Entries from July 2007 ↓

I dug up some potatoes at the weekend. We had them on Sunday and they were very nice. Not like the irradiated ones you can get in the shops.

It’s very hard to explain why your own grown food is so good, you just have to grow it yourself to find out.

OK, they don’t look that good here, but washed up they look fine and the skin just sloughs off without any effort. They had a lovely creamy taste. I’m dribbling just thinking of them.

Just a quick update to say that the wet weather has returned this weekend with a vengeance and I wasn’t able to do much at the plot. I did some weeding, but that’s all.

At home I picked a cucumber and enjoyed some of that. The lilies are still flowering which is surprising, but welcome. They have a few bugs, but a spray of bug killer sorts them out.

Hopefully I will get up in the week. 🙂

I’ve been keeping my eye on the sweetcorn and you know what they say about a watched kettle, well I had forgotten about it, what with the rain and all and when I went back to look at it, I was amazed to see that it is beginning the long journey to producing the cobs. 😮

* Ignore the weeds, I pulled them up after the photo.

If you remember it looked like this last time:

I checked on the runner beans at the weekend and they were fine, no more slug trails all over them now they have lifted off the ground. In fact they are growing nicely.

I noticed that I had put them in later than some at the allotments as a few plots over his are almost to the top of the canes. Still I am happy with them and we should have a good crop of beans later in the year.

I actually put another one in that I had been growing at home. Although eight plants had survived there was one that had bitten the dust, so I put in this last one and hope that it will be OK. It should be as it is begining to flower already, plus we have had some sun this week, which always helps.

I thought the flowers on the beans were rather nice.

I’ve not been too lucky with the courgettes this year and we are still far away from any at the moment. As you saw a while ago the wind and rain was just destroying my poor courgette plants.

There was one that was clinging on to life for all it was worth and doing its best to weather the storm. Well here it is back in May:

Remember this is JULY!

There may be some fruit by August, but I am not overly hopeful. I am just amazed that it has hung on this long. My plot is on the side of a hill you see, and when its windy it sweeps up there and anything not used to being in a hurricane will suffer badly. The cucumbers also didn’t like it in the wind. Them I could bring indoors, but not the courgettes I’m afraid.

I’m keeping my eye on them and will let you know.

I had to plant out the swede today as they had been sitting in the tray for ages. They haven’t grown in the peat pots, so it was going in or being thrown away. I had to net them as well, as the birds will eat them as soon as look at them.

The ground was really soft from all the rain, so it was easy to put the plants in. I also put some some of my own compost on and put pellets around them so the slugs would DIE!

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Now for some facts.

Larger than the turnip and with a rough skin that is partly tan and partly purple, the swede’s unpolished appearance hides a fine texture and distinctive, sweet tasting flesh.

The swede comes from central Europe and was an important European crop by the 18th century. During the nineteenth century it reached the USA (where it is known as rutabaga – check out your Branston pickle jar) and then Canada.

It’s a hardy plant that is frost-tolerant and thrives in moist soil. So should be fine for the allotment at the moment.

Swede has a good mineral content and is low in saturated fat. It also provides some fibre and vitamins A and C. Lovely.

I had a look at the cabbages today and saw these two. The first one appears to have been eaten by slugs on the outside and the other is good. I’m hoping that the rest are going to be OK.

I decided to cut the bad one, and eat it! The centre was good and was really sweet. Along with some of my potatoes it went down very well. There was plenty of the cabbage in the centre, more than I expected.

I went up the plot this morning to see what the damage was and found it to be quite resilient to the wind and rain we’ve had this past week or so.

No more strawberries though, all gone. So I am letting the runners go wild and will lift some of them later on and add them to the existing plants.

I did have another look at the sprouts to see how they were doing and was amazed at the extent of growth.

As you can see I haven’t taken the nets off them yet (click it to enlarge the photo). It’s not essential to keep them on, but I have been so busy with weeding and putting other plants out that I have have not had the time to lift and roll the netting up. I may do it tomorrow if the weather holds up.

The forecast for tomorrow is sunny intervals and 1017 pressure with 41% humidity with west south westerly wind of 5mph. So it seems it may be possible to actually get up there again and do some more essential work.

Well, I’ve picked the beans now and have frozen them for future use. I thought they might have gone over, but they looked really good when I shelled them.

Now that they and the strawberries are done, I can concentrate on the other veg at the plot.

This week has been difficult again as it has rained most evenings so I haven’t been able to get to the plot. 🙁

The weekend is looking up weather wise. So hopefully I will have a video to share with you. 🙂