I love this time of the year!

I think that May/June is my absolute favourite time! So many exciting things are happening in the garden and allotment and the weather is much sunnier. Great!

I'm mostly going to write this blog in chronoligical order but have to start with the best thing that happened today. I was told on tuesday that I could have any fruit from a vacant plot that was about to be cleared - I asked about a fab gooseberry - old, so was going to be cleared, but FULL of fruit - and was told I could have it. So I went to the plot this morning (was there at 8.30am!) and dug it up. It's super! I am fully aware that it is totally the wrong time to transplant it, but prepared the ground well, and fully watered it in. I've got my fingers crossed that it makes it.

To the back garden. My beloved rhododendron is looking glorious. This fella hasn't let me down since I hacked it back when we first moved in.

The chives are also looking very healthy. The flowers are lovely with the purple flower heads bobbing around.

On to the plot. Last weekend we cleared the horrible weeds from the fruit beds. It looks so much better now. Carpet down, hopefully we'll be able to keep those weeds at bay.


My blueberry bush is doing well. The little flowers have mostly dropped their petals now and the berries are starting to plump up nicely.

These little gooseberries are from one of my new gooseberry bushes. There are about 6 or 7 on the bush. I'm thinking lots of jam and pies mmmmmmm!

An arty (B&W) pic taken by the gal of my little gladiator. He did a great job of hacking up all the weeds he could find. They didn't stand a chance.

I understood why the leeks bolted - they are in their second year. But my shallots, garlic and onions are bolting too now :o( . I've nipped off the flowers and watered them well. They won't store now though. SO- lots of french onion soup!

I sowed five more varieties of carrot. We seem to having a lot of trouble getting carrots to germinate on our allotments this year. So for my second sowing of carrots I really gave them some TLC. I raked the bed finely again, scraped some shallow trenches in the soil, then filled them with compost. This is then what I sowed my carrot seeds into. Types I have sown are;- Parmex, Sugarsnax, Cosmic Purple, Yellowstone and Little Finger. The three other plants are my severely mistreated clumps of marigolds.

Beans got the treatment next. I planted the runner/pole beans and climbing french beans in fours - two on each side of the canes. I planted one bean at the base of each cane and also popped a sweetpea in there for good measure. Bean types are Pole Star Runner, Amishland True Cranberry Pole Bean & Amishland Heritage Pole bean (both from the USA), Mr Fearn's Beans, Coronan D'Ora, and Violette all climbing french beans.

The dwarf french beans I planted along the bed in front of the canes;- Kinghorn Wax, Borlotti Du and Annabel.

I planted my little sweetcorn babies amongst the pumpkins and squashes on the two beds. They will be happy with the squash romping around thier feet keeping them cool and weed free (hopefully!).The broad beans are now plumping up nicely. I tried the baby ones whole as suggested in my book but it wasn't to my taste. I hope that the more fully grown beans fare better or they will be for the chop next year!

My peas are looking good now too. I have several pods that hopefully will be nearly ready to pick on my return from my jollies.

Spud update. 'Experimental' first earlies are flowering prolifically and I'm going to dig one up next weekend - whoooohooo!

Strawbs are beginning to ripen now. I really need to make a net covering to keep of the birdies. One of the next jobs!

And finally a plot shot. I'm off on my hols for a week, I really am going to miss it, so much happens every time I leave it for a couple of days, let alone nearly a week! I think it really looks great already though xxx