Monday 15 June 2009

Yesterdays Harvest,and a visit to Hilliers Gardens

Yesterday I worked for about 3 hours on the allotment. I went up in the late afternoon as it was far too hot to do anything earlier in the day. I weeded, deadheaded flowers, tied up the broad-beans which have grown so tall that they are bending over.
I dug up lots of early potatoes (swift) there were enough for the whole week for the two of us, that was from 3 plants. I picked lots of spinach beet, it's delicious steamed. I pulled a few carrots, but they aren't really ready yet as they were very small and forked. I guess I should have made sure all the stones were out of the bed I sowed them in, still they were so tasty!
I am getting impatient for the broad-beans, so I picked the biggest ones and got a small harvest of very tasty young beans, all steamed together for our dinner, very yummy ! makes it all worthwhile !

Today was again too hot for me to work on the plot, so we went to visit 'Sir Harold Hillier Gardens'. It's not far from where we live, about half an hour away in the car. I don't know why we haven't been before as it's an amazing place, and if you are interested in trees it's a paradise as there are so many species of trees there. I personally am not into trees as such, I love them and our world would be a sad place without them, but I don't feel the need to know about the varieties, or their habits, I just enjoy being amongst them.
We walked for 3 hours and still didn't cover all of it, so we will go back again very soon. I took lots of photo's as there was an 'art in the garden' exhibition with various sculpted pieces and wood and glass exhibits as well, I will post some soon.
Then we went up to the lottie to water, and I planted out my pumpkins and a couple more squashes. I still have lots of leeks, brussel sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli to find room for as they are all getting on now and need to go in ASAP.

Yesterdays harvest

Spinach beet, baby carrots & young broad beans.

Swift potatoes

Delphinium in my garden. The best they have ever been.
I think it could be the comfrey tea I'm feeding them!

Flowers from Sir Harold Hillier Garden's, Romsey,Hampshire.
The Poppies were beautiful

7 comments:

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Your potatoes look perfect to me! Mine are blooming. I need to check to see if there are any small ones to take out. I need to get more top soil or something on them to hill them more, too.

Mrs Jones said...

Phew! I'm so glad I'm not the only one who still has to put their sprouts and broccoli in! I was starting to get paranoid that everyone was leaving me behind! Apart from them I've still got cucumbers (3 kinds!) to go in and then I think that's it - apart from successional lettuce. The blackfly has committed genocide on my broadbeans this year - I don't think we're going to get a single pod. Your delphiniums are gorgeous - it probably is the comfrey tea as that seems to be the ultimate natural plantfood. I must try it one year...

Prospero said...

Hi Maureen. How long will you be able to keep your potatoes in the ground? I had to pull all of mine and bag them. I hope they will keep. My squash is not happening: hope yours is doing better. Your Delphiniums look so healthy.

Maureen said...

Hi SUE, my potatoes didn't flower, and then someone told me that 'Swift' didn't flower! I wasn't convinced never having grown those before, so I dug some up and there were loads. The 'Desiree' are flowering well , but they are main crop.
.........................
Hi MRS JONES, I am very late getting some things in even though I had a head start on almost everything else.
What I have done is put the sprouts and P/S/broccoli in individual pots as I only want about 6 of each plant this year (grew far too many last year) then when I have some freed up beds in they go with minimal disturbance, well that's the plan anyway!
Everyone on our allotment (me included) has black fly this year on the broad beans, I took some off my squashing them YUK! and squirted with soapy water (not washing up liquid because of the chemicals)it seems to have worked.
The comfrey tea is magic, but it STINKS !!! if you've never smelt it you can't imagine how horrible.
If you haven't already planted comfrey and want to get some (it's worth it) buy Bocking 14 as it's sterile and doesn't invade everywhere like the common stuff.

Joanne said...

Good crops. I love the Delphinium the two tone is especially nice.

Maureen said...

Hi PROSPERO,I haven't dug all the earlies up yet and hope to keep them in the ground for a few more weeks as there were some tiny ones that needed to get bigger. If yours are early potatoes apparently they don't keep for too long, so you should keep checking them in storage, because one mouldy potato will make the rest go off if it isn't removed quickly.
My squashes are growing, but no flowers as yet, but I am feeding them with the very stinky Comfrey tea I made, so hopefully that will help.
...........................
JOANNE, thanks for visiting and for the comment.

Moe said...

Oh Maureen,
Its a shame you are so far away from me, I could really use some of those delphiniums they are the best I have ever seen
moe xx