Plot 1 Update for 15th July 2007!

Once again some more piccies of our Pumpkin Patch!

Well, despite (or is it because) of all the rain we've plenty of stuff growing away nicely! Our pumpkins in the first bed seem to be going mad, standing almost 2' tall and spreading like nothing I've ever seen, we've even got some fruit setting on them, so looks like we may be ok for halloween this year!

The minipop corn in the same bed is doing ok, but not as well as the sweetcorn in the top ned next to the fartichokes, which now has cobs showing (tho they've a long way to go to reach an edible size yet!)
So, the fartichoke / corn / leek bed mentioned above! The fartichokes are now at almost 8' tall, the corn is up to 4' tall and the leeks are doing ok, but unfortunately, so are all the weeds!

Methinks we desperately need some dry weather to be able to do some hoeing! With all the wet of late all the weed seeds are germinating, and its not easy to try and hoe in damp earth, so we've been having to remove them by hand, hard work and time consuming, not to mention heartbreaking when within 2 weeks it doesnt look like its ever been weeded! Ah well, at least its a good way to keep fit, or so I keep telling myself! lol!
The outdoor cucumbers we planted to grow up our 'cucumber ramp' have finally started to grow with a bit of vigour, as you can see they are beginning to climb and one even has its first set fruit! The lettuces inside the 'ramp' are also doing well, and with the netting they do seem safe from the attention of the local wabbits that have become a problem on many of our neighbours plots! (Touching wood here, we've had some carrots and brassicas nibbled, but otherwise we've not been hit too badly, yet!)
One of the upshots of all the wabbits is after planting 50+ brassicas out we came back the following day to find that many of them had been nibbled, so we errected 'Fort Tesco's' to protect them! Lee recycled a load of perspex (from the roofs of the trolley park thingies) from his work, and we used it to build the Fort, with a huge nod to Messers Heath and Robinson! Mind you, since its been up it does seem to be protecting the brassicas, and most of the seedlings seem to have recovered well, so fingers crossed that we'll have lots of cabbages and caulis later in the year!

We've had one or two comments about our 'Fort' tho, including one asking how much for admission to the pool! After all the rain we've been having we have foudn once or twice that the water had lain in pools inside the fort, especially as the ground has been copmpacted for growing brassicas in it!

Once again another piccy of our courgette plants, just so you can marvel (as do we every time we visit the plot) at how big they are getting!

Not only have we been harvesting courgettes for a few weeks now, but we had our first marrow from it yesterday, thats now stuffed and in the oven cooking ready for Lee's tea when he gets home from work!

Another panoramic view, this time looking down the mange tout netting, past the peas to the broad beans and greenhouse!

The mange tout has been really good so far, not only have we been having it with almost every meal, but we also froze about 3lb of it yesterday too! And its still flowering like mad and producing enough pods to make harvesting it a couple or 3 times a week a definite must! Heartily recommend this veg, and we will deffo be growing it again next year!

And last one for today, a quick piccy of about 2/3rds of our overwintering red onions, harvested yesterday in the rain by Lee! In total about 250 of them, ranging from about 1 1/2" size up to 5" diameter!

Unfortunately with the weather this year we had about half of them start to go to seed, so once we got them home we had to sort them out, those that hadnt started to run to seed (about 140 or so) were put out to dry on the racking in the back bedroom (only place we have thats dry enough atm, tho I have to say the smell does clear your nose when you go in there!), and the other 110 or so were peeled, sliced and frozen in the chest freezer upstairs, as we know onions that have run to seed dont store well, so rather than wasting them we thought we'd freeze them and use them after the stored onions are finished!

Anyhows, hope you liked the piccies, and thanks for looking!