Sunday 15th July

Well, today is St Swithun's Day, so according to the legend, whatever the weather does today will continue for the next 40. If that's the case, things are finally looking up - we've not had a drop of rain today (the first in far too long!). As a result, I managed to get out in the garden again. Our back garden is completely sodden and incredibly muddy - and that's just the lawn!

The tomatoes are growing nicely, although without a bit of sun they're not going to ripen very well.

I cleared the foliage from the Kestral potatoes in bed 6 today, and dug up most of the spuds. The foliage was beginning to go yellow and I was worried about blight setting in. I need to go through the bed a bit more thoroughly tomorrow in case I left any behind. I did find a couple of rotten ones today, along with alot of red ants - they were soon scurrying around to protect their eggs, and the sparrows had a feast! We had quite a few roasted for lunch (potatoes, not ants!) and the rest are in the salad drawer of the fridge for another day. I've never tried roasting new potatoes before, but I was following a recipe in "River Cottage Veg Everyday" - they were yummy, definitely one to do again.

I also harvested/thinned the spring onions today - we had this lot sliced on pizzas -another success!

Harvesting (in the rain!)

After all the waiting, we're now getting quite regular veggies! Amy and I picked a couple of strawberries this week (although they got eaten before I thought about a photo!) - they were a bit soft with all the rain, but very tasty all the same.

We've had quite a few more potatoes (Kestral) - they look so colourful, but unfortunately they loose the purple when they're cooked.

Yesterday I picked the first of the peas, carrots and purple radishes (and some more spuds!).

The peas were a great success - will definitely grow some more of these.

One of the carrots had split open. I've looked into this a bit and it seems the most likely cause is too much water (especially after a drier spell). Hmmm, we have had exceptional rainfall recently so I'll blame that.

The radishes look great, but the flavour is a bit overpowering to say the least - I may have found the strongest variety! I'm now looking for recipes that use cooked radish - so far I'm thinking radish curry (Kerala style) or chutney...

Harvesting my first spuds!

I'm so excited - I dug up my 1st Kestral potatoes tonight! It was all the more exciting as you have no idea what's hiding below the surface until you start poking around. These were the first few I found, and this should be enough for 1 meal so I stopped there. I can't wait to taste them!

PS They tasted absolutely great! - served with a knob of butter and a sprinkling of freshly picked garlic chives.

Potato bags

The seed potatoes I bought have been chitting on a window-sill and are now ready to plant. I put a few in on Easter Sunday (here) but they take up more room than I'd bargained for! As I just can bring myself to throw any away, I've bought some potato bags. With 4 seeds per bag, you gradually fill them with compost as the leaves break through. It will be interesting to see which do better - these or the ones in the bed...

Chitting Sante potatoes

Planting Kestral potatoes

Easter Sunday, 8th April 2012.

Joe's draw hoe

Chitted potatoes

Planting stage 1

Planting stage 2

Having watched Gardeners' World earlier, I'm told that Easter is the time to plant potatoes, so today's the day! I decided to plant the Kestral 2nd earlies today, so I've put 8 into my square bed. Monty Don said he used a mattock (although it didn't look like what I'd call a mattock) to make his trenches, but I don't have one - instead I used another inheritance, Joe's draw hoe, and this did a great job. To allow room for earthing up, I actually removed a bit of the top soil before I started, otherwise I think the bed may have overflowed!

Chitting potatoes

I bought some seed potatoes (Kestral and Sante) on the 12th Feb and they've been chitting on the kitchen windowsill and in the spare room...

...and this is what they look like now:

Kestral are a second early, while Sante are a main-crop potato. I wasn't really sure what I was doing when I chose them, but my local hardware store had their seed potatoes on display and I was tempted! Having read around a bit, it turns out I picked 2 very good types, with good pest and disease resistance.


The other thing I've learnt is that whereas I'm used to buying "new" or "old" potatoes, growers have 3 types:

1st Early = New potatoes, eaten small and early summer

2nd Early = New potatoes, grown larger and harvested towards the end of summer

Main-crop = "old" potatoes, harvested in the Autumn onwards and the only ones that store well.