This week.

Everything is growing quickly now, it's getting very hot in the greenhouse/shed so we're now leaving the door open. The plants are still wilting by the end of the day though!

Very excited to see the first cucumber flowers even more excited when I saw the cucumber above.

The indoor tomatoes are flowering.

Lots of grasshoppers around, this one was amongst the broccoli.

Cabbage, Sprout & Cauliflower plants waiting to be planted.

Peppers & Chillies.

Potatoes flowering.

Beetroots & Shallots

Parsnips.

Carrots & salad

Pak Choi.

Gooseberries these are at home & the leaves have been completely stripped by caterpillars.

Rainbow chard.

Marrow.

Purple top Milan turnips.

Courgettes

We're picking lettuce & strawberries everyday.

Pak choi.

Rhubarb & peas.

Here we go again!

We've started getting the allotment ready for this year by digging in lots & lots of bags of horse manure and some of sand. We're also widening the beds by about 2ft as we realised we didn't need so much path. Some hens have been moved alongside our patch, which is very relaxing listening to them as you work.

We've put in a raised bed, which L painted, not bad for a 3 yr old! In here I planted carrots & parsnips with 5 types of lettuce & rocket in between the rows.

The potatoes will go in here, hopefully at the weekend.

The peas and broad beans are now in situ. I have to grow them at home because of mice but find that they don't touch them once they are seedlings, I do put plenty of bramble branches all around for added measure. We also have to scatter windmills and anything else that flaps in the wind about as there is a resident pheasant who will pull all of the young plants out.

Other than that I've planted beetroot, shallots and another 16 strawberry plants, the red onions are coming along nicely and both of the rhubarb plants are growing as this is the second year for them we'll be able to eat it, yum! At home I've been busy planting all the seeds about 30 varieties so there are seed trays everywhere. When we made the shed last year we used very thick clear corrugated plastic for the top half and roof so this year I'm going to put some cucumber, tomato and chilli plants in there and see what happens.

Week 12

Well week 12 is here, we should be harvesting loads by now but the weather is really not helping, first it was really dry then it was rain, rain and more rain, subsequently I have had to pull up 24 rotted tomato plants this week, not happy! Plenty of weeds around though.

Bees and insects too.

Lots of flowers on courgettes, marrow, squash, gherkins, runner beans, peas and strawberries.

The sweetcorn are coming along too.

Look out there's a pea thief about!

We picked this little lot on Tuesday. I said to Lily that I was going to pull up some turnips, so she stood behind me put her arms round my waist and said pull, pull, very funny. She loves 'The Enormous Turnip story.

My first picking of peas,

runner beans

and the 'enormous' turnips.

And a marrow that I stuffed and cooked last night, surprisingly they ate it and declared that it tasted lovely.

Oh and I mustn't forget Lily's first strawberry.