Purple Toadflax (Linaria Purpurea) growing happily away in my garden providing the bumble bees with plenty of food at the moment
We were clearing / tidying up the garden today and came across these 2 HUGE slugs, they nearly ended up in the skip, but we rescued them and put them in a nice dark damp spot in the far corner of the garden… they both have beautiful markings, i’ll need to do a bit of research and try and get an ID for them..
Well… I decided to clear out the greenhouse at the weekend and give it a good old scrub out.
We picked the last of the tomatoes, including the green ones…. they look fab in the dish together, the colours are so vibrant.. I would really like to make some tomato and chilli relish, so if anyone out their has a tried and tested recipe that they would like to share, i’d love toi hear from you
Next I dug some potatoes from the 3rd bed for our dinner… and look what I dug up…. the organic Lady Balfour variety that I got reduced to 50p at the local garden centre turned up trumps…. with this whopper
I took it into my workshop to measure it … it was a whopping 6inches long and weighed in at 1lb 12.1 oz!!!
I have spent a fair bit of time out in the garden today, mowing, strimming harvesting, hanging out numerous loads of washing, taking loads of pictures and generally just keeping busy and the garden tidy.
Here are some of the pictures taken from around the garden today : –
First of all we have the rogue sunflower, this beautiful big flower is the result of a seed falling out of the bird feeder and managing to land in a big flower pot, survive all winter and then germinate to produce this : -)
Next up is the final harvest of Peas for this year, we had these with our tea tonight, nothing went to waste as the chickens and rabbits got the remainder of the plants that I cleared from the garden…. theyre all stuffed full with pea leaves and stalks now 😉
Then I harvested some broad beans, this is the first year I have grown them and I love them, they will be back on the planting agenda for next year! Â Still have one more harvest left then I will clear the area.
I found 1 solitary onion that had been left in from last year, I actually thought it was garlic, that was until I lifted it out of the ground, I accidentally pierced it a wee bit, so i’ll use it this week… Once I washed all the muck off it I hung it up to dry on the washing line 🙂
Can you spy the springer spaniels tail in the picture lol…. he managed to get in the act all the time!
Finally we dug up some potatoes… some of them were absolutely HUGE… and a couple of them were stinking and rotten for some reason, so we will be lifting the rest of them this week and having spuds for tea all week 🙂
Just a small update from the greenhouse this afternoon…
The tomatoes are looking really really good and wont be too long before they are ripe and ready to be harvested.
The peppers are looking fantastic too… plenty of flowers and a few fruits forming, I have another 5 plants just like this one so we’re going to have loads of peppers 🙂
I’m really looking forward to trying out different varieties of lettuce this year in the garden, this particular variety has been around for a great many years and is listed online as an heirloom variety.
A really tasty cos (barrel-shaped) lettuce with an old fashioned flavour.  Sweet and crunchy, ideal for summer salads.
I have never tried growing squash before so this is a first for me and I’m quite excited about it 🙂
Sweet Dumpling – This small, mildly sweet-tasting squash resembles a miniature pumpkin with its top pushed in. Weighing only about 7 ounces, it has sweet and tender orange flesh and is a great size for stuffing and baking as individual servings. Sweet dumplings are tiny but great for roasting and presenting whole.
A superb very waxy, new/salad variety introduced in 1879 and one of the oldest varieties still in commercial production, particularly in the channel islands. Smooth skinned, with creamy white, waxy flesh and superb flavour. The most important crop on Jersey produced and sold as the world famous ‘Jersey Royal’.
Plant : April/May
Harvest : July/August
Cost : £0.50 for 12 Tubers (at reduced counter in local garden centre)
Planted : Sunday 26th April 2009
Organic Lady Balfour Seed Potatoes (Second Early)
 
I got an absolute bargin at my local garden centre yesterday, I picked up 3 x bags of seed potators for 50p each!   I will do a write up for each one individually, so here is the first one.
“Excellent resistance to the major potato diseases including blight scab and virus Y, it also has strong resistance to eelworm. The variety also gives very high yields even in soils with low fertility.”
“This means that in most seasons it can be grown without the use of chemicals and with little fertiliser making it easy to grow and ideal for organic culture.”
“The pink-splashed tubers are very attractive with tasty creamy flesh which is moist and firm meaning Lady Balfour is best suited to boiling and roasting.”
Originally uploaded by T o w n i e
Tomatoes & Chilli
This is the last of my tomato crop.
The plants in my greenhouse are well past their best, so I have decided to pick whats left and clear out the plants. The lack of sunshine has not helped their growth and fruit production this year.
I think they were also hit by some kind of tomato blight as some of the stalks and branches had grey furry stuff growing on them, has anyone else experienced this on their tomato crops this year?
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