Today's harvest, very berry

We have a food swap at work tomorrow so I've had a berry- picking session. This is the second annual swap though I didn't know about the one last year. Anyway, you take along excess produce, get tokens for them and then get to choose from what other people have brought. Exciting!

I hope there is some interesting stuff!

Wind woes

It's decided to be windy today, and as a double whammy will dry-up the bit of rain we had last night plus damage leaves etc. This is my runner bean wig wam in the back garden getting buffeted around. In the background are more beans trained up the fence plus sweet peas which I let grow as perennials.

Also a pic of the onions I lifted on fri eve and brought home to dry, rather than leave on the plot to potentially get rained on.

Also the latest cucumber from the lean to. We've had four or five so far. I cheated and bought two small plants a few weeks back when I was in homebase getting some pain. I think it was only £2.50 for the pair. I do have outdoor varieties grown from seed out on the plot but they are only just starting to produce little cukes.

Potato comparison

Lou here, I dug up some pots today. The tops of the earlies had died ages ago, probably as I didn't water them much. Anyway, the early variety sharpe's express are tasty but a poor yield, possibly due to weather. The pink fir apple have done much better, the tops are dying down now. The photo shows the harvest from one pink fir apple vs 4 sharpe's express! Pink firs (left hand side) win by miles. Both are tasty, I lightly boiled then fried with balsamic vinegar and lemon juice, yum

Saskatoooon!

I forgot to say that our Saskatoon bush produced about 15 berries this year (last year only 2). I bought a plant from Johnstoa.com a few years back and although I have slightly neglected it, it has continued to grow and, yes, this year has produced some lovely tasting berries - very sweet and juicy. The plants originated from Canada I think and are used to harsh conditions.

The berries are a pretty blue-black. I meant to take a photo but we ate them to cheer me up after slicing my heel!

Two whole weeks away!

We got back yesterday from a lovely holiday in northern Spain, the first few days were spent in the  countryside of Asturia. This is the 'green' part of Spain as opposed to the more arid south, though it was still really hot there.  The reason I mention the hol is because so many people were growing their own veggies, it was so nice to see and made me miss my plot even more, the staple crops seemed to be: brassicas, onions, squashes, beans (lots!, for the traditional local dish), potatoes and tomatoes. At the local markets, many home-growers were selling their produce along with the bigger producers.

I have taken some pics of plots over there and will post them when I get them off the camera. A lot of people kept chickens too.

So we both had an extra day off work today to sort out the house and plot etc. I had a good morning down there. Unsurprisingly some things were looking frazzled after two weeks of no attention and barely any rain. The worst off are the potatoes and raspberries. I forgot to take my big watering can down so prioritised watering a few things. I have now mulched most of the potatoes which are still alive and hope they pick themselves up a bit. The rasps were mulched but I didn't water them before we left as I didn't want them to ripen whilst we were away. This was a mistake! There are now many ripe but tiny and dry rasps, they taste v sweet but there's not much to them. I hope I will still get some better quality ones though, after a good water.

The squashes are coming along well, as are the dwarf French beans inter cropped with the sweet corn. Though the corn plants are all at varying stages for some reason despite all being planted at the same time. I also picked our first courgette which was a bit over-sized but not too bad considering we were away for so long.

The plan was to go back later tonight and give it a proper water and pick fruit but I have managed to catch my heel under the back door and sliced a big chunk of skin off, yuk and ow, so am laid up on the settee, hence writing this post!!

I hope it will feel better a bit later and I can maybe go down In flip flops!!

Now, THIS is a strawberry glut