Pushing up the daisies

Woohoo, up to 300 posts! This will be rewarded by some pictures that I took yesterday in the garden.
Here, the weather is really crappy. Cold, wet. This is not really that good for the plants, although the raspberries are huge, as they have plenty of water, as are the tomatoes. Trouble is that without sun, nothing is ripe!

I worked hard yesterday weeding as best I could, actually I got a bit carried away with the time and lunch was late. Oh well. Not too much bindweed, but loads of annoying annuals, toadwort, fat hen, groundsel and bloody couch grass. I filled a wheelbarrow again. Tidied all round the cukes and melons and the tomato/aubergine patch. It does look better I must say.
There was some harvesting to be done yesterday: the first cucumber!

And a few courgettes, still slow on the takeoff. The Serpente di Sicilia have been tied up!

A few rasps and strawbs. The raspberries are very tall this year:


But the tomato harvest is still not forthcoming, even though the fruit is plentiful and swelling wondefully.


These will be the biggest fruit I have ever had. San Marzanos are in huge bunches! The gardener's Delight is laden with long rows of fruit, the MoneyMaker have trusses of 4 and 5 fruit, all round and perky, the Tigerellas are staring to produce big flushes of smallish striped fruit and the Marmande are flat, fat and wrinkled. But everything is resolutely, positively, depressingly green.

There are baby aubergines growing now, at least 3 of them. Including the Red Egg which are meant to give red fruit (but all it has for now is a funny plant shape). Don't worry, the invading grass on photo below is now but a memory.


Actually, I realised that two of the aubergines were completly shaded by the tomaotes, which had grown too lushly. SO I dug them up, rootball and all, and moved them into a more exposed place. I do hope this encourages them, they are tall and hardy but have no fruit yet. I also have several green peppers, which one day may turn red if the sun ever shows its face again.
The melons are doing well, obviously fleecing them was an excellent idea.

And the squash! So much fruit! Hopefully it will all have time to ripen, I have started pinching out the ends of the vines.
Turk's Turban:

Atlantic Giant:

Unknown, although I suspect it's a Qld Blue:


Here is a little overall view, unfortunately taken efore I had tidied it up a little. I find that most has gotten a little out of hand this year but as long as the veg are there it's ok. Left front in the kale, Brussels and the remainder of the spuds (still underground), right front is the squashes and beans,
back left was the onion patch, now has just a pumpkin and some stray tomatoes, back right is the tomatoes/peppers/aubergines/courgettes, with the fruit bed right at the back:


All in all, not such a bad year but now we desperately need some sun!

Labels: courgette, cucumber, pumpkin, rain, raspberry, summer, tomatoes