- carrots of various shapes and colours – kids like the ‘golfballs’ best, I like the purple ones with orange middles.

- parsnips, which we have had roasted and in stews and are very nice

- mini-cukes which The Boy eats whole as a snack

- rasps, a mix of summer (Glen Prosen) and autumn (Polka), both in their first year so just a handful of each a day, I have had maybe 3 in total so far as Charlie loves them

- alpine strawbs, still lots of these. So tiny, but what an intense flavour.

- red and white onions, mostly going in salads or onion marmalade

- salad leaves, half a dozen types of lettuce and rainbow chard

- runner beans and yellow waxy french beans – just ready, havent tried either yet, maybe Sunday lunch.

- potatoes, the Anya are finished but still a few Charlottes and Juliettes left

- one or two peppers, they didnt do very well outside this year, need to be under glass

- plums are just starting and our one surviving apple looks about ready for granny Pam to pick it

Only put in a couple of dwarf peas, in the childrens patch, they picked a few pods today and the peas taste really sweet and nutty, totally different flavour and texture from a shop or frozen pea

- herbs: mint is looking a bit rusty, rosemary is okay, coriander is now going to seed, lots of oregano and thyme, basil still hanging in there, made pesto with most of it for Charlies pasta tonight.

Its the first time we have had enough things ready together for a whole meal and its brilliant !

Sowings this week: white lisbon salad onions, chard bright lights, more carrots (red, purple and rainbow – no boring orange !).

Jobs to do:
lime brassica beds ready to sow cabbages and swedes. Maybe brocolli and cauliflower too ?
weeding between beds
clear the empty bed where the volunteer potatoes have appeared, for summer/autumn planting.

1. Cucumber greenfingers x 2 moved into growbag with growpots and a mini pergola to climb up.
2. More parsnips seedlings moved from cold frame into the parsnip bed. Will put some more to germinate indoors, last set probably.
3. Topped up the paris market carrots row – there were a few gaps – only ones with poor germination.
4. Put coriander in 2 corners of the onion bed where the onions didnt take. Might be too dry – soil is very free draining there.
5. Winter squash – put butternut at one end of the onion bed, Table Queen at the other, both under bottle cloches and both x 2 per station, thin to 1 later if they both germinate. Hopefully, onion swill be out before squash becomes too big for them to share.
6. Salad bed. This had been dug up by some animal visitor, so back to square 1: sowed lambs lettuce, radishes, 3 types of lettuce to heart in the middle of the bed and 1 row of salad bowl for CCA. Still space for 1 or 2 more row of CCAs. Put a net over it !
7. On the maypole there are now 5 x runner beans, 1 x purple french beans. Sowed 2 more purple french under bottle cloches this time after 2 were dug up. 3 x waxy yellow dwarf beans in the gaps, one germinated indoors, other 2 direct.
8. Kids square – replaced some paris market carrots – theirs were patchy germination too. Added a few more dwarf/bush peas.
9. Weeded everything.
10. Summer rasps not all looking happy, some have died off after the leaves started to brown from the outside edge, drying out and leaving a dead stick. Adjacent canes thriving, no sign of aphids/beetles and no idea yet of cause.
11. Our postcode area is in a full Smith Period now, so need to watch potatoes for blight. At least early blight gives some warning and you can still get a crop.
12. Stevie dug a path the whole way along, beside the rasps. This needs to be levelled a bit more then covered with weed fabric and a mulch, poss large gravel, need to check prices at local quarry.

About a dozen baby frogs and toads were out in the garden today – they came out after the heavy rain and were extremely cute.

Our main strawberry bed is a little way behind but will get there soon and a few rasps are just starting to take shape now too for late summer.

Today should be sowing salad leaves and more carrots but there are thick black clouds and I can feel the pressure dropping – rain is gonna come. Soon.

Some of the latest parsnips have now germinated, a bit scrawny to go out yet, need another week or maybe two indoors but not covered or they will be too leggy. I will also put them in the cold frame for a week before planting out fully.

Both greenfinger cucumbers are on 2 leaves each, they will go into a grow bag I think, next to the spuds, after a spell in the cold frame to harden off.

the weather forecast is for some unpleasant combination of heavy rain, thunder, hail, flash floods in the next 48 hours. Fingers crossed it doesnt destroy anything – except the rabbit warren, I am hoping that floods and forces them further away from our carrots !

Something, an animal, has been making mischief this week. The newly sown salad seeds, carefully marked with little wooden pegs have been scratched about and the marker pegs were found about 4 feet away from the bed. It must be pidgeons or a cat, cant think of anything else that would/could do this but not do anything else. There were a couple of shallots pulled up, one of them is over the fence and in the field… Please not the rabbits – dont let them find us !

Today, Stevie dug and I weeded, put out the pea/bean things, put straw under the strawbs, weeded again, made a frame to net the salad.

Tomorrow (Sun) will be put the nets/mesh over strawbs, salad and carrots, direct sow yellow beans at the maypole, redo the salad leaves, tidy the flower borders, water everything.

Weather permitting (wind speed) we will also spray nasty stuff on the jungle of weeds in preparation for putting down grass seed to get it under control for the summer. Might put our tent up there for some family friends to visit if its a bit easier and safer to walk on than it is now !

Onion sets all seem to be okay, we have lost a couple at most. Main job is to keep the bed weeded and to deter the soddin cat that confuses a raised bed with a litter tray. I think I will try 2 things, bits of spiky twig laid around on the soil – lots of that available in the hawthorn hedge and perhaps a net surround – cats don’t like to jump over things apparently, just onto things, so that might help. Also thinking of some evil solutions if the humane ones don’t work, as I am not prepared to sacrifice our food just to be kind to someone elses cat.

Strawberries have coped well with being moved from a planter to a permanent bed. No idea which variety is which any more, but some are clearly going to fruit sooner than others, so that might help me work it out. Added half a dozen alpine/woodland plants which may not fruit this year but will be delicious when they do.

Potatoes are looking good, first tubs should be ready from the end of this month then at 4-6 week intervals. We have only done Anya, Charlotte and Juliet this year.

Carrots are okay but no roots yet, just early foliage.

Parsnips I am a bit worried about. They are supposedly quite difficult to germinate so I was pleased when my first attempt was successful, but the rain and quite cool temps of the past 24 hours seems to have traumatized them a bit. One has disappeared completely, a few are wilting, only half the row looks robust enough to make it. Might put a cloche over some of them for the rest of the weekend. My second sowing of parsnips seems to have failed totally as the soil dried out, so we could end up with none ! I will put some more into pots and others direct sown to see if we can manage some for Christmas day lunch.

Rasps are coming along nicely. Autumn ones are ready to flower, summer canes have finally started sending up shoots that will fruit next year.

The rhubarb, or rather one of them, is looking lovely but we can’t eat that this year, needs to establish. The other has failed, probably the soil is too poor there so I will move it for next year. The soft fruit bushes are not doing much, a few berries/currants but should now be setup for next year.

Lots of work to do clearing space for more beds ready for summer and autumn planting and it will soon be time to put the brassicas and winter roots into their beds. Salad crops should be in but aren’t, so next fine day that has to be done or we’ll miss out on summer salads.

Some of what I had hoped to do will have to wait a year, it’s taking a lot of time and effort to get control of what is essentially a pile of weed strewn rubble.

I forgot about the trees ! No flowers on the cherry this year, that can take a couple of years to start fruiting, loads of tiny plums – will lose most over next couple of weeks as the tree sorts out what it can sustain, a few applets (is that a word outside of IT ?) which have to go, to let the apple trees build up for next year.

1. Moved some ‘rosebud’ primulas from the nursery bed to the raised bed in the back garden. Rest next week, a few are for mum – they are sooo small and pretty.
2. I put the largest Dicentra Spectablis into the front border and have another 3 on the way. 1 is for mum, 2 going spare – hadnt expected any of them to germinate after forgetting about them since last year, but they all did !
3. Removed loads of Herb Robert (aka ‘Stinky Bob’ !) which I hate, from the front beds. It looks pretty enough, but yerch the smell is disgusterous !
4. First sowing of parsnips are still hardening off, they will go in next weekend and then I will sow some more.
5. Last of the potatoes ready to be ’sacked up’, so thats about 6 weeks between first and last, should give us a few meals worth. I might have done lots more, but blight was so bad last year I was relucatant to risk it this year. First sets are already showing good foliage so will be earthed up in their bags, at the weekend.
6. Steve is going to prepare the next 2 raised beds this week, so then I will be ready to sow lots of carrot varieties when I get back.
7. Havent done onion sets, but should have as we eat lots. If its not too late, will get some brown and red in for the weekend…
8. Must check regional sowing/frost dates again – its so much later here than London and most planting guidance doesnt allow for that. Not time here yet for the brassicas, so their beds are waiting.
9. Autumn rasps doing well, might have lost 1 of the 10, not bad. Summer rasps are still dead sticks in the ground – hoping to see some growth this month or I will worry that I have lost all of them !
10. Asparagus – green varieties are doing well, Purple Stewart not so happy – thin, small, some a bit brown at the tip. Must investigate incase soil isnt right.
11. Top/back garden has been rather neglected while we try to get control of the veg garden, so did a bit of emergency weeding. Attacked the thistles and a mustard thing that frankly grows like a weed !

A couple more raised bed frames need making up, so Steve can dig/build/fill them this week, for next weekend when I  will start planting seeds.

First 3 potato sacks are done – with 4 tubers in each of Charlotte, Juliette and Anya. Next round of those in another weeks time.

Putting a small wooden border around the raspsberries, to protect them from the wind and to retain a bark mulch I plan to put down.

Thats going to take more time than I have so Id best get started.