Pushing up the daisies

As the evenings are long and warm, there is little better than pottering around the veg garden. Doing those little jobs that nag at you but usually you are too busy doing something else. Like ripping out the bind weed that had started climbing over the cabbage netting (it really is an insidious bastard), like ripping out the weeds that is pretending to be Jerusalem artichoke plants but I know better (I've now spotted the real ones as they are growing and all imitators shall be buggered). Like adding fertiliser and compost to the tomatoes, peppers, squashes, beans. And watering, endless watering again. Still, I came home with a handful of beans, 6 sticks of rhubarb (that's it now, time to stop picking) and raspberries. The greatest treasure though were 2 small tomatoes!!! Not because of their flavour, which was nothing to write home about but because they mean that the other tomatoes on the other plants will soon be ripening too! The tomatoes are quite varied this year: long Roma tomatoes, two cherry tomatoes (but not especially bushy types or perhaps I pruned them better than usual!), at least one beefsteak and one I think will give a striped tomato. The largest plant is laden with smaller salad type tomatoes but I have no clue as to the varieties this year. They are surprise tomatoes!!!

At last a few photos!
My lovely Imperial Green longpod broad beans! A wonderful harvest of those.

The weather after so much rain and cold has now gone to a different extreme and we are having our third week of hot dry conditions. Which means back to watering...
The garden seems to thrive though. The garlic is harvested and dried and ready to plait, the broad beans have one more crop left in them, onions are almost ready and the French beans have started to crop. The tomatoes are doing really well and I hope to have ripe fruit really soon. After two years with only blight to show it will be a relief! I have pics but no time tonight to load them.

It's still a funny old summer. Temperatures are extremely variable, depending on the cloud cover yet there is reasonably high humidit. Sounds unfortunately like perfect blight weather. Still, the tomatoes seem to be holding their own. I have decided that at least one has turned out to be a cherry type, as one is decidedly bushy compared to the others. It's looking like a Gardener's delight although could also be a Roma plum. Remember that i could not label them this year so it's all down to luck what comes up! I sprayed them again yesterday with bordeaux mixture so they are nicely blue now. The poppies next to them are dying down so I will cut them away so the tomatoes have maximum airflow. I have been much more successful this year in staking and tying them, and they have more room for each plant.
The courgettes too are doing very well, there are some flowers and I hope to have fruit starting soon. the butternuts are also flowering.
I am still harvesting the new potatoes, there is a very large quantity of them this year and the flavour is excellent. I also started picking the broad beans - what a harvest! I took only the very largest pods from the base of the plant, there are many many more still developing and I still had a small plastic bag full! I might actually get to freeze some this year.

The runner beans have germinated, some better than others, I will have to fill in the gaps! I still have to sow new rows of French beans this weekend, and I will do more climbers in July. I am hoping they will develop either before my holidays or once we get back!

The parsnips do not seem to have germinated... It is quite late but I think I will try to put in another row and see what happens. Not sure how to get them to work really.
The salads I planted out seem to have taken despite a drier few days, and the beetroots that I transplanted have now sprung back quite well.
As for fruit, the raspberries are showing the first white baby berries, so I should have ripe fruit soon. The gooseberries are starting to turn red, must keep an eye on them. The strawberries have finished their first flush, they need tidying, weeding and fertilizing for the next crop which should be in July.

Despite the odd weather, the plants are growing quite well. Next tasks will be to find some leek plants, and to continue sowings of beets, autumn carrots, beet spinach, winter brassicas, beans and plant out the late sowings of cukes and courgettes that have come through. No rest for the wicked!