Salad, Garlic and Compost

We've had a few visits to the plots since my last blog post; mostly for picking and chatting but we also got a bit of tidying and weeding done. The weeds have gone crazy since we've had a lot of rain over the last week and it's remained warm with sunny breaks. One day during the week we emptied 22mm of rain from the raingauge and that was just over 24hours worth - no wonder there are toads around during the day making the most of the slugs which appeared with the weather breaking!

This photo shows my lettuce which have gone to seed. The Red Fire seem immune to bolting so I'm still eating them but the green ones (Tom Thumb and Cos) have mostly gone into the compost bin. I've sowed a couple of rows of lettuce in an empty patch of earth - will need some to go with the tomatoes which are gradually redding up..
It's really hot in the compost bin - perfect for producing good compost and killing off any nasties. However, there's so much green (wet) waste going in there at the moment - I had to chop back some of the Uchiki Kuri squash runners and there's so much kitchen waste - so I added a couple of bucketfuls of torn corrugated cardboard as brown - otherwise it will likely get soggy and stinky.

The last few visits we have taken cucumbers away with us. We love our little Rocky cucumbers. They have been brilliant each year so far. One even obliged by growing through the old fireguard this year so it will be unblemished - but I think we may be able to produce an 'Odd-Shaped Vegetable' for the Royal British Legion Show on Saturday with one of the ones that has got caught up in the mesh!

When we got home I split the garlic up into cloves and froze some of them; a couple I left to dry out. They are really strongly flavoured! The leaves are browning and have a lot of rust, but the cloves are fine. Still time for them to die back further before they all need to come out of the ground though, I think.

Waiting for Rain and getting some!

We went up in the afternoon yesterday in the hope that we'd get caught in a rainstorm, we watched it moving towards up, getting darker and the wind started up but we only felt a few drops. As we got home the heavens opened and we got a lot of rain overnight and this morning. 11mm in total

The plots look so happy after rain and the weeds appreciate it even more! Above is some of the Asparagus Pea which are very pretty (but don't need a trellis).
Below is one of the Uchiki Kuri squash plants - I'm going to need to cut back some off-shoots. It would happily cover 4 poles I think!

We're a bit concerned about one of our Brussel Sprouts plants - it's leaves are going rather curly. We'll keep an eye on it but may need to pull it up in an attempt to prevent any cross-infection.

I'm also unsure of what to do with my Florence (bulb) fennel. After all the panic as the slugs were munching their way through it earlier in the year, it's come on really well. However, how big are they meant to get before eating? I wanted to keep them for soup but they look like they're mature now.

This is the biggest one - as big as my palm and quite pump. Is it ok to leave it to carry on growing?

 

This is my herb fennel. It's really tall and has flowered. The flying insects really love it, so I'm leaving it to grow as it's not really something I will use much for cooking and it looks very pretty.

The runner beans are also looking beautiful with masses of flowers. There are a few beans forming but not sure whether they'll be ready to win 'longest runner bean' this year (or even come second as we did last year...)

Just as it began to rain again this afternoon, we left the plot with a lovely selection of veggies which will cover us for a few meals.

International Kidney potatoes on the left and Orla on the right. You can tell the Orla as the slugs love them :-(

Last day of holiday :-(

The last few days of my fortnight's holiday have remained very warm and mostly sunny. We had rain overnight on Wednesday which produced another 4.5mm of rain but we've still been watering a lot as the ground dries out so quickly.

We've been eating from the plot all week; potatoes, broad beans, raspberries but mostly courgettes. I'm desperately looking for interesting courgette recipes, though so far plain, topped with a cheesy-nutty concoction is winning. We've managed to give away several as we've had so many family visitors to the plot this week, but now the green courgettes are arriving along with the Floridor yellows.

I couldn't resist modifying this cloud photo I took - the evening cloud had such a perfect formation! I immediately thought of this pic of Aeolus (or one similar).

I wanted to paste in an arty wind-blower, but couldn't find anything suitable so had to use me instead :-)

I did the 2013 Big Butterfly Count today - details on my wildlife blog.

4.5mm of rain

That was quite a lot of rain in one night but it didn't make much difference to the earth at Marsh Lane - hopefully the veggie roots are enjoying the benefits.

It was another humid day and very hot whenever the clouds cleared. We had a couple of visits to the plot, one with my sister, Joanne and nephew, George.

This is one of our little Rocky cucumber plants - we're growing one over this mesh (an old fireguard) in the hope that the little cucumbers will hang through. There are lots of cucumbers appearing but we're still only supplying Floridor Yellow courgettes for the spares table at the moment - Joanne asked why my courgettes had grown into bubbles :-)

We left having picked some salad to have for lunch, along with potato salad made with some of the International Kidneys we pulled yesterday. That's our first red spring onions Apache and some of the lovely little turnips which are so good raw.

I've bought a new camera; an Olympus SZ-31MR compact. It's not that fancy; it's the update to my previous one which I loved so much but the zoom went wrong - it gets rather abused by being taken to the plot in all weathers. I love the super macro option, but it needs a bit of getting used to as it's slightly different. Here's one of my first pics:

I'm pleased so far - look at the detail in the hairs!

 

Rain!

We went to the site in the morning and did a bit of labelling on the HAHA Plot. As it's meant to be 'unusual veg' we thought it would be sensible to let people know exactly what is growing there. The squashes are doing well, as are the asparagus peas but I don't think the globe artichoke liked being transplanted - it doesn't seem to have grown at all since the move..

It was so humid we couldn't do anything energetic and only did a bit of watering because we have the promise of rain later.
I could have done the butterfly count today,  though it wouldn't be a particularly average day (see wildlife blog)!
 

In the evening we walked up again to pick potatoes (International Kidney) for dinner. We got a healthy haul from the one plant and they were very tasty but did fall apart in the pan after just 17mins of cooking. I had a few mangetout too and the strawbs are for tomorrow's breakfast. 

Juat as we got close to home it started to rain but we got indoors before we had the most tremendous thunderstorm - very exciting! Haven't heard thunder that loud for years! And with it came the RAIN.