Tidying up the Plot
We seem to be getting every second day dry with some sunshine then a day of continuous rain.I spent most of Tues on the plot tidying up and doing some serious weeding!
Photo is of an Iris, I bought a pack of summer flowering bulbs in Lidl some time back but so far they have been all Irises.
Kathryn had dug over some of the potato bed which had been vacated and I put in the winter leeks. These were in a tray at home and I have to say they are the smallest leeks I have ever planted out, hopefully they will come on now they are in their permanent bed.
The Lazy Housewife bean has recovered from its hen ordeal and there are 2 pods on it so far, I am not going to use them but save them for next year's seed. They were given to me by Matron when she visited Cork last year, I did see on her blog that they should be left to dry on the plant to prevent mould.
Peas, sadly neglected by us!I should have put more raffia up the poles as they grew as they had twined around each other for support.The birds had pecked at about 20 pods which had to be discarded, after I took the photo I put up more raffia supports and covered the entire frame with netting to deter the birds.There is a good crop coming on which I intend to have for me not our feathered friends!
Sweetcorn bed, half weeded, I did finish it off later! The corn is very small this year in comparison to last years bumper crop which grew to about 5 feet tall with up to 4 good size cobs on each.
This year there are only 2 on most of them and none on some!
The tomatoes in the greenhouse are slow to ripen, during the few sunny days we did have the yellow ones were doing fine but no sign of any red ones as yet.I don't think we will be making pasta sauces this year to use them up.
We also have cucumbers and aubergines in the greenhouse, we have had a couple of small mishapen cukes but nothing on the aubergine as yet though it is flowering.
Kathryn cleared the onion beds and hung them in the greenhouse to dry off as the wet weather may not have done them any good, the entire crop is small as it is.
Our broccoli (calabrese)is producing lots of side shoots after the main heads were used.The damp warm conditions seem to suit this at least!
Rosie's onion trees,a novel method of drying the onions! They look like miniature palm trees.
I cleared all of the broad beans, just leaving the crimson flowered ones in place.This pile of shells produced just this....
1 and a half kilos of shelled beans, with sore fingers as an added bonus!
I blanched them in salted water for a few minutes THEN shelled them again as I prefer them without their overcoats.I ended up with 3x 400grm bags and 2 x200grm bags for the freezer.
Jam making has also been on the agenda and I will post about that soon while visiting all my blogging friends who have also been neglected somewhat over the last couple of weeks.
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