Beautiful Crops

We are really reaping the benefits of our labours now and are gathering fresh vegetables on a daily basis.

Last year the potatoes were like marbles but this year we have got it right and what a huge difference in the crops.  The addition of some manure in the bottom of the pods and a little potato fertilizer given at regular intervals has made a world of difference.  We have so far harvested one pod of "Charlotte" and one of "Blue Belle", both of which, with a little butter on the top (oops, lots of calories) were absolutely delicious.

We have also picked an excellent supply of early peas, or at least my long suffering husband, Peter, has.  For some strange reason he really enjoys picking peas and shelling them and, whilst I fail to see the attraction, I am more that happy to let him carry on.  Any help with the produce is always gratefully received. We have now planted another row of peas "Kelvedon Wonder" to follow on.

The runner and french beans are also providing brilliant crops and we have this week planted a few more french beans to stretch the season.  Now it does say on the seed packet that these very fast growing vegetables should be planted by the end of June at the latest but I really can't imagine a couple of weeks into July will make that much difference, weather condiitons being reasonable.  I am sure the dear little beans themselves are unaware I am running a bit late.

Suddenly, with some rain, the onions have really improved and are not going to be the disaster I feared we may have.

One tip I had this year which proved more than helpful was to scatter crushed egg shells amongst the vegetables to keep the slugs away,.  It could well be that the slug population reduced a bit this year anyway but this certainly seemed to work well and we shall continue to use this method.

My solitary cucumber plant in the greenhouse is providing us with far more cucumbers than we can use in salads but, treated in the same way as marrows, these make an excellent and tasty hot vegetable so none will be wasted.

By the way, would love to hear from anybody that has a tried and tested recipe for cucumber relish.

A Dry Week In The Garden

Not a drop of rain this week which means Peter has had to get the hose pipe out at the crack of dawn each morning.  It is now over two weeks since we have had any rain at all and I am seriously thinking of doing a little dance to the rain gods, praying for a real downpour.  (My apologies if you are currently on holiday enjoying the sunshine).

Unfortunately, we are still experiencing ground frost at night so all the plants currently  hardening off outside have to be tucked away in the greenhouse each evening. The runner beans are now a good size and I am anxious to get them in the ground but the tender plants will have to wait a bit longer yet.

The peas "Kelvedon Wonder" have come through a little erratically so I have just pushed a few more into the ground filling up empty spaces. I use the very technical method of wearing a rubber glove and using my thumb, simple but it works.   I had to do the same thing last year but we ended up with an excellent crop.

The Alpines are looking particularly pretty just now with their gorgeous colours but I must admit, although they look wonderful , later in the season I will have very few in bloom.  I guess that is just bad planning on my part but if anybody knows of late flowering alpines I should be delighted to hear from them.

A dear little Olive tree that was a gift to us for Christmas 2008 has now been brought out of the greenhouse and put into the garden for the summer.  It is still very small and I am not optimistic that we will see any fruit for the next couple of years at least but I shall continue to lovingly tend to it and eventually I am sure our patience will be rewarded.

I still find it impossible to resist the temptation of buying salad and vegetable bags every time we go out and they are now in every available space in the garden.  Surely they are the best way of container gardening ever and you only need to spend a fraction of what you would pay for large tubs.    I must admit seeing the little seedlings popping through never fails to thrill.

A Wet Week In The Garden

We have really had more than our fair share of rain this week but in between times we have had a few sunny spells which encouraged some things, particularly weeds, to grow quite strongly.

This week we planted some garlic, which we haven't grown before, and there were two reasons for this.  One, we like garlic and two, we have been told on good authority that it does act as a garden pest repellent.  Time will tell if this statement is accurate.

We also planted some peas (Suttons Kelvedon Wonder) although why we did that I have no idea.  The frozen ones in the shops are excellent and very reasonably priced so is it really worth giving them precious space in the vegetable garden?

Having said that, a really nice thing to do is to sit round the table with the family shelling peas and even the appearance of an  occasional  maggot doesn't detract from our pleasure. We grow our peas between two low trellis's rather than pushing twigs in and this does seem to work quite well.

I also started off yet more potato pods.  I am sure we will end up with far too many but it is such fun growing them by this method that I can't resist the temptation to keep planting more.

We have also sown some more radish and spring onion seed to continue from those planted a few weeks ago. I try very hard to extend the season of some things but it doesn't always work.  The things that I plant early seem to take forever to germinate whereas those I plant later seem to romp away and everything is ready to harvest at the same time.  I guess that is just bad planning.

The flower garden is beginning to look quite pretty and although the miniature daffodils are late putting in an appearance this year, they are well worth the wait.