Hot stuff

What a difference a week makes. The temperature has been well into the 80's for the last couple of days with bags of sunshine to boot. I've been away for the last week in Ireland where it wasn't nearly so hot and dry. The picture above is an 'after' shot of the plot, where it's a little tidier than how I found it. I've had to spend a lot of time cutting down the grass that was growing on the plot edges and also dealing with all the weeds. On the old tool box you can see some of the radishes I've picked for my dinner, we had them in salad last night and tonight I'll be roasting them - I need to pick and eat them before they get too hard and woody, I wish I had staggered the planting a bit or put some more in the ground already.

Here are some of the trays from the greenhouse the front one has savoy cabbages in it and the next two have courgettes, I was worried they may have dried out while I was away but as you can see they are fine. The courgettes have mostly five or six leaves now so I've planted out two rows of them, eight plants in each row - the book I read said that three plants are enough to feed a whole family, I hope I haven't over done it? The cabbages need to be a bit bigger before I plant them out. Three of the kobocha seeds have germinated andI think at least one of the others might which would be good.

The broad beans are looking splendid and buzzing with bees (spot the bee), no sign of black fly either. There are strawberries beginning to swell and most exciting the artichokes have germinated. Today I planted some fennel and some mixed salad leaves that were free from the BBC. Although I wore a hat and had suncream on it seems I must have missed behind the ears, not too burnt, just a little red.