Progress

Such a long time since my last entry and so much has happened, sorry I've been to busy to post. a two week holiday in June isn't the best timing for the allotment but it has to be done. This bag of beans I picked before I went away.

Some pods held as many as seven beans! Shelling them takes ages and is hard work on my nails.

I've probably picked about a dozen of these tubs full now, each tub holds about 700g of beans. There are eleven tubs in the deep freeze and we've eaten a few beans already.

I had quite a tasty strawberry crop too, these are from the newer plants I put in last year. They have a really good flavour.

Yum yum!

The french beans aren't looking so hot right now. Quite a few had blown off their canes and I had to re wrap them, you always twist them anti-clockwise because this is the way they grow. I wonder if they grow clockwise in Australia?

The parsnips are doing well, really! I had to do a lot of careful weeding but the Turnips and beetroot have fared okay as well.

I put out some tomato plants before I went away worried that they'd dry out if I left them undercover.  They've survived but are still really small, the few I did leave covered are much bigger and I need to plant them out as well now.

The potatoes are in flower, these ones are a pretty pale shade of blue.

Most of them are whiter like these above.

I have several big globe artichokes now. This plant has tulip shaped globes.

These are more traditional round artichokes but they're supposed to be the same variety.

I picked two which we ate for supper, despite the shape they were very tasty.

More beans, like green fingers reaching up. Some plants are so heavy with beans they've collapsed.

My very first patty pan squash, it's about the size of a fifty pence piece at the moment.

The courgettes are tiny, quite a few fruits have appeared but all really small so far.

And the yellow ones are even smaller, perhaps one cm long.

This might be my total crop of peas. Despite a double planting I've only got about six plants and this is the first pod on the only one that's in flower.

I dug my garlic up too. The foliage had died right back, the heads aren't that big but they weren't about to get any bigger.

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb

There's a fine stick of the rhubarb. I didn't pick any last week end giving it a good chance to grow, and with all the rain it's done very well.

There's almost 2Kg of the stuff here, and plenty more to come.

This is the rhubarb bed after picking. Many people see to keep their rhubarb in corner or by the path, I like having a whole row of the stuff.

The potatoes have come on well as have the weeds. I was thinking of earthing them up but my time today was taken up with sorting out the seedlings. Slugs and snails have been running wild with the wet weather and munched quite a few of my babies. I took all the seedlings out, put down a lot of slug pellets and potted up a few new seeds where needed.

The second beans have become a bit weed infested but the soil is still rather damp for walking on so I'll have to tackle that problem later. The first beans suffered rather with the wind and quite a few have blown over, I surrounded them with string and canes to hold them up better.

What I thought were beetroot I have now decided must be turnips! The true leaves coming through have helped me to identify them.

So these tiny rather dark red seedlings must be the beetroot.

And I'm pretty sure that these are the first signs of the parsnips which have germinated reasonably quickly this year.

More rain

The beans are now towering over the garlic, the wet week has seen everything grow including the weeds. I also spotted my first blackfly, it'll be time to pinch out the bean tops soon.

The main crop potatoes are all beginning to show through although there's nothing from the earlies yet. Also a few rouge potatoes I must have left in the ground have begun to grow at various places around the plot.

Still tiny but the beetroot have begun to form their first true leaves now.

Still only about a half dozen pea plants have come through, what's happened to the rest? I might have to put some extra plants in but it wasn't possible in the soaked conditions today.

I'm so glad I planted some other things up earlier, artichokes and nasturtiums have now come through.

The yellow beans are just breaking through as well. I had hoped to put a trellis up for the french beans today but it was too wet to walk on the soil.

Ever faithful courgettes have all germinated. My neighbour said he'd give me some plants as well, I already have six plants so perhaps we're heading for a glut again?

And I also have some patty pan squash. The cobnut and kobacha squash haven't come through yet, too cold I reckon.

The green french beans are doing okay, I hope to get these guys in the soil before the end of May.

Along with the weeds there are some pretty wild flowers that have come through.

And in the hedgerow there are bluebells.

And purple bluebells! 

After the rain

I was keen to see the damage done with all the storms and hail this week.  although a few broad beans had flopped over they had in general benefited from all the rain. They're taller than the garlic now.

Elsewhere the french beans are coming along nicely, only about half have germinated so far. 

A couple of the patty pan squash have also germinated, it's great when these things start to grow.

Not all good news though, both sunflower seeds have germinated but been attacked by snails, despite all the slug pellets I've sprinkled around the greenhouse.

Outside the peas are just beginning to show, I've covered them with a net before the birds spot them.

Also the beetroot has germinated, there's a fine line of small green leaves were they've come up. I'll wait a while before I thin them out.

The strawberry plants are starting to fill out a bit and are still covered in  flowers.

I picked some more rhubarb, my only crop for the moment. They're still a bit on the short side but I can't wait for them to grow any bigger.

The glossy red stalks look amazing in the sunlight.

The second broad beans have also benefited from all the rain, I'm sure they'll catch the first ones up shortly. Nothing new planted today but I might get a chance to put a few things in on Sunday if the weather holds.

Marrow ago go

Didn't make down to the plot during the week so I was expecting a few courgettes, after the rain and sunshine a couple of them had grown marrow sized.

Yellow courgettes too, mostly smaller in size thankfully. I managed to give some away to Jessica yesterday but it seems we are reaching the courgette glut time of year again and this year with only four plants.

There are patty pan squash as well which are very similar, these are the first I've picked the biggest is about the size of a tennis ball.

One of the cob-nut squash has tiny fruit on it but I think these will take a lot longer to ripen.

Twenty five potatoes from just two plants, they really have done much better than last year.

A few beetroot were looking like they were ready so I pulled them up.

The last of the peas for now about 650g once I had podded them.

The beginning of the french beans, these were just the first few from the bottoms of the plants I'm going to have a lot more to come.