Withering July

We go in withering July

To ply the hard incessant hoe;

Panting beneath the brazen sky

We sweat and grumble, but we go.

We were certainly sweating and grumbling as we struggled to keep the patch watered and weeded during the hot weeks of early July, but we seem to have been rewarded for efforts.

We have had a terrific crop of Garlic Solent Wight, as shown in the picture below. In the cage on the left, our Cauliflowers Candid Charm are coming along nicely. On the right are my 'prize' Onions The Kelsae with Beetroot Moneta alongside.

In the picture below from left to right : Onions Sweet White Spanish, Leeks Bleau de Solaise and Oarsman, Shallots Banana, Parsnips Avonresistor and then some mixed plantings of Rocket, Coriander and other salad leaves. The shallots and onions were grown from seed and were looking good up until the dry spell, when a few have withered and died. The leeks seem to be thriving, though !

Our 'Three Sisters' bed is growing wildly. There are five stations with Pole Beans Cherokee Trail of Tears trailing around Sweetcorn Zuccherino. Around these are our Squash : Avalon, Festival, Sweet Dumpling and Uchiki Kuri.

The harvest of early potatoes (Nadine and Maris Piper) has been poor because of the dry conditions, but our maincrop (Golden Wonder) are looking very good and we should get good yields once a bit of rain falls and helps swell the tubers.

Heather's flower bed is now predominantly Cosmos and Calendula, but there are some Dahlias growing in there that we hope will develop to provide a show in late-Summer.