The eating is good and getting better every day!

   Man, has it been two weeks since I wrote my last post? Time just flies by!
   Well, it has been another very busy two weeks. Those darn weeds grow so fast! I just cannot keep up despite spending hours clearing weeds. Plants just grow so fast here. My compost heap must now be a good 2 to 3 cubic metres and still growing.
   So what has been going on? Well the good news. At least 95% of my frosted tomato's have recovered. Even the Vilma bush tomato's that I thought were goners have grown back. I have just lost time it would seem but hey ho with the long season here I do not think that will matter too much, however, I did loose most of my sweet corn but the second sowing has germinated and is growing well.  In the outside garden I have harvested the first potatoes (Rosebelle) (9th June), cast eyes over the peas, pulled a few carrots, picked broad beans and cut lettuce. We have eaten lots of salad! Other jobs done are transplanting Cape Gooseberries, celery, La Diva cucumbers and celeriac. The melons have a number of male flowers on them but no sign of a female yet. The bad news. Well, onions grown from sets have done poorly this year. Too wet? Wrong bed? The onions grown from seed are looking good and I think next year I will not bother with sets. Several of the new apple trees are suffering from aphids.

Rosebelle potatoes harvested 090612

Common Thyme in flower

   In the poly tunnel harvesting, sowing and transplanting continue. Lettuce, herbs, cabbage have all been gathered. Purple and lettuce leaf basil has been transplanted. Purple basil is good for making pesto apparently. The Market 76 cucumbers have already set a couple of cucumbers much to my surprise. I have transplanted some sweet marjoram into a poly tunnel bed to compare performance with that outside. The scent of this herb when you squeeze the leaves is just lovely. The white sage is going well and that too has a very strong scent. I am looking forward to seeing and smelling both of these herbs when the plants get bigger. Cauliflowers are growing well as are the tomato's. I had to remove Pak Choi that went to seed without having eaten any of them. Guess you cannot eat everything! Lemon coriander and more radish sown. Batavia lettuce transplanted, Webs Wonderful, salad bowl and Rocket sown.
   As you can read from the previous paragraphs it has been a very busy two weeks and I do not think I have included everything that I have sown, transplanted or harvested. The grass is being mowed at least once a week as the weather has been warm with rain showers which is very good for growing. I have been looking at last years log and noticed that certain crops, for example, haricot vert, surprisingly, are two to three weeks late. My daughter tells me that this year in France it has been unusually cold and wet. This years haricot vert are not in flower yet! Looks like it is going to be a poor apple and cherry harvest this year. The Limousin "Golden Triangle" (where a lot of Limousin apples are grown) have lost a lot of fruit to "black" frost. Well, I have to admit this spring has been very different to last year that's for sure!