A lot can happen in a week in the Spring. We've had sweltering sunshine, tremendous thunder and lightning (sadly, I managed to sleep through it), torrential rain and now back to a little chill in the wind.
We've started harvesting our rhubarb and this is our 2nd harvest of purple sprouting broccoli. It is delicious but we definitely need to look after the plants more this year - the straighter stalks are more productive than the ones which fell over, so staking is going to be required. Especially as Marsh Lane is such a windy site.
I chopped all those chives to add onion-y flavour to the celery soup I decided to make (I had to buy the celery, but for 49p I think it was worth it). And the soup is so delicious and will provide me with at least two days
of lunch - though I must admit I had to add a pinch of MSG and some
mustard powder to enhance the flavour.
The seedlings, sown one week ago, have loved the heat in the greenhouse - at the front you can see
our next batch of broad beans which have sprouted so are nearly ready to
go out. Then there are our trays of marigolds (Durango Bee and Honeycomb).
Some of these will be planted on our plots but the rest will be sold at
the HAHA plant sale in June - we're holding it on the Town Hall steps
in the centre of town, so we hope to get even more passersby than we saw
last year.
The cauliflower (Amazing) have germinated - they look like cress at the moment. I hope they survive - we've never grown cauliflower before. The mangetout (Shiraz and Golden Sweet, in the drainpipe have just popped through the compost. They're now at their most vulnerable to mice who love the tasty new shoots. I have lots of twigs to protect them from (mostly) pheasants once they're planted out.
That was yesterday (Sunday). Today is St George's Day but we forgot to put our flag up - see here's a gif from our plot last year. It seems that it was better weather than we have today - we've returned to grey clouds and a fresh wind :-(
And the song title is provided by Barenaked Ladies - enjoy and have it in your head for the rest of the day!
We picked PSB and chives today, WE only had a baby thundertorm and no torrential rain yet but it has turned a windy and a bit chilly in comparison to last week. Our site is windy too which is why lots of our fruit trees lean to one side.
ReplyDeleteI really hope we're not in for another windy year!
DeleteCelery soup is so under-rated. Its one of my favourites. Last year we had PSB growing in the garden plot, but not this year - We do have chives and rhubarb though. Yes the weather has been quite amazing this week. I am off work today, so intend to go into the garden to do a bit of digging as I want to get the ground ready to welcome some new recruits from a garden centre as sadly we have been unable to grow much in our greenhouse due to damage. St Georges Day passed us by in Wales...but I do like your homely gif.
ReplyDelete