Fuzzy friend

This splendid fellow was happily munching on the raspberry canes at the end of the plot. By the power of Google I think it might be a Knot Grass moth, I'll have to see if Paul knows.
Mostly I spent my time weeding and tidying up, there were a few beans to pick and a few courgettes but the cooler nights have stopped them and it feels very autumnal already.

Saturday was sunny if not so warm but much better than Sunday where it rained all day so I stayed at home. The autumn light was nice I've a few raspberries coming which I eat with my muesli in the morning.
The cobnut squash are doing well, I'll probably get about a dozen of them if I'm lucky. The parsnips seem quite happy but the cabbages and broccoli are rather small still.

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.

Hot beans

Suddenly scorching weather. It's been quite windy too, the broad beans are quite tall and some have been blown over. The first beans are almost ready to pick, I love the beans when they're small and sweet.

Six beans in a pod isn't bad, they're a beautiful bright shade of green when they're so young. I'll wait until next week end to do a proper harvest. Then I'll be away two weeks, I hope the other will be okay when I return.

My courgettes have gone into the ground, plants still quite small but I wanted them out of the greenhouse before we go away.

Yep, it's a parsnip! they seem to have done quite well this year unlike the cabbages that didn't germinate. I bought some cabbage plants from the trading hut, two pots for a pound that contained around eighteen decent seedlings which I potted up.

These are turnips which seem to have attracted some pests, I'll have to keep an eye on them. I also bought a few sweet pepper plants from the trading hut, I've never grown them before.

A few globes are forming on the artichokes, I counted only four in total. I really love them boiled and eaten with butter, I hope they get a bit bigger.

The thyme is in flower and looks very pretty, it would make an amazing repeat pattern don't you think?

The first ripe strawberry of the season, I ate it of course and it was delicious. I look set to have a bumper crop this year as long as the slugs don't get them.

Snails

Even the plot sign has snails on it at the moment. Along with the slugs they're munching anything they can, slug pellets are killing so many around the green house that the ground crunches with shells when I walk on it.

The plot is just starting to fill out a bit but I'm at least two weeks behind last year due to the weather. I put up the canes for the french beans, there's a gap on the right where the soil is too thin to plant above a concrete drain.

I planted out six of each of the three varieties of climbing beans. Violette, yellow and green. This leaves a dozen post still needing a plant, I have many more but didn't want to put them all out at once.

Looking down the canes. A few more peas have come up but I still don't really have a decent row of them.

Parsnips have just grown a bit, it's always good to see the true leaves then you know what is what when weeding.

I was eating strawberries at this time in 2011, I just have my first fruits forming this year.

There are a lot of flowers though so I hope to get a bumper crop unless the slug get there first. The rhubarb is also going mad, I've picked so much I might have to freeze some.

The first few pods are showing on the broad bean plants. I picked the growing tops off of them today and will have them for dinner.

The potatoes seem quite content, even the 'missing' one is beginning to come through.

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.

Drought

The sun we had all week has gone but the weather wasn't as bad as predicted and just as well because I had a lot of planting to get on with. First beans are still quite short despite being covered in flowers, I guess they want a bit of rain.

Second beans have mostly come through now the leaves have been curiously munched around the edges, I seem to remember this happening last year.

After all that sun the strawberries are beginning to flower although the plants again are still rather small.

The rhubarb plants are filling out now but not nearly big enough to start picking. Again I think it must be due to the dry conditions.

After I cut them right back in the autumn the new raspberry canes are popping up everywhere. I hope they do well again this year.

A lone yellow daffodil in flower in the top bed. The white ones are much earlier and have all died out now.

I bought a new greenhouse because the cover on the old one has a lot of holes in it. I'll keep the old one for moving plants into once they've already germinated but it doesn't get so warm with all the holes.

I planted up some cabbages, french beans, patty pan squash and cobnut squash. The idea will be to try and plant a few things up each week so I have a better successive planting this year and avoid too much of a glut.

I put in a row of peas directly into the soil. As soon as they sprout I'll have to cover them otherwise the birds will eat the lot.

And next to the second beans I put in a row of parsnips. They take ages to germinate and don't like it if it's too dry, lets see how they do this year. I also planted my last row of potatoes, only three rows this year.