Tuesday 3 June 2014

Strawberry fiend

It is official.  My youngest daughter, at 2 and half years old, is a strawberry fiend.  A trip to the allotment this morning ended in tears because E kept picking and eating the unripe strawberries.  And then howling when they were taken from her.  And then she attacked the gooseberries.  And then the gooseberry bushes attacked back.  And more howling.  And repeat.  This went on for a while, until it was decided to give up for today.  So, whilst some weeds have been dealt with, there is much to  do, and it has, all of a sudden, taken over my life.  I haven't done any baking or sewing in weeks.

Status update - we have beetroot, lettuce, radish, chard, onions, carrots, parsnip, peas, garlic, courgette, potatoes, strawberries, gooseberries, black currants, black berries, broad beans, runner beans and french beans in, as well as a selection of cruciferous plug plants in, as well as more cabbages to go.  So busy.  This weekend I had husband digging over the "pumpkin patch" at the bottom of the plot as we have a fair selection out growing their pots at the garden.  I also have to pot up some of the spare courgette seedlings for my parents as we now have far to many.

However I did plant out 3 of the 6 tomato plants into the garden yesterday.  The other 3 are still looking a bit small.  One of them is tiny, and appears to have gotten smaller since we bought it, yet has obvious new growth on it.  I think it may not like the compost (lidls own, and not great) but I have some fancy compost from the expensive garden centre so I might risk planting it out in that later today and see.  It can't really shrink much more anyway so it is worth a try.

There was much excitement at our house on Sunday with chard and a lettuce harvested.  I think we are counting the one carrot that we pulled up by accident as "harvested" as well even though you need a microscope to tell that it is in fact a carrot, but we are counting it.  We had the chard shredded in spicy chicken pasta sauce, and the lettuce as part of a side salad (very exciting) and had the rest yesterday in (you guessed it) a side salad.  The remainder of the chard is going in a mince beef curry concoction that is currently in the slow cooker to feed the herds after swimming lessons.  The beetroot is nearly ready as well so we are checking it each time we go in eager anticipation of home grown beetroot.  Beetroot is a definite favourite in our house and last year we couldn't grow it fast enough.  It is taking over the bottom bed, and I am going to plant more when I go this weekend so we have a never ending supply.

Advise needed - I bought 3 rhubarb crowns last autumn, and because we were still planning the raised bed situation I put them in pots. They started growing this spring but have withered in fairly spectacular fashion.  I read online that it might have had something to do with the drainage of the pots, so I tried to rescue them by planting them next to the strawberries in bed 2.  Does this sound like a reasonably well though out plan?   My theory was that they were dying anyway, so moving them won't make them die any faster!!!.  Fingers crossed.

Next time I blog I am determined to have some pictures so post.  I am so excited by the difference between this time last year (when we were still at rubbish tip field fighting with the waist high weeds) and now when we have a reasonable productive little veg patch going).  I will definitely take the camera with me to document how well we are doing.  Very big smiles in this house today.  And muddy knees on E too.  A very nice summery problem - very grubby children from being permanently outside and fewer baths than normal because we are very busy making memories.  That is what they invented baby wipes for isn't  it?  

No comments:

Post a Comment