[14th July]
My son cooked us baked salmon for dinner this evening, with new potatoes, green beans, baby carrots, tomatoes and olives. The tomatoes and olives didn’t come from the garden (not quite enough ripe tomatoes yet), but the rest of the veggies did. The carrots are still the thinnings from the rows I planted in April and the potatoes are our first earlies. The beans were the first pick from our climbing beans and were lovely — it definitely pays to pick them young. I might have to go over the plants again at the weekend and take off anything that’s getting too big. They can always be blanched and go in the freezer if necessary.
It feels as though things are starting to accelerate now. We might get a decent picking of peas in the next few days and my wife made a batch of beetroot soup for the freezer on Sunday. The parsnips are really coming on (though obviously they won’t be ready to eat for some time) and it won’t be too long before we have broccoli to eat.
I’m starting to realise there are a few things I’m missing though. I would like to have had some sweet corn and I didn’t plant any spinach or broad beans. It was too late to plant garlic when I started, too. Some celery would also be nice, and to have some squashes for keeping over the winter. I may need a bigger plot next year 😀
I want to have a think about what I might be able to grow in the polytunnel over the winter too, though the last few years have been so mild here that the tomatoes haven’t come out until very late October or even November (we squeeze absolutely everything possible out of the tomato plants and bottle pizza sauce and passata to keep us going until the following summer).