Yellow is the Colour (and Green is too)

This is a baby burpless cucumber. Did you know that looks like this up close? Freaky!

It's growing upward instead of down at the moment, but I'm sure gravity will put that right when it gets a bit bigger.

This is the amount of rain we had yesterday and last night - a long awaited and very welcome 30mm! It meant we only had to water in the greenhouse today and yesterday - although we did have to give some of the plants a boost with plant food so no escaping the watering can!

This is one of our pumpkins - it's getting big. Our nephew, James, is having a growing competition with us - this is to see whether he really does read my blog ;-)

And, this is what happens when you don't wait for your garlic to grow and plant another bulb! I've pulled it because the foliage had started getting rusty and there doesn't seem to be the need to grow any bigger bulbs!
I think there will be some available for the Open Day and Food Festival this year! 

The florence fennel which has been under fine mesh is looking happy and some are ready to eat.

Here are a few flower pictures - yellow is the colour of the moment, but the red runner bean flowers are on their way now too...

Tomatillo

Rudbekia plant from our niece, Victoria, a couple of years ago

Marigolds make such a great show

Amazing pumpkin flower

And finally, if you're in the Hungerford area on 15th August - why not come and see our lovely site? We're making plans and hope the weather plays nice...
(Prepare yourself, this won't be the last time I mention this!)

Open Afternoon - Success!

We had fabulous weather for the Open Afternoon - we were so lucky! It was warm (probably about 23°) and the sun even showed itself at times.

We were pleased it was so well attended - there were about 80 visitors that I'm aware of.
We even had a group of people from Swindon join us, they just happened to be visiting Hungerford and followed the carrot arrows that we'd posted along the route from the High Street!
I was really pleased to see Bill Acworth again - he was on the council when the allotment site was first set up. Without him we'd never have our lovely site. He was impressed with the changes over the last couple of years and understands what an asset the site is to Hungerford. 

The burgers went down so well that we had to send out for more stock half way through the afternoon. Even all the veggie burgers were all sold!

The cream teas were also a great success; people had made cakes and scones for HAHA to sell and, of course, there was lovely home-made jam too.

Children were entertained with paper flower making and a questionnaire which meant they walked round the plots spotting certain veg and water butts, etc.

Some visitors spent a lot of time wandering through the site looking at the various methods we use for protecting our veggies and our growing techniques - that's why we always like to see what's going on on other plots too.

I was looking after the tombola and really enjoyed it. We had over 40 prizes, mostly donated, and with a 1-in-5 chance of winning all the tickets were gone by 3pm! (Next time we'll need more prizes). It was such good fun and when I did have a couple of breaks my sister stepped in to deal with customers - thanks Joanne!

The produce stall was well stocked and visitors went off with bagfuls of fresh veg and home-made pickles, jams and chutneys. A bit of a shame that Joanne bought the cabbage that we'd put on the stall - I would have given her a freebie :-)

Jamie was on standby to provide me with food and drinks and enjoyed chatting with other plotholders and visitors.

Now we are looking forward to holding more events like this in the future!