{"id":5446,"date":"2022-06-19T18:52:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T17:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ossettweather.com\/gardening2022\/?p=5446"},"modified":"2022-06-20T09:28:44","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T08:28:44","slug":"was-that-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ossettweather.com\/gardening2022\/susan\/was-that-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Was that summer?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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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.<\/p>

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.<\/p>

The weekend saw a swift return to cooler temperatures. On Friday evening the thermometer reading dropped off a cliff.<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

At the beginning of the week we interspersed our watering with some planting. Martyn planted three varieties of squash\u00a0 – Crown Prince, Autumn Crown & Bush Baby and two varieties of courgettes – Sunstripe & Defender.<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

I planted red and green cabbages,\u00a0 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.<\/p>

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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.<\/p>

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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.<\/p>

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Just like the allotment our greenhouse is also filling up.<\/p>

We also bought a few new plants to put in our garden pond.<\/p>

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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.<\/p>

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As well as being kept busy watering, strimming, weeding and planting, we are now at the stage where we have more to harvest.<\/p>

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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.<\/p>

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13 June – Strawberries, sweet peas & sweet Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>

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.<\/p>

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14 June – Cabbage, calabrese, onions, strawberries & sweet Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>

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.<\/p>

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18 June – Strawberries, cabbage & calabrese<\/figcaption><\/figure>

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<\/a>.<\/p>

Some of our frozen leeks were used in a bean casserole<\/a> last week.<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

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.<\/p>

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More of our potatoes and some of our freshly picked cabbage were served with a spicy turkey burger.<\/a><\/p>

\"\"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!<\/p>

As always stay safe and well.<\/p>

I am again linking to Dave’s Harvest Monday<\/a> post on his Our Happy acres blog.<\/p>

.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 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