more June progress

June has been an amazing month. Its only when I look at my photos that I can see just how much progress everything is making, here are the latest photos;

Sweetcorn, now at knee height;













Broadbeans now cropping:



















Here are some of my carrots, of which I am extremely proud. Its taken three sowings, but now have 3 different varieties, all looking very strong and healthy. Others on my site have commented that I am one of the few people to have had success with carrots this year:









Beautiful beetroot






and finally my parsnips, not had great germination success, but have a 'tidy' row !

The plot in June

This is my parador courgette, which is yellow. I've also got some black beauties (green). They have been great to grow - all germinated easily, and now vigourously growing, we've had a couple of babies in a stir fry. The yellow ones are great to look at:
















































My onions have had a real growing spurt over the last 2 weeks and are filling out nicely.









The slugs on my plot are having a field day with my salad leaves and seem to think that I am sowing them just for their enjoyment. So in an attempt to actually enjoy some myself, I've sown some into a pot - they are looking better already ... maybe I've fooled them, or more likely, they are off munching something else ...













I was worried about my shallots earlier in the year and had to dig them up, but they seem to have recovered. Intend to grow a lot more of them next year:









This is my most exotic experiment this year - Okra ... having heard horror stories about the height (5') and thorny spines (yikes!) I'm quite relieved that at only a few inches high it looks as if it is about to flower. Unfortunately (or fortunately if they do achieve their thorny height) only one survived, after I cooked the other 5 in the propergator. It is in the potting shed, which currently has the door propped open day and night.




Here is my one and only sweet pepper plant (yup killed them too). Next year I intend to grow a lot more, especially as so far they seem so easy to grow. Two weeks ago this pepper was a flower. The plant is bursting with flowes, so I'm hoping for a good crop:

Check out the new link to my new allotment gallery - to the right ->>>>

Note - having problems posting pictures at the mo, will put them up ASAP.

Wow, summer is finally here thank goodness and my veggies look a bit happier.

Had a week off a the end of May and managed to make another 3 beds, now have 11 in total. Also managed to make my herb path. Not quite finished, but its looking really good.

My birthday surprise from OH was a pond ! Here it it, still needs edging stones, but its already attracting quite a lot of wildlife:

Here's a shot of the site, think my lottie is somewhere in the middle of the picture.

Have planted out my sweet potatoes, which look frighteningly like bindweed. They are under black weed naterial, so I'll have to wait and see what happens with them.

Courgettes, squashes and pumpkins are all in. Just planted another 25 sweetcorn (have 50 plants in total now - eek !) Sunflowers are visibly growing.

Carrots have finally germinated and I think I've even seen some parsnips poking their heads above the soil.

Broadies have very small pods on them, strawberries are showing and I have my first tomato - about the size of a 20 pence coin. Pepper looks as if it will flower any day. First peas have flowers on them and second lot are peeking through (although I think my mouse family have been helping themselves too).

Potatoes are all about to flower and I can see colour appearing on some of the sweetpeas.

All in all, very pleased with myself - just need to keep up with the watering now.

The sweetest thing

It was nearly carnage on the lottie yesterday. Have been in full digging mode, ruthlessly casting aside dandelions, bindweed and other such horrors. The ground is so thick with weeds that I have to dig a bit and then hand sift the soil.



Had just turned some more soil ready for sifting when I heard a strange, but persistent and alarming noise. With a bit of trepidation I started to pull away the surface weeds ... was it a bees nest I'd disturbed, had I accidently injured a small critter ?? Saw some dried grass that had been made into a circle, gently pulled it away to discover some lovely little mouse / vole babies !











They came unbelievably close to being sliced or stood on, poor little things. Covered them up again and sat down next to them to sift the soil I'd dug, thinking maybe the mother would move them that evening, when a small movement to my right caught my eye.

I glanced down and there was the nervous but very focussed mother. Managed to stiffle my scream, after all this is their territory more than mine, and sat stock still.

She moved really quickly, using the weeds as cover, ran under my feet, into the nest, grabbed the first baby and quickly made her way back to where she'd come from.

She made another 6/7 runs until all of the babies had been moved. She's a beautiful little thing, has a very short tail so I don't think its a mouse, but perhaps a vole ?



Maybe thats where my peas disappeared to ...

Dizzy Heights

some pictures from Bempton Cliffs ...

Gosh, that's a big one

Folks and I treated my OH to his first garden centre visit ... not being the green fingered type its hard to tell if he was appreciative or not - when asked what he thought he said he didn't know garden centres came in the size of Manchester ! Maybe starting with Reighton at Hunmanby was perhaps a little overwhelming - its enormous and absolutely crammed to bursting with every plant under the sun. Got some pink lavender and some lavender lavender, lots of herbs for my planned herb patch (OH interest perked up at this bit), a lovely succulent (OH interest peaked at this point), some alpine strawberries and a cucumber.

After that we took him to Bempton Cliffs, just down the road from Flamborough Head. The birds clinging onto the cliff face were an absolutely breathtaking sight - we saw gulls, gannets, razorbills, guillemots, puffins and ... pigeons. Yup, they get everywhere. The puffins were sooooooooooo cute. The cliffs are around 400ft high - its a stunning part of the country - but it was FREEZING.

Have abandoned all hope of ever getting any of my tomatoes to germinate and gratefully accepted all offers of spares (thanks Francis & Mike xx) ... heard they were supposed to be fool proof but obviously NOT !! Got some large plastic storage boxes today which will form part of my ring culture in the potting shed. Think I know what I'm supposed to be doing, so shall have a go at the w/e. Will be extremely busy as we are also dismantling a friends greenhouse to take to the lottie (hurrah).

Still not managed to find any Munchkin seeds, but by chance happened across a seedling in my local garden centre - so he is now sitting on my windowsill until the weekend. Definitely want to build some sort of structure to grow my pumpkins and squashes up ... looking around for some inspiration at the moment.

It's my birthday next week, so have booked a week's holiday. Hopefully will make some good progress on the lottie.