Pottering

First carrots harvested

I haven't updated the blog for a while, partly because I've been busy at work, and partly because everything I've done in the garden recently has been odd jobs - usually an hour's pottering after work.

The bigger jobs have been taking up the last of the King Edward potatoes (a total of 12 lbs 3 oz) and digging the potato beds over, and taking down the millenium dome and digging that bed over. I've also cut down a small ash tree that was shading the tomato plants, and earthed up the leeks to make the base of the stems white. Regular tasks have been weeding, squirting soapy water on the runner beans to kill off blackfly, watering and feeding the courgettes and tomatoes, and keeping the the compost heap topped up.

I've also had a reasonable amount of produce: another two courgettes got to full size (one of 6 oz, one of 8 oz) before the plants took a rest - there are some more on the way but for a couple of weeks they didn't produce any female flowers that set - they just fell off. Beans continue to produce - 3 lbs 9 oz of runner beans and 8 oz of French beans, and I sampled some of the oldest row of carrots - 6 oz. I'll leave them to grow a bit more. The taste was great, but they could be bigger. I waited too late for the batch of turnips in the salad bed, and by the time I picked them they were woody, wormy or both.

The new plantings of rocket and French beans have come up nicely, although the beans may have gone in too late to crop, unless we have an Indian summer. The kale is also coming up, so that'll be something for the pigeons to eat.