What a week of weather.....frosts, hail, rain, sun, wind. I've fitted in a few trips to the plot, picking some decent chard from last year's self-sown plants. They've put on some really nice growth this spring.
Enjoyed with some titchy purple sprouting broccoli.
I've made another couple of blackberry cakes (berries from the freezer). The recipe is very easy here on mumsnet. It only makes a small cake so I double it to make two cakes instead. Mine look nothing like their photo though. I think another time I'd pop some berries on the top too so they'll sink in a bit and have a better distribution through the cake.
Talking of freezing things, with some crazy cold weather on the cards I properly covered my strawberries and potatoes (beforehand I'd only covered about half of them, with netting rather than enviromesh)
They survived unscathed, phew. I saw some on an allotment neighbour's plot that had the black dot in the middle of the flower, a sign that they'd been got by frost, aw.
Potatoes were fine too, I had some hoops to keep the mesh up off the potato foliage.
The tiny corn salad flowers were totally unbothered by the weather, looking lovely
Back at home, inside by the south-facing window, the over-wintered chillis are still flowering and even fruiting. This one is actually on a new plant that grew up next to the original
Here's where it's growing out from near the base of the original. Sometimes I sow two seeds in a module, so I think this might be the second seed from last year that for some reason germinated over winter instead.
The other overwintered chilli is producing more flowers (some flowers dropped off without fruit setting). I've still got a few of last summer's ripened red fruits on it as well.
But there's even fruit setting on this one too. This is on some new growth that developed on the side facing the window.
Funny eh? If I'd been trying to do this I bet it wouldn't have worked.
I've spent a couple of days volunteering at Eves Hill Veg Co this week - the usual Wednesday (where we planted out lots of lettuces) and a special monthly community Saturday, where the farm celebrated its first anniversary, wooh. We planted out loads of beetroot in the outside beds, plus the first few tomatoes in the big polytunnel (and we may have eaten lots of cake too - it's definitely been a cakey kind of week). There was a red legged partridge nearby behaving very oddly, pulling a weird posture, and I meant to go and see if it was laying eggs. Hopefully partridges don't like eating beetroot seedlings.
Thanks for reading, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.
Posted with Blogsy
