes in one of the bottom beds. Last year they went wild so this year we're giving them plenty of room. We also managed to plant three outdoor cucumber plants up the "Wigwam". We picked another small crop of asparagus. It'll certainly be enough to accompany Sunday lunch. This year the carrots seem to be coming through a lot better than last year. The celery is doing extremely well but then it is supposed to like it a bit wet. Elsewhere, the courgettes are doing well. As are the tomatoes. And the sweetcorn. The mange-tout and the french beans are doing well. Finally, the artichokes are starting to ripen. Went down for a couple of hours just to check things over and to plant the celery. Given up a bit on the celeriac and gone back to ordinary celery. Planted the celery in sunken beds and surrounded with black membrane to aid blanching. Had a quick look round at everything else. We noticed a lot of cuckoo spit on the rosemary which hasn't been apparent before, We also noticed that the beds we spread a lot of our home-made compost on earlier in the year are now sprouting dozens of little tomato plants. I bet if you planted them properly they wouldn't come up half as well. We've had a small amount of rain since our last visit so everything seems to be thriving. Potatoes. Sweetcorn. Onions and broad beans. Artichokes. Blueberries. Mange-tout And the asparagus is still providing us with a small but steady crop. Bank Holiday Monday and the weather was OK, not brilliant, but OK. We went down prepared to do a full day but at lunchtime we got distracted.............. The mange-tout and the beans are looking OK. Potatoes in the top bed are doing fine but can't decide whether to "mound-up" any more. Artichokes are in flower. The Goji Berry appears to have some mildew. Don't know why so gave it a good watering as it's very dry down by the cemetery wall. We didn't do any celery last year; instead we concentrated on celeriac - but that was a bit of a failure. This year we're going back to celery, but the bed is a bit bumpy and full of weeds. Cleared all the weeds from the celery bed. Flattened out the big lumps and dug five channels for the celery to be planted in. We have about fifty plants so that equates to ten plants per channel. We were just about to stop for lunch when Mercy, Jessica and Sophie arrived to help. Here's Mercy ready to plant a sweetcorn. In fact, everybody gave a helping hand with the sweetcorn. Here we have the sweetcorn in and ready to be watered. And here's the sweetcorn planted and netted. Started putting in the courgettes as well. And here they are, done. After three days of prolonged heavy rain we decided it was about time we got back into the swing of it; so we went down with multiple jobs to do. We've rearranged the seating area to accommodate our new glass-topped table. Thanks to the rain, suddenly we have more potatoes coming through. Instead of mounding the potatoes up this year we're going to try just covering them over with my own compost. I spread a load of my own compost on some of the beds to give them a better texture and more body. Especially the two beds by the cemetery wall where the soil is like dust. We planted some mange-tout. After all the rain the onions and Broad Beans are doing well. As is the rhubarb. The comfrey bed is looking very colourful. We popped down the plot specifically to take some composting material and to leave the trellis from by the front floor down there, but ended up spending about an hour down there. There'd been a delivery of decent chippings but we hadn't got a bucket with us. Took some pruned material down for the compost which is looking decidedly full, but it shouldn't take long to sink down a bit. The clematis we planted a while ago is looking pretty good now and the comfrey is starting to shoot. The fern has adapted well to it's new spot. The rose cuttings appear to have survived the winter........... .............as do the self-seeded saplings. The asparagus is coming through too all of a sudden; a week ago there was nothing. Potatoes in the top bed are also starting to show, though strangely only at the one end of the bed - the opposite end to where it's a bit "clayey". A glorious day, if a little chilly in the wind, so following on from planting the onions on Saturday we went down with 32 chitted potatoes and half a dozen runner bean plants. The beans were planted in the bit of soil left at the end of the onion bed from Saturday. A lovely sunny Spring day............. Planted potatoes in the top bed in one long trench to see what sort of a result this gives. We also fed and mulched the fruit canes in the large fruit cage. We're back to the heatwave again: 24 hours brief respite (of sorts) last week and now it's forecast hot, hot, hot again. Went down for two and a half hours Saturday evening and picked a load of tomatoes and other stuff, and watered everything. Picked some red potatoes and they look pretty good. |
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