Progress at the plot

 
I took advantage of the shade this morning to at last get my carrots and beetroot sown. I also watered everything copiously, and harvested the broccoli.
I am mighty pleased with these. It is my first foray into growing them and I honestly thought they would be difficult. I don't have much luck with cauliflowers so thought this would be a similar story...but no!
I believe that I should get some shoots now I have harvested the tops. We'll see!
 
I noticed that one of the potato haulms was very yellow so decided to see what treasure lay underneath. I dug and dug and couldn't find anything. I was expecting either Foremost, or Charlotte....but couldn't see any spuds at all. I was mighty surprised as the tops were quite big. Then I noticed a little round stone...a bit bluish...picked it up. It was a spud....a dark blue one.
Now I didn't remember getting any blue seed potatoes, nor planting any. But I did notice that this plant had different coloured stems to the rest of them...they were purple...these were green (I think they were). I can only think this was a rogue that I didn't notice when I planted them out.
If I em ever tempted to buy some blue seed potatoes to grow I will remind myself how difficult they are to see against the soil when digging them up!
 
At home I gave the plants in the greenhouse a thorough going over...pinching out the excess branches on the tomatoes, and cutting off some of the lower leaves to enable the poor aubergines some light and room to grow. Any day now I will begin harvesting tomatoes as some are quite big already.
I trained the cucumber and melons.
I noticed that the Black Beauty Courgette in the tunnel is at last managing some female flowers....there are dozens of male ones but only one tiny female...with a 3 inch long courgette behind it. I don't think it likes being under cover.
The Parthenon courgette is producing daily.
the cucumber is laden with beautiful 6 inch fruits. These are perfect for us...a meal in one cucumber.
 
Now I have had enough of the sun and the heat and will sit in the shade knitting til it cools down later...

Spud harvest

The spuds in the pots were flopping about so I decided to empty one pot to see what was going on. Basically I hadn't watered them enough as the soil at the bottom was solid. The pots have a reservoir in the bottom but I wasn't giving them enough to fill it!

Anyway, although not an amazing yield I was delighted to get a sizeable haul from the pot. From 4 seed potatoes (about 200g total) I got 1.5kg of spuds. Charlotte. They are various sizes with the tiny ones being the size of my thumbnail. If I had watered properly they would also have grown....to mke a huge crop.

I have three more of the self-watering pots and have given them a good soaking today hoping that the spuds grow a bit more before we need them.

These were an experiment to see if I could transfer much of the spud growing to my garden here at home. I am pleased with these results and the knowledge gained.

Onion Harvest

 
Radar! Also a good haul. This is only half of the harvest. I sowed the sets fairly close as we don't need big onions (only two of us) but some are still very big.
Some of these sent up flower spikes which I removed. These will not store well so will be used first.
These were sown last Autumn, weeded regularly, and watered copiously this spring.
I used to grow all my onions at the plot, but I got White Rot one year (as did almost everyone else) so I just do them at home now and don't seem to suffer with it now.

At the end of the row are two sets of "Shallot Grise" which I dug up to see if they are ready. They seem very titchy to me so I will leave the rest until I the tops are even deader than they are now. They were at the edge of the bed which could account for the small size but I am still loth to dig the rest up if they could put on a bit more growth. (Perhaps I planted these a bit close, but I did follow the recommendation on the pack.)

Garlic Harvest

 
Well I must say I am pleased with these! For comparison I have put a purchased garlic bulb at the bottom of the picture. Over 60% of mine are bigger!!!!!
These are "Albigensian Wight". I bought the bulbs at The Garlic Farm here on the Isle of Wight and although my results are not as big as theirs I reckon they are not bad for a home harvest.....!
They were planted last Autumn, weeded a few times, and watered a lot this spring. Some are a bit over blown and will have to be used soon, but on the whole I am very satisfied with my haul!

BTW the photo is clickable if you want to inspect the picture more closely!!!!!