fun in the sun

Photos a go-go! After spending 3 hours in the garden this Sunday (wasn't the weather fabulous!?) I took a veritable plethora of photos of the flourishing, blossoming and flowering that's going on in my veg plot.

The overwintering broad beans are now reaching 60cm and are flowering well. Being my first year growing broad beans, I hadn't before realised how pretty the flowers are. Despite the reported decline in bee numbers, my veg garden seems to have more than its fair share.

We're harvesting spring cabbages on a regular basis now. Again, my first attempt: I don't think I bedded them in firmly enough (I know now that they need treading properly), so they haven't formed the tight heads I was expecting. However, the leaves might be looser than they should be, but they're very tasty served up stir-fried with chili, garlic and ginger.

Ambassador peas are poking their heads above the ground now - I'm sowing a new row every 2-3 weeks.

The Saxa radishes are swelling nicely and should be ready for harvesting any day - they look so cute and shiny red in the sun!

busy, busy...

The building work and accompanying design choices seems to be taking all of my time at the moment. I have been sowing seeds - which are germinating well in the propogator before being promoted to the windowsill and finally being moved to the greenhouse. But I just haven't taken many pics.

Here's my blackcurrant bush in the meantime...

British Summer Time

I just cannot believe it's already April!! My garden blog has been less frequent than I intended during March, but I hope to remedy that through spring and summer.

The Mimi and Anya potatoes are doing well in their gro-sacks. I moved them out of the greenhouse today as the outside temperatures are improving week by week. I've already started earthing them up, so I'm hopeful of getting to harvest them in May/June. I'll be planting more potatoes over the next month, so we should have a plentiful (and hopefully continual) supply over the summer and autumn.

Most of the veg in the raised beds (purple podded peas, onions, broad beans and garlic) are doing amazingly in the recent good weather. The cabbages are now vying for space with each other, so we've started taking a few as spring greens to give the others more growing space.

We have a bit of a leek surprise...last year's leeks took absolutely ages to germinate, got to the size of chives and then stopped growing. Not even big enough for baby leeks. Anyway, I left them in place as there were only 7 of them. They survived through the winter, through the snow and frosts in Jan & Feb and then, very unexpectedly, started growing last month. They're now growing well; a couple of them are already past 'spring onion size' and are heading towards proper leek size. Very weird - given that they'll have taken 16 months to grow by the time we get to harvest time, I'm really curious as to whether they'll taste good... Well, I've got some new ones on the go in a pot just in case.

The chantanay carrots have germinated in a bucket in the greenhouse!!! Yay!! They're already more successful than last year's attempt.

Pumpkin, melon, butternut squash and nasturtium seeds have all germinated and grown like the clappers - these have all been potted on now and all look to be quite strong growers.

My veg plot, as the name would suggest, focuses on veggies. But I do have a small blackcurrant bush acquired last year. I planted it and then didn't do much with it, if I'm honest. Who knows if it will bear fruit this summer?? It does seem to look happy and there are some leaves starting to unfurl. I need to consult my trusty copy of Alan Titchmarsh...