Catching up

This week, after long periods of cold and rain, the weather improved producing a hot spell of temperatures in the upper 20s Celsius. In fact, it has been uncomfortably hot but many plants seem to have benefited from the warmer spell. The courgettes and squash, in particular, are growing fast and many fruits are setting. In fact we could be in for the courgette glut that we experienced last year.

For now we have only a handful of courgettes. Tri colour has performed best but I think the Soleil plants will catch it up quickly. Examples from the few picked tonight in the picture below.

We started on our spring onions too. Barletta are the furthest advanced and picking them caused much Shedwards excitement.

I lifted the spring planted garlic too. The bulbs were small but they seem to have good flavour.

Solent Wight

I dug up almost the last of the Foremost potatoes. There has been much concern about blight on our allotment site, but although the foliage has looked a bit of a state the potatoes themselves show no sign of damage other than from scab, and that only on the Foremost. The Lady Christls seem fine. Even so I cut down the foliage on all the varieties including the main crop. It is early to be doing this but I think that if I leave them for three weeks and dig them up in late August I stand the best chance of getting a decent yield. Certainly it will give the slugs a reduced opportunity to eat them before we can.

Foremost

We lifted all of the shallots too, in what has been quite a busy period harvest-wise. They are small but both varieties, Yellow Moon and Eschalotte Grise produced large numbers. This is a marked improvement on performance in 2011 when they all rotted in the ground. We'll keep some and pickle the rest.

I used the shallots, garlic and courgettes to make a kind of stew with tomatoes to go with potatoes and salmon. All very successfully, according to Ali.