Week ten on the allotment

I found this little fella yesterday and he kindly posed for about 20 photos.

The sweetcorn is doing well.

The nasturtiums are providing a welcome splash of colour.

We now have 1 inch runners beans along with quite a few flowers.

Peas.

Rainbow chard, I picked some yesterday, haven't tried it yet though.

Purple flowers on one of the aubergines, very hard to photograph as it's quite low to the ground.

My first courgette and tomato and some more radishes.

Another courgette, rainbow chard and yet more radishes.

A bit of colour and the wormery.

We've had quite a lot of rain this week and it's very warm too so everything is having a growth spurt. Lots of flowers on the plants too so hopefully after a bit of sunshine and if Mr bee comes across there may be something to eat! We've put out some slug pubs and tested lager then bitter to no avail so now have real ale in there.

Lots of insects around, don't know if these are good guys or bad.

I have managed to pick some sweet peas.

Pretty runner bean flowers.

A crystal lemon cucumber apparently a favourite of Victorian times.

A sweet pepper.

My first lot of Desiree potatoes, there's hopefully a lot more but I only dug what I needed.

I've bought a wormery with 1000 composting worms, which will hopefully give us not only lovely compost but some rich fertiliser too.

Things are starting to improve this week.

We used a strimmer and cut all the paths at last.

I've planted lots of swede, turnips, brocolli, cabbage, cauli, sprouts, carrots and parsnips, hence the white fleece everywhere, it's very fine so the water can still seep through and the plants seem to be growing well underneath.

Lily was delighted to find a flower on her strawberry plant at last.

Although the 16 tomato plants look rather sparse as far as greenery is concerned there are now quite a few little tomatoes growing.

Broad beans are still flowering although the first planting have been attacked by greenfly & blackfly. I found an organic spray, which is safe for use near children and you can eat the veg on the same day as spraying, but have now noticed some ladybirds so hopefully nature will sort things out!

Sweetcorn is doing well so I'll be able to remove the net soon, I've found out it's Jackdaws that pulled up my seedlings, so now I net everything.

Runner beans are starting to romp away at last, couple of flowers starting too and we've had rain today so that should do them alot of good.

Peas are looking well, I was concerned about a couple of mice holes in the ground but no damage yet.

These are some of the neighbours chicks, we are hoping to get some soon probably not from this bunch but similar.

Can you spot the lacewing?

Love the colour of these thistles.

I don't know what these are, they are growing all along the hedge and smell gorgeous.

Yesterday I finally managed to pick something, yay!

These are the books I've been using, as I don't tend to watch gardening programmes I don't really know who gives the best advice. I bought Carol's book last year and it's very easy to follow, I've bought the 'Cook your own veg' one now and it has some nice recipes in there.

Had to get these two as well of course, getting plenty of tips.