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[30 July]

Over the last couple of days I’ve also lifted our Maris Piper and King Edward potatoes. I mentioned that some were dying back earlier. It’s become clear now that there’s a definite patch where they’re dying back whilst others only a couple of feet away are fine. I’m quite pleased with the King Edwards. They seem to have done pretty well.

Now we just have the Picasso plants from the seed potatoes I was given that are still in the ground. I think I’ll lift some of those this weekend and leave the ones that are still green for as long as I can.

[24th July]

The second earlies are definitely dying back now, so I lifted them this evening.

These are Charlotte, and definitely more yellow I would say than the International Kidney first earlies.

I also noticed this when I was checking the plants in the greenhouse:

It’s looking slightly dangerous now 🙂

[21st July]

I had another harvest of eggs today:

That’s an awful lot of potential caterpillars 🙁 I assume they must have been from two different butterflies as one group looks rather scruffy and the other is very neat and tidy.

It led me to realise however that I have no knowledge of butterfly reproductive habits. Do they mate once and lay a load of eggs (possibly across several plants) and then fly off into the sunset and that’s it? Or can they mate multiple times and lay batches of eggs each time?

And how did I reach the age of mumblety-three without knowing this?

[20th July]

We’ve lifted a few of the first early potatoes already to go pretty much straight into the pan, but they are starting to get a bit large and I could use the space for something else, so I decided to lift the remainder (just five more plants I think) tonight. Quite pleased with the way these have done.

And the fruits of my labour:

I’m sure I have some old chicken feed bags made of paper somewhere that I can use to store them. I’ll have a look tomorrow and put them in the cellar. I might have to feed the haulms through the shredder for the compost heap as well. They feel a bit tough for going in without being chopped up.

The second earlies look like they’re not far off ready too — some of the leaves are starting to die back a bit, so I’ll probably lift those fairly soon. Maybe give them another week or ten days and see how they look then. Not much point leaving them in the ground once the foliage isn’t photosynthesising in any meaningful way though.

[19th July]

Planted another batch of radish and spring onions today as well as doing a little weeding. Caught sight of these this afternoon.

Far too obvious, I thought. Clearly there’s an attempt at misdirection here. So I had a quick look around and found single eggs dotted about as well. All gone now (I hope).

And on the way back to the house I couldn’t help but stop for these.

[18th July]

Spent most of today out in the garden. Finished shredding the laurel we “pruned” at last, and added it to the compost heap. Then planted out the last of the brassicas (some multi-coloured cauliflowers my daughter chose) and the peas that have been hardening off. Had to make some more patented plastic partridge-proof pea protectors for those. Handily I’d found some old 3mm-ish diameter fencing wire that was in the barn when we started the conversion that I could use for supporting the plastic mesh. It was a pig to cut, mind, even with fencing pliers.

I was also treated to a little reminder of nature in action. There were a few Large and Small White butterflies flitting around the brassicas looking for suitable places to lay eggs, and not far behind them a group of wasps out hunting for “baby food”. We’ve had very little caterpillar damage on the brassicas so far this year and whilst some of that is down to me getting rid of them when I’ve found them, I wonder if it isn’t mainly because the wasps are doing a very efficient job.

[15th July]

More garden veggies for dinner this evening 🙂 Including some of the multi-coloured carrots that my daughter wanted to plant. I didn’t realise quite how multi-coloured they were going to be. This is the top cut off one of them. There are white ones and yellow ones, too.

And earlier, whilst weeding in the polytunnel, I noticed this tiny little fruit on one of the sweet peppers. Our first one!

[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).

[11th July]

We had a bit of family afternoon weeding and generally sorting stuff out in the veg plot today. Fed some lettuce that had run to seed to the chickens, pulled some beetroot that my wife is going to make into soup tomorrow, erected more partridge defences around the peas…

My daughter discovered the delights of freshly-picked peas. The first ones are not quite ready yet — they perhaps need a week more just to fatten up a little, but she popped a few of the fatter pods anyhow. Oh. My. God. Fresh peas, barely fifteen seconds between plant and taste buds. Is there anything in this world that tastes better? So juicy. So sweet. You just can’t buy that. It’s quite possible I’ll have to plant an awful lot more in the future as otherwise I don’t see very many of them making it as far as the kitchen.

[6th July]

My wife came in from the garden today and brought me these little bursts of sweetness:

Alpine strawberries. Tiny little things, but so tasty…

I did a bit of weeding and caterpillar squishing in the brassicas this evening and found a few other things to look forward to. We have broccoli on the way.

And a few beans, though they’re not even 10cm long yet.

Inside the polytunnel there are butternut squashes clearly taking shape.

And some of the chiles are looking pretty good

Flowers on the bell peppers are within hours of opening, too.

More weeding is required in both the brassica and legume beds and the peas need more supports to climb so I’ll have to try to get that done this week. I took a third picking off the courgettes before they got too big, so we’ll have those later in the week. Need to sow a few more radishes and spring onions too, I think.