Calabrese

Six plants were selected from the seed bed and grown-on in the brassica cage to protect them from pigeons and  the caterpillars of cabbage white butterflies.

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Today we harvested the heads from five plants and we are expecting further crops as the plant starts producing side-shoots.

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The variety is 'Belstar F1' which was chosen for it's ability to crop throughout the Summer.

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Here comes the Sun !

Hopefully, this is the end of the miserable wet weather we have had to endure over recent weeks !

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We have been growing 'Early Crookneck' squashes from seeds that we obtained from a gardener out in Manitoba, Canada as part of a seed swap programme.  

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The plants were raised indoors and then planted out under cloches.  As you can see, the first fruits are now setting and should be ready for the table next week. Apparently, they have a better flavour than courgettes, but we will have to confirm this.

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Candid Charm

Our first Cauliflower of the year !

The seeds were sown in a seed bed under cover on March 10th and the young plants transplanted on May 18th. 

This F1 hybrid 'Candid Charm' is an early variety producing lovely tight heads that are just the right size for a meal for two.
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Sowing more seeds...

In between the rain showers this afternoon I managed to sow some seeds for Calabrese 'Samson F1', a late variety that should provide us with crops through the Autumn and into early Winter.

I needed some more Kohl Rabi seeds and ordered these from vegetableseeds.net along with some Broad Bean and Pea seeds for Autumn sowing.  These arrived this morning along with freebie packs of Spinach 'Hector' and Squash 'Turks Turban'. 

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Old Potatoes

We may have to wait a bit longer before we enjoy our maincrop potatoes : Two rows of 'Kerrs Pink' and four rows of 'Cara'

New Potatoes

We lifted the remaining first-earlies on Saturday and should be able to feast on these superbly flavoured spuds over the next few days.

Jam Today !

The recent warm weather has helped our 'Cambridge Favourite' and 'Flamenco' plants to produce a glut of strawberries.

Heather has taken this opportunity to produce some more of her excellent strawberry jam.

... and then it rained !

We've put in a really long shift down at the patch today and have now planted and sown everything we need for a Summer harvest.

• Tomatoes : Rutgers, Roma & Koralik 
• Squash : Uchiki Kuri, Black Futsu & Sunburst
• Courgettes : Bianco di Trieste & Jemmer
• Sweet Peppers : Rubens & Cabernet
• Chillis : Heatwave
• Sweetcorn : Seville F1 & Lark F1

We transplanted our Leeks (Bleu de Solaise) and have sown another row of Broad Beans (Aquadulce Claudia) which should be ready for harvest later in the year.

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We had been concerned that the crops we planted would suffer in such dry weather... fortunately the rain started as we were planting and has continued all evening.
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