Sunday 10 July 2011

Summer Delights

On the plot this week we have wonderfully swelling fruit, ripening fruit and ready to harvest salads and vegetables. We also have lots of weeds in need of attention but we'll gloss over that for now! Also I'm after your help with identifying a fruit on the plot - see further down the post. New beds have been created by Alex, and Imogen has helped with the digging!

new beds and digging

Bramley apple tree

I have mentioned this apple tree before - moved from our garden where it really was a poor sight, now thriving and with about 8 lovely cooking apples growing just lovely.

 Apple tree
 
Pear tree


The apple tree and the pear tree we inherited on the plot are looking like this right now - both promising a bumper harvest, and giving us much food for thought as to how to preserve the harvest. Any thoughts?

We picked our first blackberries this week and they were absolutely lovely, and as you can see there are many more to come.
Blackberries

The Peas are being harvested, and these french beans won't be far behind. I love the flowers and the pods of this black variety. Planted in between them are these celeriac, and a couple of cucumber plants.

 French Beans and flowers

These Oca interplanted with tomatoes are doing very well this year, I love these leaves,
Oca

Our harvest box filled up with chard, beetroots - red and white, kohl rabi, courgettes, spinach and beet leaves, peas, blackberries and a few apples that needed thinning out. A good days work, ably assisted by Imogen who enjoyed pulling up the beetroots to be amazed at the lovely globes. She needed a little help with the kohl rabi as although they grow above the ground the roots really do anchor the plant, we pulled those together!
 
 
lovely courgettes for tea!

And using a new camera that has a panorama setting I took this picture which I like - saves me trying to "knit" together pictures in photoshop. Pity I hadn't realised before the trip to the allotment that I had the resolution on the camera set too low.
Panorama of the bottom half of the plot

I have also taken a photograph of this shrub/tree that has these fruit growing on it - it's something that was on the plot when we got it but has only fruited this year - probably because so much other stuff has been cleared from around it (similarly we have a grape vine that we discovered last year). So I'm guessing it's a plum or damson, any thoughts? The leaf is the smaller one to the left of the fruit or above (larger leaf is the hazel tree it adjoins).

Mystery?

So what Summer delights do you have to share?

11 comments:

  1. Wow it all looks just fantastic Dawn - i am so jealous of all that bounty!
    Your new beds look really good too. Not sure about the fruit - it certainly looks damsony/plummy. A cherry plum? Can't really see the size. xx

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  2. Everything looks so lovely! And love the look of your harvest. I tried Kohl Rabi the other day, I think that might have to be on my list of must grows next year. Is it easy?

    The plum looks like what we have in our hedgerows, but ours don't ripen until late August, and I can't imagine you are THAT far ahead of the midlands, so not sure. I guess it's a matter of try it and see!

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  3. Kohl Rabi is very easy to grow Claire, crop pretty quickly too, certainly worth growing.

    The mystery fruit - thanks for your thoughts, pretty sure it's plummy/damsony (look similar) - they are about 1½ inches I guess.

    Claire, we are usually about 3 weeks ahead of my Dad's growing - he's in the West Midlands/Staffs border so could be a similar one. We shall be keeping an eye on them for picking.

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  4. All your crops look great...making me drool ;o)

    xxx

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  5. My word you have lots of lovely things growing. Isn't it great to pick dinner! I am very envious of your fruit trees - I have a total of 5 apples growing this year on my little tree hehe :) xx

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  6. It's all looking great, I love your new beds. It's so lovely to see Imogen helping out too, my two were so enthusiastic when I got my allotment but they're both teenagers now (or they will be on Friday) and have better things to do. Such a shame, how I wish I'd got an allotment when they were little so they could have enjoyed allotment life then.

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  7. I was talking to our neighbour about a small plum that it brilliant for jam, but is equally useful as part of a hedgerow. Don't you love dual purpose! He said that it was an ancient type. I'm pretty sure he said it was yellow. I'll let you know if it is yellow.

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  8. Wow, what a wonderful harvest. I need to visit my allotment soon as the weeds and grass grow so quickly!
    The fruit does rather look like some sort of plum!!
    Great photos.xxx

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  9. Thanks for all the comments and thoughts on my mystery fruit.

    Have been thinking and wondering if it may be a Greengage? Anyone any experience of them?

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  10. Such lovely photos, what a wonderful harvest:)

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  11. what wonderful harvest, it all looks so good!

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