Harvest Monday - "lean-to" harvests

Ages ago (sometime late summer / early autumn) I sowed winter lettuces in modules and then planted them out into the compost / pots that some of my tomatoes has been grown in last summer. The lettuces grew ok to begin with but then aphids started to get active (it was quite a mild winter). As a result, I lost quite a lot, but a few straggly plants limped-on through, and finally now finally put on enough decent growth for a picking. I'm not surprised the aphids liked them, they're quite soft leaves.

More recently (maybe three weeks ago?) I sowed a few peas in a couple of the other pots. I'd saved the pea seeds from my own plants and wasn't sure if they'd germinate but lo and behold....

I picked just a few shoots to begin with, which should encourage more to form. After a couple of pickings I'll let them grow on to produce early peas. I wish I'd sown them a bit thicker really so maybe I'll add a few in the gaps.

My tomato seedlings are forming their first true leaves, and the peppers have starting coming through too...so far so good.

On the allotment I've harvested a bit more purple sprouting broccoli, cabbage side shoots, chard and Brussels sprouts shoots, and of course corn salad. I made a lovely mixed salad with red cabbage, toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, diced fermented carrots (homemade), cider vinegar (homemade), and corn salad (homegrown). It looked and tasted lovely and I thought I'd taken a photo but sadly not, never mind.

 

In the kitchen we've finally put up the shelves made from pallets I salvaged. I cut them to length, planed, sanded, treated with raw linseed oil (three coats) over the course of many months (erm, years). Jan helped put them up plus drilled all the holes in the wall, for some reason I have a real problem drilling into walls. We went for industrial looking brackets for a few reasons including that they're way cheaper than fancy ones (under £4 each).

It'll keep the worktop a bit clearer, (with room for more fermenting experiments). There's just enough wood to make matching ones the other side of the cooker...I wonder how long that will take. You can see the fermented carrots in the bottom left (they're now in the fridge).

It feels good to get those shelves up, and I'll feel less guilty about spending time on the allotment instead of the house, hehe. Talking of the allotment, I've hand-hoed between the garlics and have been clearing a bed for onion sets (sturon) which I'll hopefully plant out this week, scattering with chicken-poo pellets. It's where I had my late potatoes (so was manured last year) and then had some of the corn salad growing (plus couch grass had crept in from the edges a bit). I've got some Red Baron onions too that I'll put in another bed.

 

I'm heading out to Eves Hill Veg Co again on weds, when we're going to try and put the cover on the big polytunnel...should be interesting. I went last week but didn't take any pics....mainly sowing seeds in big modular trays which was fun as I hadn't sown on that scale before.

 

In wildlife news I saw my first Brimstone Butterfly of the year today, out in the countryside at the garden I was working in, very nice, and it was a lovely sunny day. With queen bumble bees buzzing around and birds carrying twigs in their beaks, spring is definitely on the way.

 

Ok, thanks for reading this week, I'm linking in with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

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