Sowing
Radish, spring onions, purple sprouting broccoli, swiss chard.
Harvesting
Lettuce: of those that have hearted up, these have been delicious. But of course, in this heat they need regular watering and a few have bolted.
Broad beans and peas: these have finished and I pulled them out. Must grow more next year, we definitely prefer the variety Celebration which are much sweeter than the early variety Meteor.
Strawberries: we've been making smoothies with these and some jam with the tayberries. I have to say the jam is wonderful.
Runner and dwarf beans: the first of the season and nicely tender.
Onions and garlic: drying out in the shed.
Spring onions: big and hot.
Beetroot: delicious warm.
As you can see from that list we had a nice salad at the weekend sat on the patio. We watched the many birds on the feeders we have. There are a lot of young birds this year so the parents got their timing right when all the caterpillars emerged.
Planting:
Leeks, butternut squash, beetroot and spring onions
I potted up the sweet potato into a bucket and it is showing good leaf growth. The pots around it contain celery. I heard somewhere that the pot method can give you nice stalks so I'm giving it a go.
In the greenhouse, everything is in its final pots:
Leafy aubergines
Chillis
Tomatoes with fruiting trusses
and young melon plants:
I'm growing the cucumbers outside this year because I don't have enough room in the greenhouse anyway. With this hot weather maybe a greenhouse isn't necessary after all. These are gherkin type cucumbers but they are perfectly tasty and edible; They are better without the tough skins though.
The outdoor tomatoes are fruiting too, these are the lovely stripey Tigerella variety. No sign of blight as in the previous years.
The courgette glut is just about to start. A lot of the early fruits have yellowed and it seems the plant has to achieve a certain size before it can sustain the developing courgette.
There are lots of flowers on the runner beans
This year I topped and tailed the leeks which I did find made them sit in the holes much better. I also got nice sized plants of the desired pencil thickness (mostly) which I put down to them being grown in large pots.
I've also cracked how to grow spring onions. These are great!
It's nice to see pristine Brussels sprouts not ravaged by the cabbage white caterpillar.
More kohlrabi on the way, this is a white variety.
an this is the purple variety which are possibly getting too big and woody. We make a very tasty and easy casserole with them which we can't get enough of.
These are the spring planted onion sets that are swelling up. I have deliberately planted them close so that the bulbs don't get too big. But notice the large cracks in the soil due to the hot weather. I still have along way to go to improve the structure.
The overwintered onions and garlic have produced nice fat bulbs.
Parsnips; I listened to Terry Walton's podcast and he advised not to water parsnips as this encourages the tap root to lengthen for water. But I've watered mine a bit as I know the soil will be bone dry if not. Surely they need some water?
The sweetcorn must be loving the sun. Top flowers are showing.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment