What a whopper

My prize winner! I came third in the Fulham palace meadows heaviest marrow competition 2010 with this beast above that weighs 4.26Kg, not only did I get a certificate but also £2 prize money. I was very close to the second prize marrow which was a sort of double marrow but we were both way off the winning vegetable which came in at over 20Kg and needed a wheel barrow to be transported.

You can see the double marrow to the left near the gigantic cabbage, the knobbly thing top right is the winning marrow. The girl who had the winning marrow also had winners in most of the other categories.

Here are my cabbages, I decided to free them from the green net tunnels because they were getting a bit too big. To stop the birds eating the leaves I've pulled the big net over some canes for protection. The plants are all a bit leggy and haven't started to ball up into cabbages yet.

The tomatoes are showing the first blush of ripening, in fact there was a plum tomato that had already turned red so I ate it. They have a wonderful flavour quite unlike the ones in the shops.

One of the beef tomatoes came away from the plant so I'm going to try and ripen it indoors.

Since last week I've picked all the carrots, a few were quite large but most are tiny and there only be one meals worth of them, not my best crop, not sure I'll bother with them next year. i've also picked the last of the french beans another couple of tubs of them, more than I was expecting.