Midsummer growth

Well, the broad beans are doing well (despite the slugs' best efforts):



As are the potatoes, which I think I've now finished earthing up:



And the cabbages:



but the peas and the carrots didn't appear this year at all. I don't know why this is, but I know other local gardeners have had the same problem with theirs. Slugs have eaten all of the cauliflowers, but gardening organically without living right on-site is bound to result in some of those kinds of casualties, I think. Two fields away is just too far where slugs are concerned, but perhaps we could have done more with beer traps etc.

In the field I didn't have space to plant pumpkins, garlic, asparagus or artichoke, which I plan to remedy in time for next year by making some new terraced raised beds.

In the garden room, we've got cucumbers:



And tomatoes, setting nicely:



- both of which are getting a lot of liquid feed at the moment.

And some squash/pumpkins (not sure which) waiting to go outside:



I'd have liked to have got some aubergines in there as well this year, but space and time didn't allow for it. Hopefully next year they will.

On the drive there are more pumpkin/squash kind-of-things:



I'm not quite sure how big these are going to grow, or where we'll put them if they grow beyond a certain size but I don't think they will, in pots.

Also strawberries, which are now struggling to find enough sunshine to get ripe:



And the usual old dustbin full of potatoes:



- which I've actually planted up properly this year, layer by layer, so hopefully we'll get a better crop than we got last year. Actually, all of the crops should be better this year because we've put so much more effort in.

We've worked out a good watering system for the field, with the help of a kind neighbour's hose pipe and water supply and everything on the drive and in the garden room is having good care taken of it too. The only problem for the crops on the drive is the wind, which gets channeled through there in a kind of tunnel effect, between the house and the garage.

The key thing is to plant lots, I've found, so there are always more to take the place of the slug-eaten and the wind-blown.

Planting out

- is mostly what I've been concentrating on in the field for the past few weeks.

The beans sprouted, but so did the weeds around them and I realised that plot needed thoroughly digging over, so had to pot up the beans and do that! This is the end result, with marigolds as good companions:



There are peas planted in there too, and hopefully enough support and protection for them and the beans. I only grow broad beans, because I find them the easiest to grow and the tastiest! I'm not a runner- or French-bean fan at all, and I don't think the children are either.

The other beds are looking too boring to post photos of, but two are dug and planted (potatoes in one and carrots, onions, leeks and beetroot in the other) and bed no.3, the cabbage patch, is still to dig over and plant. The brassicas are doing well in the garden room, meanwhile:



- as are the pumpkin/squash seedlings, of which I have planted far too many - before reading that they need up to four feet of space each!



So I'm creating another terraced, raised bed - at least one more. I've got to somehow turn this bit of hillside:



- into something that more resembles this bit:



And this bit:



- though I'm not sure how quickly that will happen! I'll hopefully have something ready for at least some of the seedlings before they die, anyway.

Back in the garden room, we've got chilli peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers growing:



Those little frog things are supposed to supply a steady feed of water for the ever-thirsty cucumbers, but they don't work very well.

We've got potatoes growing the the old dustbin as usual, and strawberries in the old bathtub:



- which are probably just about ready to have their straw laid under them.

A good salad

I made a good salad the other day - all wild field produce again, just from some sorrel ("Culpepper tells us: 'Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness or fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues: to quench thirst, and procure an appetite in fainting or decaying stomachs: For it resists the putrefaction of the blood, kills worms, and is a cordial to the heart, which the seed doth more effectually, being more drying and binding..."):



plus some young shoots of rose bay willow-herb ("The roots and leaves have demulcent, tonic and astringent properties and are used in domestic medicine in decoction, infusion and cataplasm, as astringents"):



And some young dandelion leaves which are a little too bitter for my taste, even this early in the season, but ok when mixed with the sweetness of the sorrel. Anyway, the whole thing was very good, dressed with some extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and black pepper.

I was starting to clear our carrot patch:



when I got sidetracked by the herb-gathering, so of course we had to have some roots for dandelion coffee:



- which tasted much better this time. I roasted the roots longer and slower, and used more of them.

Well, the carrot patch still isn't dug, because of a certain tiny (but very healthy-looking) willow sapling:



- that seems to have decided to make its home in there. I wanted to move it, not kill it (willow being so useful and all) so I looked around for a better position for the new tree, and found one right in the middle of a huge bramble patch. So I decided that the brambles also needed moving and the sapling transplanting before I could dig the carrot patch (still with me?!) and you can see some photos of that over there.

Next job: carrot patch. Really.

Field to table - already!

We managed to make a whole meal the other evening, from food we'd picked ourselves. (Well OK, we had to add bought potatoes, stock cubes, sunflower spread, flour and sugar - but the main ingredients were ours!)

First, the ubiquitous nettle soup:




Next, rhubarb crumble. I've been looking forward to this for weeks, ever since the tiny corms appeared:



It's just a pity we haven't found a custard tree yet. Still looking..

Potting on...

... is very therapeutic. When the baby went for her afternoon nap yesterday I left one of the teenagers listening out for her and then went to shut myself in the garden room with a radio, a flask and my laundry basket full of seed paraphernalia (John Innes No.1, a box of seeds, canvas gloves, a little trowel, some tiny pots, a water spraying bottle, etc.)



It's really just the brassica that I'm bothering with potting on, because that's the only crop family that likes to have its roots disturbed on a regular basis. So I had some cabbage, cauli and brussels seedlings



to move up a size:



I must be getting old, for such a job to give me so much pleasure.

Anyway, then I just stuffed new seeds back into their places, shock horror. Is that the gardening equivalent of being a slutty housewife, I wonder? Sweeping all the dust under one's sofa? If so, guilty as charged. These plants should consider themselves lucky I'm going to the trouble of potting them on. I'm certainly not about to throw trays of good compost away and sterilise everything to start again with the next lot.

Oh dear, perhaps horticulture isn't my forté after all. Well, I've always been a bit hit and miss with it all. The main thing, in my opinion, is that it should be rewarding and enjoyable. When it starts being a pain in the neck, it's gone too far I think.

The tomato, courgette and butternut squash seeds aren't doing a thing yet. I think it must be too cold out there for them to germinate, so we'll just have to wait for the weather to warm up I suppose, because to try and heat our garden room would be like heating the sky.

Planting progress

So far we've got tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, spring onions, cabbage, cauliflower, beetroot and brussel sprouts planted indoors, in the garden room. (The garden room is the back two-thirds of our old Grimston garage, with a new[ish] perspex roof and doors, the back of which opens out into the little garden behind, hence its name.)



The cabbages have sprouted already! We're just running out of space in there now, because it has to house so much else besides plant pots:



We also put a raspberry cane in the old bathtub, to go with the strawberries already in there:



And on the house windowsills we've got potatoes chitting, just waiting for the last of the frost (who knows when that might be..?) to go into the field, where we planted some much hardier broad beans with friends a couple of weeks ago. We'll intercrop peas with those, devote a whole plot to potatoes then plot three will take the leaf crops when we've done all the fussy potting on that they like so much. The carrot seeds, beetroot seedlings and onions will go straight into the fourth bed - when I've finished digging it! I'm terribly late with that one, but have torn a 'digging' muscle in my calf, so am putting it off for yet another week or two. I can't do much to condition the soil in that except add some sand and some bonemeal and hope for the best.



Finally, I treated myself to some globe artichoke and asparagus plants, which need a special perennial bed building for them in the field. "Will you be able to protect them from the wind?" asked a visitor at the weekend. The short answer to that is "No." They'll have to take their chances, with everything else out there. Only the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and whatever else is found space for in the garden room will be protected from that. We're nothing if not hopeful.

"If the law below is passed it takes away our our fundamental freedom of choice with respect to the food we eat."

Dear friends

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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634&ei=IE9FSdO8BorMwgPNp93TCQ&q=codex+alimentarius&hl=En

Below is the petition. It takes 10 seconds! This is for our health and wellbeing and the health and wellbeing of our children and the planet.

Please click on this link below...

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Vitamins/

Need I say Please forward?

Thank you!