Pea Shoots

Look closely.

Can you see the blue tit amongst the wind bashed roses?!  

So now that my garden is beginning to produce, I can start showcasing some of the fruit and vegetables that I am growing and harvesting. 

Starting with some strawberries, if you look closely you will see some wild strawberries nestled in the colander ready for the rinsing and eating.

Pears 

Cooking apples

Blueberries

Red Gooseberries - I am a bit disappointed with them as they are nowhere the size they should be.

 Runner Bean flowers

 Climbing Pea flowers

Broad Beans

Courgette flowers

Here are the pea shoots - harvested and used in the Asparagus Pasta Salad below. 

I am sharing my small harvest with Dave over at Happy Acres who hosts Harvest Monday every week.

First Strawberries and more blooming roses

Some little joys. 

First of the strawberries from the garden including wild strawberries which i am sharing with Dave over at Happy Acres who hosts Harvest Monday every week.

The blooming roses have certainly put on a good show. 

The roses are even strewing down like garlands at a ceremonious occasion.

Here is our garden vegetable and fruit plot plan. Credit for the plot diagram goes to D, of course. 

So much going on...like these mixed lettuce growing in an old drainage pipe.

The runner beans are beginning to climb and flower up the natural stick climbing frames.

Here they are from another angle.

Beneath them courgettes and perpetual spinach. 

Below is Blue Kale and Blue Kohlrabi, as well as Kale from the neighbour.

These are pea shoots - the idea and inspiration came from  an old garden show - I will update as soon as I remember its name. 

And finally, red gooseberries

The red gooseberries look a bit sad this year - they are not the size they normally are, still time to grow, but i think they are suffering because of lack of feed and the right soil. But presently I cannot do much about that as we are still socially distancing and being sensible, so no garden centre trips for us. 

Blooming Roses

I've had a busy working week, so I was grateful for the long weekend.

It gave me time to do some cooking, baking and gardening, as well as reflecting and resting. 

Shelter from the bright sunshine

So here are some photographs of progress in my vegetable garden plot.

Progress on the carrot box.   I will thin these out at some point. 

Garden Springing into Life and Tuscan Rainbow Chard Ragout

The allotment garden plot is beginning to burst into life.  

So here are some selected pictures.

 Chive Blossoming, just waiting for the bumble bees to come by.

Wild strawberries and strawberries flowers under the apple tree.

The border looks good with natural wood fell that I dragged back with D.

Sowing Seeds and Burning Deadwood

So yesterday - well most of the weekend, I took advantage of the dry weather and spent much of it in the garden plot. 

D got round to fixing the greenhouse and replacing the missing panes, and I was grateful as this meant I was able to sow all of the seeds that arrived late last month. I will up-date my Growing and Sowing Seed blog page by the end of the week, so you can see exactly what it is I am growing.

Despite having been scratched and scraped and scrammed from the thorny bramble wires that had crept into our garden plot from the neighbours, I was rather pleased with my achievements. 

My neighbours with the Jack Russell also had the same idea regarding their garden and did their fair share removing the sharp brambles, most of which were stemming from their side of the fence.  We had some interesting conversations around the state of the world and the predicament we find ourselves in, all the time maintaining our 'social distance'. We also spoke about how fortunate we are to have a garden at this time, as many people including some of our colleagues live in city flats without even a balcony.

By late afternoon, we had started trying to burn some of the dry dead weeds, spent raspberry canes and dead tree wood that had broken off by the force of the winds, but the flames were just not catching - instead smoke was bellowing from our compost bin.  I caught sight of a neighbour three doors down give us a disapproving look as the smoke wafted in the direction of their clothes hanging on the drying line since the morning, it was now way past 6.00pm.  

We still have a long way to go to get on top of the garden, but I am pleased with what we managed to accomplish in the first dry weekend in a long time.  I have some annual leave to take by the end of the month, so there will be a few more days in the garden, as we are not going anywhere far from our front door like the rest of the world.  I will enjoy my garden and am grateful for my little green space.  The only spoiler is the other neighbour with the constant barking sausage dog whose noise pierces and spoils the quietness of the place, but it could be much worse -I know...

Early Strawberries and Last of the Rainbow Chard

So its the long weekend and I have been resting up. In between resting up and lazing, I have also been pottering in the garden which is very higgledy piggledy, but it is coming along nicely or so it appears.  

Look what I harvested on Friday - early strawberries!  They were not perfect, but they were really sweet and tasty. 

We have potatoes growing.  I also have a number of climbing beans growing: green, purple and yellow, as well as runner beans and broad beans.  The yellow courgettes are also in the ground.  I also have rainbow chard to .  

I have also been eyeing up some future fruit such as gooseberries (above), blueberries (below), plums, apples and pears (below).

I also harvested the last of the overwintered rainbow chard, that went into a Chickpea Curry. 

I am sharing this blog post with Dave over at Happy Acres for Harvest Monday. 

Weekend in the Allotment Garden Plot

The last two weekends, the weather has been kinder that we decided not to go out exploring and instead spend time in the garden getting it ready for sowing and growing.  

Last week was hard.  Between the two of us we managed to accomplish a lot.  D fixed the greenhouse (not shown) that had all its panels blown out.  It used to be glass, but much of the glass has smashed over the years from bad weather.  Every year we salvage what we can and patch it up.  I am pleased to say it is ready for sowing seeds. 

While D got on with the greenhouse, I got on with digging the soil.  As you can see I did so much, but there is still so much to do, but I wanted to share some progress and growth - so please indulge me.