What a mixed up week last week was! It is so difficult to know what to wear. One minute we needed to layer up and the next we needed to wear as little as possible whilst keeping within the constraints of decency.
Last week we had two, what I would class as summer days. Friday was hot by UK standards with an accompanying mischievous breeze. All the better for drying out the soil even more. We still haven’t had any proper rain – just spits and spots. Fortunately we had given the plants at the allotment a good watering before our mini summer arrived and so everything survived – although some newly planted French beans look a bit sorry for themselves.
The weekend saw a swift return to cooler temperatures. On Friday evening the thermometer reading dropped off a cliff.
At the beginning of the week we interspersed our watering with some planting. Martyn planted three varieties of squash – Crown Prince, Autumn Crown & Bush Baby and two varieties of courgettes – Sunstripe & Defender.
I planted red and green cabbages, savoys and purple sprouting broccoli. I filled each planting hole with water in the hope that this would at least provide some moisture at the roots.
Just in case we actually got any rain we decided to lift the overwintered onions. Friday’s heat meant that the tops of the onions had completely dried up. The lifted onions were taken home and stored in the cold frames where they will keep dry in the unlikely event that we have some rain. We had just used up last year’s stored onions so this year we haven’t had the buy any at all. The onions that were frozen as a possible stop gap will be turned into soup.
The garlic that we harvested the previous week had dried off and so I tidied it up and made an amateurish job of plaiting. It will be stored hanging in the garage.
Just like the allotment our greenhouse is also filling up.
We also bought a few new plants to put in our garden pond.
One thing that we don’t want to see again in our pond is a heron. One was back on sentry duty on the lake at Nostell. Fortunately I think the six cygnets are now too big to become a prospective meal.
As well as being kept busy watering, strimming, weeding and planting, we are now at the stage where we have more to harvest.
The bed of sweet Williams is looking lovely and very popular with the bees. They are long lasting cut flowers and a few bunches featured in last week’s harvests.
We also enjoyed lots of delicious strawberries. The varieties that we are picking at the moment are Christine and Albion. Both have lots of flavour.
The main heads of the calabrese were disappointingly small but the plants are now producing side shoots and our first lot of cabbages are now ready for picking.
We emptied one of our crates of potatoes and were pleased with the resulting crop, The two seed potatoes produced 1.5 kg (around 3.5lb). Ruby thought that the harvesting was a fun game. A video is posted here.
Some of our frozen leeks were used in a bean casserole last week.
Some freshly picked vegetables are delicious served plainly as an accompaniment. Some of our freshly harvested potatoes and calabrese were served with a fillet of salmon with a breadcrumb crust.
More of our potatoes and some of our freshly picked cabbage were served with a spicy turkey burger.
So that’s all from last week. I wonder whether we will have any decent rain and will summer pay us another brief visit next week? Watch this space!
As always stay safe and well.
I am again linking to Dave’s Harvest Monday post on his Our Happy acres blog.
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That’s brilliant that your onions lasted the whole year! And your garlic harvest this year looks great. We’ve now had a lot of rain, with more forecast, so need to wait a bit longer till I harvest our garlic. I hope it’s as healthy as yours!
Lucky you for having lots of rain, Belinda, Nothing much here so still lugging cans of water.
Barmy weather. Friday was awful with the heat and no breeze here. I’m doing the same as you when planting anything out, watering the planting holes! Lovely harvests and meals, I like the look of the bean dish…..I just need my beans to grow!
I’m not happy when it is too hot wither,
The weather is weird here too, although it’s been scorching this last week. No rain here sighs. The greenhouse tomatoes wilt on a daily basis, watering is a nightmare. Loving the pond plants, I’ll need to invest in some too as we will have a new pond in the front when the builders are finished, The onion and garlic look terrific, as does the rest of the harvest. Beautiful heron, sooo pleased it didn’t get any of the cygnets.xxx
I was unhappy to read on Nostell’s Facebook page that there were originally 7 cygnets, Dina. The first must have been lost very early. You are right watering is a nightmare, especially on our allotment site as the pressure is so poor that if two people try and fill a can it takes ages, As for if someone is using a hosepipe well! The council reckon that there isn’t a problem which is probably true if they come and just try turning one tap on but there are about a dozen taps on site and everyone tried to water in the evening after work.
Oh it was certainly rather challenging last week Sue working out what to wear. Sadly we had a funeral to attend on Friday afternoon and needless to say himself was overheating in suit and tie whilst I fared better. Not much in the way of rain here recently either. Hope that you get a decent amount soon for your plot. Your sweet william must provide you with some fabulous scent as well as colour. We’re picking strawberries now – from just a few ‘Cambridge Favourite’ plants in the garden but their taste is far better than from any supermarket strawberries 😂
Strawberries from the supermarket taste of nothing, Anna – like carrots. Sadly the sweet Williams will soon be over.
The sweet william is gorgeous. It’s odd to me that you can grow the brassicas and squash at the same time. Episodic precipitation is tough to deal with especially when you have so many crops growing. Enjoy those strawberries!
We each find the crops that each other grows at particular times to be strange, Sue. Watering is challenging.
Your greenhouse tomatoes look like they are doing well. And that looks like a great haul of onions. Hopefully they will keep you well supplied!
Just hope that the summer onions do as well as last years, Dave given the wind and lack of rain.