Trug of goodies

Just a small haul from the allotment this afternoon, where I went to slosh some water on the flagging potato haulms. They are wilting in the heat, not dying off because they are mature. We have an underground tank on our site for watering and I have a long handled net on my plot for fishing out frogs which go in then can't get out. My haul was 4 frogs and 6 small toads today. After Frog Watch was completed I lifted one root of Maris Peer. It looks like a really good potato - first year growing it for me. I've had some of the Pentland Javelin - also a first here - but I didn't like the floury texture. I like my new potatoes waxy.

The peas are Veitch's Western Express and the broad beans are Red Epicure. Guess what's for tea?

Last night we also sampled another of the Sungold cross tomatoes. A really good one for flavour this - it's a medium red tomato.

Tomato tasting

This is one of the F3 unhybrids of Sungold. It's a small tomato and the flavour is sharp. Not particularly good.

This one is a larger tomato and also an F3 unhybrid. It's sweeter and juicier than the fist and a definite maybe for growing on next year. I have 10 unhybrids and 12 crosses so there will be more tasting of individuals as they become ripe and some comparisons as I whittle them down to the good ones.

This is one of the crosses. The fruits are larger than the Sungolds and sweeter too. It seems to have taken good points from both parents! I definitely like this one, which is the first of the crosses to be tasted.


Another cross not far off the tasting stage. There are 2 or 3 others approaching ripeness but just at the orange stage that I thought was going to be the end product as Sungold is one of the parents. I'm getting really excited about this one as so far I love the flavour. They are what I've seen described as 'cocktail' sized, though quite who would stick a tomato in a cocktail I can't imagine! Maybe you are supposed to add them to your nibbles?

I picked half a pound of Goldensweet mangetout peas today and I can hardly see where I've been. This is from a 6-bamboo wigwam with 2 plant to a cane. First year growing this but it's going to be a regular here.

Colourful Vegetables

Samara heritage chard, the wonderful and aptly named Bright Lights chard, green shelling peas - Veitch's Western Express - and the broad beans are Red Epicure - the beans themselves are red. Lovely grub!

I had another go at pea crossing today. I took the pollen from Ezetha's Krombek Blauwschock (possible spelling error there!) and tickled up some Sugar Snap. Won't know the outcome will this time next year but at least if the flowers are coloured I'll know I have a cross!

I also noticed that the crossed tomatoes are now ripening up to red. I thought a couple of days back that they were a similar colour to the selected out F3 Sungolds but I left both on and the Sungolds have become a sort of brighter orange whereas the crosses have gone through orange and out the other side. Tasting at the weekend!

Pretty peas and unknown toms

These are my Salmon Flowered peas - aren't they stunning? The pods themselves are not huge but the peas are small and sweet and I think, just for their decorative qualities they are well worth garden space.

The tomatoes above and below are my crosses. You can see that the orange gene is dominant! They are bigger than my Sungolds too, although not massive as tomatoes go.

I'm leaving them to ripen fully and sweeten up in the sun before I hold a tasting test. Won't be too long!

A Summer Weddding

Not mine of course! The daughter of our village Vicar got married on Saturday and I was part of the team 'doing the flowers'. Quite a lot of the above arrangement came from my garden - white foxgloves, lady's mantle, yellow loosestrife, mock orange and yellow snapdragon. A friend made these plus a few bought chrysanths and carnations into a huge exuberant summer statement in the church doorway.

My contribution to the festivities (apart from supplying lots of flowers and foliage) was this 'triumphal arch' around the church porch. It's made on a wooden framework with cling-wrapped Oasis taped on at close intervals. I had a friend acting as gopher and passing me the required plant material and also standing back from time to time to say 'you've missed a bit!' The two sides are bolted on after filling with flowers and the curved top and the two uprights can be hung from a beam in church and arranged at eye level (except you still have to bob down a lot for the bottom of the uprights.) I heard someone in the supermarket this morning saying she had played swing-ball with her grandchildren and didn't realise how much she would ache. I wished I'd had the opportunity to tell her how much flower-arranging can make you ache!

Mainly the allotment

The Copenhagen Market summer cabbages are beginning to heart up. I've kept the pigeons off them successfully. I must eat them up before the cabbage whites start to lay their eggs!

Yesterday I lifted the first few Pentland Javelin new potatoes - and very nice they were too as a potato salad for tea.

This is the 4ft tall chard from last year which is going, nay , racing magnificently, to seed. I think it looks rather stately and is set fair to blossom shortly into yellow racemes of flowers. I still pick leaves for the chickens but I hope to harvest a bit of seed for next year. With 4 beaks to feed I need plenty of greens!

Our allotment site is behind the village church and the little path leading down to it skirts the graveyard wall. On the other side of this wall is the site where my Dad's ashes are interred. Over his grave I planted some daffodil February Gold (his birthday was in February) and when the daff has had its day the fading leaves are hidden by this gorgeous geranium sanguineum. I say hello to him as I pass.

Now for something completely different -

Last night we had a wander around the Big City of Hull with the local Natural History Society. Towns, especially those with docklands and flower beds filled with imported soil can yield some nice plant records. Nothing spectacular last night but I couldn't resist this view of The Deep - Hull's Submarine aquarium (or Submarium as they annoyingly call it!). It's supposed to resemble the prow of a large ship - and I think it does. It's wonderful inside - lots of fish to see and a huge deep tank with a glass lift through it which allows you to see the sharks and huge rays close up. Well worth a visit - especially if you can go without children who muscle in and push you off the 'hands-on' stuff and then don't do it properly and don't read the instructions and labels! Old misery aren't I?

A new arrival

This little foal appeared during the week in the paddock behind our house. It's still drinking Mum's milk and its legs still have a tendency to wobble in different directions! It's a delightful little thing - almost worth the fact that its Mum spent the last couple of months eating the bramble shoots on the fence - so no bramble crop there, then.

However, the first of the strawberries ripened yesterday. They are Marshmello and are beautifully sweet with that old-fashioned strawberry aroma. Many more of these to come!

It's my first year growing the yellow mangetout Goldensweet - and it won't be my last! I'm blown over by the decorative flowers and the flavour of the yellow pods. They are a cracking crop - loads of food from a couple of sq ft of garden as they are climbers and don't take much space at all.

The peas above are my F1 cross and are shaping up to be shellers. Another couple of weeks will tell for sure. These also have a beautiful flower and as you can see, the pea is purple and green blended together in true Monet style. Really lovely. (You can see a couple of my helpers in the background.)

These are some of my potatoes from seed, growing in big pots outside the greenhouse. I have six and most of them are showing a purple stem so I think these are carrying the colour gene from their parent Salad Blue. I really look forward to tasting and selecting from them.

A view into the greenhouse from the doorway. The big pots on the path are my Sungold F3 and my cross tomatoes - both well grown and not far from ripening (I hope!). The plants on the staging are peppers and aubergines - I'm waiting for more compost so I can give them a little more room in larger pots.

And finally ...

We had a walk on Friday with the East Riding Botany Group to a farm nearby which still has cornflowers - and I can tell you there aren't many farms like that! This is a group of them in amongst an Oil Seed Rape crop. They were also in the next field which contained wheat, but as the wheat was still in the green/blue stage, the cornflowers didn't contrast as well. It was a beautifully hot day too - a wonderful day out!

At the allotment

A view of my half of the allotment. The cage contains Copenhagen Market cabbages and Samara chard. The grey plant to the right of it is a big poppy which I shall allow to flower but pull up afterwards so I don't get an ocean of poppies and no room for veg next year. I'll replace it with more chard. We love it and the chickens almost squeak with excitement for it. There's some Bright Lights chard in the foreground, then the broad beans behind (Red Epicure - the one with the red seeds). Behind that are 3 kinds of early potato - Maris Peer, Pentland Javelin and Charlotte. The wigwams support peas - Veitch's Western Express and Caruthers' Purple Podded - and climbing French beans - Cherokee Trail of Tears and Purple Giant (gift of Hazel - ta chuck!). To the left of these are some dwarf French beans - Soldier and Early Warwick - another Hazel bean. I've put the first Achocha against the fence - there are 2 as back-ups in the greenhouse in case it doesn't like the current cool weather. Out of sight left of the cage are leeks and outdoor toms - Red Alert.

Big 'Fingers Crossed' for a good season!

June garden shots

This is a view from the far end of the garden back towards the house. I have the paddock behind me (not ours, sadly!), the greenhouse to my right and the rhubarb and gooseberry patch to my left. If you look carefully you can see I'm being watched by a chicken on a chair! (Clicking on the image will enlarge it - then click on the back button to return to the page). The empty ground on the right will have the remaining dwarf french beans and some courgettes in. There's about as much garden the other side of the hen-house. It has the bit of grass the chickens use (chicken field), a mini flower meadow, a pond, a circular stone patio surrounded by perennials and the herb bed just outside the back door.


This is a chili pepper from a pack of mixed seeds called Chili Shake. Be interesting to see how it turns out.

This is the first truss of my cross-bred tomatoes. I have several trusses on different plants but I think this is the most advanced.

Here's one of my Egremont Russet apples. The step-over trees were bought in the spring of last year. They flowered then but didn't set fruits, so it's exciting this year. There's another - related to a Cox which has also set well.

Little shot of part of the front garden. It's a woodland style of thing, only with a big self seeded poppy in. Well, why not?

Another foxglove. All these are self sown and I get quite a lot of variation. Some years there are lots of the traditional purple one. This year I have a lot of whites.

My favourite Iris.

And last but not at all least, my favourite kiddy-winkles. My grand-daughters who visited today for lunch.

Peas

This is the flower of Goldensweet - Mendel used it in the famous genetics experiments. The flower never fully opens like the other peas I've grown and the wings stay folded.

This is the beautiful golden pea that forms when the flower drops off. It's a mangetout so will be ready to eat reasonably soon.

This is the first pea from the hybrid between Lancashire Lad and Oregon Sugar Pod. It may go completely purple as the pod matures. This is just a step on the way to the pea I'm looking for but I'd like to know if it's a sugar pod or a sheller.