One of my courgette plants had a teeny fruit on it, and I was willing it to get bigger (sometimes the first ones tend to just rot). Well, I could wait no longer and picked this little fella (or should that be 'little lady' as it's the female). I chopped it up and sautéed with some chard, yum. Hopefully the first of many (but not too many).
Today I lifted two of the early potato plants (variety Colleen). The tubers have a really nice flavour and texture...we had them simply boiled and drizzled with a bit of olive oil. There wasn't a massive yield from these two plants but I found a root from the nearby cherry tree (neighbouring allotment) cutting through the bed, so it might have inhibited the growth a bit. I pulled as much of the cherry root out as I could but they have a habit of popping up everywhere.
I've been continuing to pick strawberries....here's one session's harvest. But this was small in comparison to another day when I picked 1kg.
Yum (although I'm not sure if the flavour is as good this year)
Some of them I've mixed with last year's fruit, from the freezer (blackberries, gooseberries etc) getting ready for the upcoming berry and currant onslaught (the first to come are the red currant sprigs, which are almost fully ripe and I've been munching on a few of the plumper ones, I like the sharpness ). I went to the allotment for a while today but didn't have chance to pick the strawberries - there were so many I'll need to dedicate a bit of time to it!
I cooked up the last bulk of Autumn-sown broad beans. I fancied having a go at broad bean hummus (uses cooked broad beans instead of the usual chickpeas). My beans had got a bit big, so I decided to pop them out of their skins after cooking, to avoid a gritty texture. It takes a while to pop them all out (added to the time of podding them first as well), but it was definitely worth it.....we've been enjoying the hummus for several days.
My spring-sown broad beans have got blackfly on them, darn. I spotted it on Friday but also noticed some ladybirds and waspy-type things which looked like they might keep the blackfly in check. But when I was there today, the blackfly had spread. There were more ladybirds, and I saw a ladybird larvae too, but there were also ants around (which farm the aphids for their honeydew sap). So, being careful not to squash any ladybirds, I reluctantly went along squashing as many of the blackfly as I could...a bit of a grim job and there's no way I'll have got them all. I might try a soapy spray in a couple of days. Ugh.
Overall, I'm not having too many pest problems at the moment (a bit of slug / snail / woodlice damage, but nothing major)...famous last words of course. The soil is very dry - although we had lots of rain for a while last week, the continuing strong winds are just drying everything out (and blowing all the pollen around, a bad time for us hayfever sufferers). But it means there aren't too many slugs at least.
I still have a few young plants to set out on the allotment but have done the bulk of them now. And I've finally potted-on most of my peppers (and the three aubergines) at home. Just some basil and a couple of hot peppers to pot-up now, phew. (And a bit later there will be the beetroot and lettuce that have just germinated). The tomato plants are looking healthy and there's some cute little fruits forming. The tumbler variety (which I have two plants) should be the first to ripen. Can't wait, eh.
Thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres
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