Weeding Heaven

After all the recent rain yesterday and today the weeds had no chance. Awhile back I bought a small hand held rake from Lidl for £1.50 and it is the best value piece of kit that I have bought for weeding. I never buy anything else from Lidl but there gardening bits and pieces are a bargain.

I really want to be on the plot tomorrow but have to work at a wedding at Oxford a place that I can get into with out any problems ,but with all the oneway streets I take forever finding my way out.

Am in charge of opening our trading shed on Sunday so Barbara is on Blackberry picking duties with my grandson, so full metal jackets are called for.

This is how the plot looked this morning.

Hissing Sid

Well here he is and growing bigger day by day.

Raindrops Are Falling On My Bed

What a difference some rain makes. I was even scraping mud from the bottom of my boots,something that I had not had to do for months.

Today I bought home four pounds of Kestrel potatoes, some parsley,mint and lemon thyme to go with the shoulder of lamb from our Greek supermarket. I also picked almost a pound of blackberries and our plums are beginning to turn, well plum colour, and getting plumper.

We are growing a Snake Gourd from a plant that our friend from Malaysia gave us. It measures about two foot long at the moment and we hope to put it in our local show as .Novelty Class 93. A fruit or vegetable which is unusual in shape. Entry must have a suitable or humorous caption.

At the moment I can only think of rude captions but do not think that they will be suitable, so back to "Hissing Sid" variations.

It Worked

At long last it is raining. It looks like Barbara's dancing had the desired effect , or maybe the rain Gods did not wish to witness a repeat perfomance.

It is quite heavy here in Beckenham but I think we needs days of the stuff to make any real difference. Anyway must not grumble as it may stop just to spite me.

The combined sigh of all my poor shriveled plants was quite deafening when I arrived this morning and everything was looking loads better already. I have the coming week off work so am really looking forward to spending as much time as possible on the plot. Am going to put my mobile in a drawer and forget about it as I have yet to have a whole week off without someone from work trying to contact me, well this week they WILL NOT SUCCEED.

PLEASE RAIN

Visited the plot today and saw tumbleweed blowing gently across it and where we had foxes they have been replaced by camel's and the odd palm tree can be seen.

Barbara had a go at performing a rain dance without any luck, but she is now down to a size 8.

We are quite lucky as we have a water tank on our plot so not to much carrying but you can't beat proper rain for getting everything growing. Our annual allotment show is looming but at the moment we do not have anything worth showing,still three weeks to go so PLEASE RAIN.

When is a Marrow really a Courgette

Being quite new to growing veg and still wet behind the ears I was under the impression that a courgette was just a baby marrow.

How is it then that you can buy both marrow and courgette seeds? I have three courgette plants and one marrow . The small marrow has stripes but the baby courgettes are all dark green. Can I eat baby marrows as I would courgettes or do I have to let them grow big .

My head hurts, need to go and lay down.

A Productive Weekend

We both spent yesterday afternoon and a lot of today on the plot. We harvested the remaining beetroot and have sown another two rows of a different variety ( Solist ) and also planted some January King cabbage. Everything seems to be doing quite well , especially the weeds, and yesterday we were able to take home some potatoes, spring onions, beetroot, cabbage, carrots and a couple of courgettes. Managed to get some digi pics and this is the plot this afternoon.

Escape from the madness

After all of the horror of the last few days we send our prayers to anyone involved in the madness. I spent a few hours trying to find out if my sons were ok and thank God they were.

When things get to much and I need to de-stress I visit our plot which I did that afternoon. It was raining and I was the only one there but it did help,in a strange sort of way I felt safe there and though only 10 miles from London I could have been 1010 miles away.

Beetroot Heaven

We have just returned from three hours on the plot. We have four pounds of Duke of York new potatoes, a couple of pound of carrots and best of all six beetroot. We have loads of beets still to come and its a good job we both love it.

The plot was really dry but its nice that we have a tank on our plot so not far to walk. The plum trees looked very sorry for themselves but are smothered with plums so hope they will be ok.

We have just discovered a great Greek supermarket in Penge, so many different olive oils, wonderful bread and so many different pastas and beans and rice I was like a kid let loose in a toy shop, and as for the goats cheese.

Looks like it will be a tasty summer.

We have just bought a new digital camera ( trod on the old one , not recommended ) so will add some pics after I have worked out how it works ( about December )