Summer is moving along

Cucumber

   Here we are in the middle of July. Time flies. There will not be a blog next week as I will be away from the garden visiting my youngest daughter and grand daughter.
   Despite the long run of sunny dry weather the garden as it is is holding up well. The soil is still damp a couple of inches down and reflects the amount of rain we had earlier in the year. 

Sturon onions

So in the garden digging up potatoes continues with a good crop of earlies and second earlies and the promise of a decent amount of main crop to follow despite Colorado beetle. Sometimes planting early pays off and with the potatoes it certainly did. I have a decent crop of onions with the variety Sturon looking the better of the two varieties I planted. I gathered my first Sanguina beetroot seed and removed the plants from the poly tunnel. More Touchon carrots sown with the hope of getting a decent germination and growth for the winter. More haricot vert sown to try to keep a succession going. Harvesting courgettes and a few cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes are a disappointment so far this year but I changed my mind and have been putting in tomato shoots in the poly tunnel and as would have it the poly tunnel plants are looking good. The outside Wautoma cucumbers are once again starting to produce so there should be a few from them. The chickens has reeked havoc on my few aubergines and are trying hard to get at my lettuce plants! Lettuce in the poly tunnel is looking good with the next lot of plants starting to show. Once again germination of the lettuce has been poor but I persist!!
  On the animal front Mrs Buffy (Buff Orpington) has abandoned her nest, however, Mrs Chick (unknown variety) has now gone broody and is sat on at least three eggs! Our incubated Ixworths are growing steadily and we have obtained another five chicks to raise. Most will probably end up in the freezer. As always lots to do and more than enough to occupy my day. 

Time....

Sturon onions

    Time. How it flies. Two weeks more or less since my last blog. Somehow I missed a week. I put it down to the weather. Sunny and hot.
    So what has been going on in the last two weeks. Well mowing grass for one! That aside the vegetable garden is beginning to produce and plants are really starting to take off. The bit of rain we had certainly was welcome and certainly encouraged the plants to get going. Courgettes, spring onions, onions, peas, potatoes, a little haricot vert and a little mange tout have been harvested. Oh nearly forgot there has been a couple of ripe tomatoes! Least I got to those before the chickens.  Plenty of weeding done and more to do. More lettuce sown, cucumbers transplanted to an outside the poly tunnel bed, more beetroot transplanted and resowed lettuce and swede where seed had failed to germinate. Another small row of Swiss chard sown. Not my ideal vegetable but my daughter wants to try it. Volunteer (not deliberately planted) violet potatoes dug up. One of the Wautoma cucumber plants has a cucumber growing on it. In the poly tunnel the cucumbers are in flower and they are growing rapidly. The three chili plants look good and I am hopeful that I will get something from them. Having decide not to plant tomatoes in the poly tunnel I have now changed my mind and have been taking side shoots from other plants and growing them on. I gathered beetroot seed from the plants left in the tunnel. Gathering vegetable seed is very satisfying. The parsnip seed is all but ready to gather.
   On the animal front the last sheep has been sheared and normal maintenance completed (cleaning out coops). The hens continue to lay well, between seven and ten eggs a day!  Over two hundred eggs laid in June. Mrs Buffy has not yet hatched her egg (she only has one left out of seven) and I suspect it will not be viable. Our four Ixworth chicks are growing fast and the first two are now seven weeks old.

Squash patch

Parsnip gone to seed

First tomatoes..Gardeners Delight and Jens orange