Sunshine at Last

Well a couple of days of sunshine at least – after more windy days which didn’t help things in the garden at all. We have had a couple of days of rain as well so the garden isn’t too dry  – yet. Another couple of days of sunshine will prompt me to deploy the hosepipe I think – too many flowers and crops at risk!

Once again my my main emphasis has been on the flower section and planting many, many plants –  but that is almost done now.

In the veg section all the raised beds are in use now and will soon be full (though that depends a bit on seeds producing something). The main advance has been planting the excess tomato plants – still in large pots – into the end of one bed. A bit of an experiment really since I had all the excess plants. So I now have around 20 tomato plants of various sorts out in the garden plus the 9 in the greenhouse – we are going to have a freezer full of tomato sauce at the end of the season!

Elsewhere I have sown rows of radish, spinach & radish in the same bed as the lollo rosso. I need to sow some more lettuce now really as well.

The pak choi is already threatening to flower and we haven’t used any yet! Must sow some ore of that as well. I did harvest a couple of the ‘rats tail’ radishes the other day to add to a bowl of salad though.

Broad beans (middle of picture) – just about ready

The ‘cut n come’ again salad leaves (in the long container) are now waiting to ‘come again’, and I’ve removed the salad leaves occupying half of the container as they had gone to flower and I’ve reseeded with some more salad leaves (they are just starting to come up). The nearby row of rocket has burst into flower, but there is another row with seedlings about an inch high next to them.

Salad leaves – and section recently seeded – some seedlings jut appearing

All the potato plants are up in the original potato bed, and another bed (the one that had perennial in) now is full of rows of a mixture of ‘charlotte’ and ‘maris piper’.

On the tomato front the container near the kitchen seems to be working well, and the ones outside the greenhouse are coming on fairly well ( I’ve removed the protection now). Meanwhile the plants in the greenhouse are flourishing  so much so that checking for side-shoots and watering is now fairly tricky – I will have to remove some of the lower leaves soon so that I can see what is going on.

Tomato plants outside the greenhouse

In the greenhouse the peppers and aubergines are in big pots now and probably in their final location. Some courgette seedlings are just coming through, and more beans, both climbing and dwarf should be through soon.

The climbing and dwarf beans outside have had a hard time though with the winds and lack of sun so haven’t really grown much, but maybe the last few days of warmer weather will get them going. However, there are broad bean pods now – I think we may well be having some young tender beans this weekend! Needless to say the blackfly have appeared as well, though only a couple of plants affected so far.

Broad beans just about ready

The first two rows of mangetout peas are now really high and just staring to flower – the more recent plantings haven’t grown much thanks to the whether but as with the beans should get going now. I must plant more of both mangetout and ‘normal’ peas in the greenhouse this weekend if possible though.

Mangetput peas – in flower now and one or two small pods

One cucumber plant is now in the ‘covered’ bed along with a couple of aubergine plants – not sure if they will produce there but we’ll see. I’ve got a couple more cucumber plants – one will go in the raised bed next to the covered one and the other probably in a pot – so we’ll see how the different approaches work.

One the fruit side, apples are set and growing ok, plenty of currants of all types, and the ‘climbing’ strawberries are producing = some will be ripe this week I think.

Strawberries – just starting to ripen now

Wildlife

Well I’ve evicted three squirrels in the last month but another appeared a couple of days ago – have seen it again since though.

There have been a lot of baby great tits around the feeders the last few days, freshly fledged but still expecting to be fed. A couple of baby blackbirds have been around as well.