Monday, July 21

Red gives ground

It was salad weather last week and the plot and garden provided us with a plentiful supply of ingredients - various types of lettuce, Mini Munch cucumber, raw peas and raw courgette.
15 July

16 July
We have also picked the first ripe Sungold tomatoes from our plot greenhouse in spite of some other varieties being suddenly struck down in their prime.

16 July
We harvested potatoes from the blight attacked plants. The potatoes go down a treat eaten either hot or cold. 

The starting pistol has been fired with respect to the inevitable courgette glut so we will be looking for recipients happy to receive excess fruits.

We are managing to claim a share of the cauliflowers despite slugs developing a partiality to the curds. Some of the deheaded calabrese have produced welcome side shoots - not many but worthy of picking.

The first lot of peas have been picked over and will be frozen and the mangetout have just about fizzled out.
18 July
Having now probably picked enough redcurrants it's the turn of the blackcurrants to take centre stage. The red team, however are continuing to feature as the alpine strawberries are producing lots of fruit. The tayberries are slowing down production - much to the disgruntlement of the resident blackbirds but we are still picking a few raspberries from the new canes that we didn't expect to produce anything this year.
18 July
I picked my first lot of dahlias. After deciding to forego dahlia growing this year we relented but have chosen simple single varieties. We must be morphing into bees as we have developed a taste for single flowers! 

Sweet peas are now starting to flower so we need to keep up with removing the flowers. This week two bunches have been gathered and they haven't really got going yet.
20 July
Some of the cabbage above may be destined to be made into coleslaw. Tucked in amongst the courgettes are our first ripe blackberries - another score for the black team!

Why not pop across to Daphne's Dandelions to see what else people were gathering in last week.



34 comments:

  1. What great harvests. My blackberries are nowhere near ready yet. Glad to hear that the Mini Munch have grown well for you and are producing.

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    1. The blackberry is a thornless one, Jo and always seems to fruit earlier than the other prickly ones. We are definitely Mini Munch converts, the normal cucumbers are no where near producing yet

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  2. wow you could start a market stall with that lot of superb produce, glad to see you have some spuds after your problems earlier

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  3. You have had quite a crop so far. I am envious of your cauliflower - I have never managed to grow such a nice one.

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  4. What a great and beautiful harvest you have. All those vegetables look so lush!

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  5. Oh how I would love to wander through your allotment, visiting and picking berries as we went. It would be so fun. I so enjoy your diversity.

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    1. And you would be most welcome Bonnie

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  6. The deadheading of Sweet Peas is quite a tricky task isn't it? It's often difficult to spot the faded flowers and rapidly-forming seedpods amongst the welter of foliage and new flowers.

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    1. It is once they are in full flow, Mark. At least in the plot where we don;' need a display we can strip the plants of flowers which are easier to spot.

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  7. You have a great harvest Sue! I love your berries, mine are in jam now. I harvested a lot of blackcurrant and will make more jam and jelly. Also I liked your lettuce, when I have it too many I cook soup with lettuce.
    Have a nice day!

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    1. I've never tried lettuce soup Nadezda

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  8. Great harvests Sue - my tomatoes are slowly ripening, one or two courgettes and the runner beans are well on their way - at this time of year it's a good feeling when all your previous hard work comes together in the form of edible goodies.

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  9. p.s. I am having a lot of trouble trying to get your posts to load - it is all coming up in different languages and the pictures are only half formed - not sure why this is happening?

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    1. This happens to me too Elaine but then while thing then loads. I'll check on the Blogger forum to see if there is an answer. It seem to be Flickr llnked but my photos aren't from Flickr.

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    2. Elaine - Are you using Google Chrome as your browser?

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    3. No Sue - why, does this make a difference

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    4. Sometimes but not in this case as I am using Google. Funnily after I have loaded once the problem doesn't occur for a while. Anyone else getting this problem?

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    5. I think I've sorted it by tweaking the template - thanks for letting me know as I thought it was just me and it affected Martyn's blog too. You may need to refresh the page as an old version could be lurking in your cache

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  10. Those sungold are such a pretty orange. I used to grow them when I could eat tomatoes and I had forgotten how pretty they were.

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  11. Love to see your harvest! The flowers are really awesome! And the courgette... wow so fresh, so stunning! I don't know, how my courgette next. What should I do with my courgette? As my experience, the grow so well at the first, then failed on forming fruit. Would you please sharing me your tips?

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    1. We don't really do anything special, Endah. Plants are planted in the ground and left to it.

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  12. What a wonderful pic that last one is....now if all that where laid out on a barrow along with the flowers I would buy the lot. You do so well....I'm in awe!xxx

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    1. I'll just pop out and find a barrow, Snowbird.

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  13. That's very good harevst from your allotment! It must be good to taste sweet peas fresh form garden! I love them!

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    1. It does Malar - sometimes as soon as they are picked.

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  14. I love the single flowered dahlias, they're so pretty. I've got a whole family of blackbirds visiting my garden every day. I've had no blueberries for us at all, except a few that the children have had. The blackbirds are looking really plump and healthy though. I'm happy to pay for that beautiful song with the blueberry crop. The first courgettes are a delight aren't they, I'm hoping mine will be ready soon.

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    1. We love them too CJ and we seem to have more than our fair share of blackbirds in the garden al waiting for the bird table to be replenished. Lots of other young birds too trying to work things out. We gave i
      our neighbour a box full if courgettes yesterday and now need another recipient

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  15. Glorious feast for stomach and eye. I love this time of year, despite the inevitable courgette glut.

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    1. Better a glut than a crop failure, Janet.

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