Things are growing like triffids up at the plot!
The combination of rain and sunshine is bringing things on at such a rate.
The tomatoes, particularly are doing well. The gardener's delight are starting to colour and have fifteen or so fruit on each truss. At this rate I'll be setting a personal best by eating homegrown, outdoor toms in July! It's usually well into August before I get a taste.
The marmande has set more fruit than ever before, purple ukraine setting now and the mille fleurs have gone completely bonkers!
All I need to do now is cross my fingers and hope that the dreaded blight doesn't strike before I have the chance to harvest them.
A couple of plants at the end of the row have been stripped totally bare...no leaves or fruit remain just a stubby stalk. I've a horrible feeling this is rabbit damage and I need to step up my defences quicksmart.
The squashes are running riot, escaping from there beds and careering across the paths.
This (I think) is a 'Queensland blue' a heritage variety reported to taste divine.
It already has sixteen fruit on this one plant. I know I should thin but I'm essentially a greedy person.
How many pumpkins can one plant grow anyway?
I'm hoping one of you experienced growers can tell me. I'm after good eating rather than competition winners.
Somewhere in the middle of these flowers lives my garlic.
The first crop of purple garlic had to be pulled early when it split. I turned half into umami paste and the rest into 'persian sweet pickles' thanks to a new cyber friend's suggestion.
The pickles need at least a month to mature so I haven't tasted them yet but they smell heavenly!
t's not really time yet to pull the other garlics but, worried they might be splitting and ever the impatient gardener, I dug up one of each today...just to check.
Here is a picture of the elephant garlic and the normal white garlic together.
I think they will both need harvesting real soon because the ground is so wet. Further down the site there is a problem with white rot and I don't want to tempt fate.
Clustered round the bottom of the elephant garlic were half a dozen of these little bulbils.
Apparently, if replanted immediately these will form single cloves this year then the proper, divided bulbs the year after.
Given the price of elephant garlic to buy this has to be worth a try.
I wonder though, if I left one complete bulb in the ground, would it perennialise itself?
What do you think?
Right, that's it for today. It's been a long, wet day at the plot and I'm looking forward to a steaming hot bath followed by a dinner of roast elephant garlic and roast new potatoes.
So, apologies first....February was a horrible month and having been raised with the old adage 'If you've nothing nice to say, Say nothing' that's exactly what I did.
But now it's March, spring is springing and it's impossible not to be cheered by the sight of bobbing daffodils so I'm back, feeling a bit fragile but optimistic nevertheless.
Let's get the bad news out of the way first.
In February my bees died. Having made it through the coldest winter in decades, having thwarted the attentions of a hungry woodpecker, having eluded human vandals and withstood the dreaded varroa mite they got over excited one sunny afternoon and broke their cluster early. They flew about collecting pollen from the crocuses and Queen Bea foolishly started laying eggs.
When the temperature plummeted (as it does in February....every year!) a large number of bees refused to return to the cluster and remained instead diligently caring for the brood and there we found them two days later, frozen to death.
I was quite unprepared for how sad I felt when I found them. It's not as though they were pets! Yet a silent hive is a terrible thing and the sight of the dead bees 'bums up' in the comb where they'd tried to warm....and the waste! there was a litre and half of beautiful honey in there and so much new pollen...I was gutted. I still am.
Still, onwards and upwards. I've ordered a new colony (ready in May) and might even pick up a swarm in April as well. Lets hope for better luck next time eh?
Up at the plot things are picking up. The purple sprouting broccoli is already showing signs of budding and (as shown here in this totally rubbish photo!) the garlic is growing strongly.
I'm hoping that the early snowfall last December will result in fat bulbs with lots and lots of cloves.
This picture is my 'elephant garlic' actually a type of leek that looks and tastes like garlic only much, much bigger!
I bought a bulb (it was expensive too) the other year, split into eight cloves and planted.
Only two grew.
I ate one (oven baked and delicious) to see if we liked them and whether they were worth the effort (yes and yes) then split and planted the other last September for one last try.
I now have eight growing strongly and two weak ones so I'm well pleased! At five quid a bulb to buy (if you're lucky enough to find them) these are one of those crops that make me feel very smug to have an allotment!
Elsewhere on the plot I'm off to a slow start. My arthritis has flared up quite badly and I'm simply too vain to use my crutches in public so I'm not as far ahead with my digging as I'd like. I have sown some early peas, beetroot and carrots. It's a bit too early actually and weather is still very unstable so I've only sown a little of each along with some onion sets just to cheer myself up really and anyway....you never know your luck!
The currant bushes are beginning to leaf up but as they're not very photogenic I thought I'd leave you with a picture of the crocuses that snuggle amongst them.
Fantastic little flowers aren't they?
t's not really time yet to pull the other garlics but, worried they might be splitting and ever the impatient gardener, I dug up one of each today...just to check.
