It’s been a very frustrating week weather-wise. We have had a little rain but only enough to dampen the top few millimetres of soil. Short showers tend to dry up before they do any good. Our frustration has been compounded by it seeming to rain everywhere but on us. We were driving home along the M1 the other evening when the heavens opened. Visibility was limited and water was standing on the carriageway. We were only three or four miles from home so thought that the rain must be reaching us. As we continued the sky began to brighten and when we arrived home the ground was merely a little damp. Then during the coverage of the British Grand Prix  they had rain on and off for most of Friday and Saturday.

Does anyone know of an effective rain dance?

We’ve been busy on the allotment weeding, watering and harvesting. The weeding and watering don’t lend themselves to any worthwhile photo opportunities but our first lot of peas are beginning to flower and I thought that the flowers of the Kent Blue peas were really pretty.

Our berry fruit is now ripening so we are now on berry picking duty which is quite time consuming. On Friday, along with the berries, we harvested a couple of cabbages, a cucumber and our first beetroots.

Our berry picking didn’t go down well with a blackbird who noisily sounded his disapproval. He didn’t think that we had any right to pick his berries.

We have five jostaberries, which last year were stripped of their fruit before we had a chance to pick any. This year we covered two of the bushes to keep the birds off. We hadn’t enough netting to cover all five bushes and so the birds had more than their fair share and we had some berries to pick. We intend to buy more netting and cover more bushes next year, then the blackbird will have something to complain about.

The blueberries are covered and so we are the sole pickers of those.

The raspberries we share as there is usually enough to satisfy us and the birds. As well as the red summer raspberries, we picked a few purple Glencoe raspberries.

Sadly the sweet Williams are beginning to fade so we can’t look forward to many more for cut flowers.

Most of the first planting of broad beans have been stripped and frozen but a few remaining pods were picked for that evening’s dinner. 

Some of the cabbage was also cut for dinner.

We pulled up some baby carrots that had been growing in a tub in our garden greenhouse.

A second crate of potatoes was also emptied so the only shop bought element to that meal was a piece of salmon and the ingredients for the loaf of bread that provided the breadcrumbs that coated the salmon. All very satisfying and the reason for growing your own.

Another small harvest came from a Stella cherry tree, that grows in a pot in the garden. This had also been netted, although when we went to pick the fruit a wren had found its way under the netting. I don’t know whether it was nibbling the fruits or looking for potential bugs on the tree. It didn’t stick around as we approached.

The cherries were delicious and well worth the effort of protecting them. Along with some of the raspberries they provided a tasty dessert for a few days.

Before we leave the garden, I’ll share a photo of the pots of plants on the patio that have filled out and are looking very cheerful

We had our weekly walk around Nostell. As it wasn’t too hot and sunny, instead of heading for the wooded areas we walked through the meadow.

I snapped some of the flowers that were attracting various butterflies and other insects.

In the meadow is one feature that intrigues me. Daisies are growing in a circle. I’m not sure why they are growing like this but there are lots of daisies growing in the area that forms a lake in winter so we wondered if this area is another wet patch over winter.

Ruby always finds plenty of opportunities to exercise her nose. The clover provided an interesting diversion. Far preferable to lots of the things she decides to sniff at.

On the main lake the six cygnets are growing quickly and are now very swan-like.

The two in the top left hand photo seem to be having an interesting conversation. I wonder what they are saying. What do you think?

Finally, some other meals that used our harvests last week.

Some of our frozen, leeks and peas and some of our garlic went into a chicken, leek and mushroom risotto.

One of the cabbages went into a turkey and cabbage stew. It was joined by some of our overwintering onion and garlic and served with some of our potatoes.

More of our potatoes were used in a chickpea and quinoa curry. To be honest if I made this again I would need to add some different vegetables and maybe tweak the flavouring as we found it somewhat lacking.

Martyn has posted various videos of our week’s activities here if you are interested.

Details of our harvest are here

As always stay safe and well.

I’m once again linking to Dave’s Harvest Monday post on his Our Happy Acres blog