A quiet month on the blog

I realise that there has been more work that reporting in May so today I will make up for it. Another very busy day and this time I remembered the camera, so prepare to be amazed.

The beans and peas are all in. So that we can stagger the harvest we have a mixture of plants and seeds and a mixture of varieties. There are two rows of broad beans, one from plants started in the greenhouse and one row directly planted in the ground. Strangely the beans sown are covered with flowers but only about eight inches tall whereas the others are about 18 inches with not many flowers. Peas are doing well - half plants intercropped with peas. French beans and runner beans the same. I mixed up the labels so there are two varieties of French and four of runner but won't know which until they flower. The potatoe hawk (remember him) is still working well at keeping the pigeons away. Twiggy sticks support the peas, chichen wire for the broad beans, netting for the French beans and a reconstruction of the hanging gardens of Babylon for the Runner beans.

The cabbages and sproats have joined the Boy Scout movement to stop the pigeons eating their tops out and I am hoping that they are going to turn out to be very good for the brain as the CDs on the ends of their tents are supplied by the Open University. They do look like very happy brassicas.



Moving down to the main beds below the little greenhouse. The fig and kiwi are growning well, the onions have really benefitted from all the rain, we have radishes, parsnips and turnips, chard and carrots, the bed with 109 gladioli and the one at the bottom which has lettuce, more onions and more carrots. On the left we have main crop potatoes (desire of course) and below that the fruit bed. At the moment the paths are still marked by green string but we have compacted them enough that the ground cover and wood chippings are going down. Since this photograph was taken I have planted four climbing outdoor cucumbers donated by Baptista. He is under the impression that he talks perfect English but we know otherwise. Between us we managed to translate his Italian into climbing outdoor cucumbers (not bad as neither of us speak Italian). We are most greatful for his contribution. The plum tree he gave us in March is growing well and he is always asking after our bambina as he calls Katy.

I bet you are wondering how the tomatoes are doing in the greenhouse. Well, wonder no more. They are growing like mad and covered in flowers. I have planted basil and corriander in the border underneath them so the smell when you open the door is quite mouthwatering.

The bottles on top of the canes are for protection as it would be easy to take your eye out on one of those things.





I never really occured to me that they would be anything other than plants that had started off as seeds in pots on the bedroom windowsill so they excitment was almost too much to stand when the first tomatoe was spotted. It is about the size of a large marble at the moment but that is not the point, it is the first of many I am sure and it will soon grow and ripen.


On a slightly different note, I think we must be getting something wrong in this allotmenteering game. Everybody else goes home mid-afternoon looking relaxed like they have just had a stroll in the park but we are still grafting at 9.30 at night and look like a couple of hippos who have had a good day wallowing in the mud and are hardly about to walk through exhaustion. What are we doing wrong I wonder!