Wednesday 18 May 2011

Sowing, Hoeing, Growing ... and eating

Couldn't think of another word to rhyme to express eating or harvesting!

Busy, busy days in the greenhouse, garden and allotment. I think we're doing pretty good this year at keeping on top of the sowing, although more to do. I really want to keep the succession of crops going this year - often it just ebbs away as the season progresses. It's an aim though, and going okay at the moment.

Work going on at the allotment recently looks like this ...

One of the boxes of seedlings taken up
 Celeriac seedlings planted out
(yes, I use slug pellets or I'd lose everything!)
Carrots and mixed lettuce leaves
 Beetroots above, lettuce below

 More Beetroot, Kohl Rabi and Lettuce
 Garlic beds and Sorrel and Chard interplanted
 Beans mulched with skirtings from fleeces, and Peas

... and oops, I've let the herb spiral become rather overgrown with Sage. Must work on that one soon, harvest and dry or freeze a load. There are other herbs in there somewhere!

overgrown herb spiral

Harvesting Broad Beans at the moment, we have pinched out the shoots to hopefully avoid the blackfly problem, and we have eaten these in salads - delicious. Also harvesting pea shoots for salads, and numerous salad leaves - lettuces, sorrel, rockets, mizuna, etc. We've picked the last of the chard from last years plants as they have been trying to flower for a while, we cut out the flowering spike for a while to delay this but eventually they exhaust themselves. They have been replaced with new plants now.

No trip to the allotment or garden even is without a bit of nature spotting, and these were some of what we saw recently.
  
Slow worms

Slow worms are resident on our plot and always a lovely sight to see them.

Day moth - Cinnabar

I'm not sure on the name for this one, haven't had a chance to look it up yet, anyone know? ETA: Just found it's a Cinnabar.

So more planting out this week - tomato plants, sunflowers (pretty tall now in their pots!), and more beans, courgettes and more (can't think what's out there). More sowing too. Oh and that poor herb spiral. It's all good.

4 comments:

  1. It all looks great, even if it does highlight how far behind we are. My broad beans are still waiting to be planted out! Still - always learning- that's the beauty of this growing life. Your header looks fab! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Only slightly envious of your energy for gardening ;o).

    Gorgeous xxxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. I only wish I had more energy though Shell! But yes, I'm determined to do better out there this year.

    Hi Jacqui, yes it always amazes me the difference up and down the country. The UK isn't very big but the variations in what's flowering and growing is quite considerable sometimes. Never stop learning from it all.
    Thanks, I enjoyed creating the header.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Things are looking really good there! Another one, who is going to try to keep up with successional sowings this year. Jealous of your lettuces. I never manage to get them to grow, they get eaten all too readily by those pesky critters!

    ReplyDelete

Don't be shy, come and say hello. Your thoughts are always appreciated, I read them all and will endeavour to respond. Thank you x