Jewels in the soil

From the title I reckon you can guess I have been digging up my new potatoes. It has been a week since my last visit to the lottie. I have been in London this week on business. The Charlotte's are in flower. Two plants makes a dinner of spuds. I hope that this week I can get up to the lottie and bag some Broad Beans and have a nice supper of fresh spuds and beans. It is simple but delicious.

The transformation since last weekend is startling. Everything is twenty percent bigger than last week. The potato patch is a solid mass of haulms. The Charlotte's are in flower, Purple. The Duke of York's are just coming into flower, White and the Cara main crop are not ready to flower but the leaves are the deepest lush green. The Broad Beans are three foot high and the onions are just keeping ahead of the weeds. Even the brasiccas that were scoffed by the Partridge are racing on.

The carrot and onion patches needed attention. I had bought a special swan necked onion hoe but the weeds were too advanced for light weeding. The rain had loosened the soil so it was relatively easy work if not a little daunting. The odd Carrot that got pulled out was in good health, up to that point anyway. The onions are plumping up nicely but it will be some time before we can enjoyed them. In an area about two thirds of a bed I managed to fill the wheel barrow twice. Just as well the compost bins are mulching down so there is room in the top for more.

I have a few things left in the greenhouse to plant out. I might get a chance to got the lottie one evening this week to prep a planting spot for the weekend. The garden at home is over run with Lettuce. At the moment it is lettuce with everything.
The soft fruits are really on song. The strawberries are still in full flow. The raspberries are staring to get ahead of what we can comfortable eat and the Blackcurrants continue to ripen. It is hard to keep from "testing" the odd one for ripeness. The Fig is making a living but I do not expect any fruit for a few years. The Apple trees are doing very well. The apples are about the size of golf balls.

H is delighted that the hard work clearing the hedges, prepping the soil and building the beds has paid off of so quickly and abundantly. I say it is all down to barrow loads of good quality hos muck.