Never give up hope...

This blog hasn't had much attention for the last year but I think it may be worth recording what we have been up to down on the plot.

It has been a good spring on the whole I think. We have begun harvesting some of the potatoes that I planted on 30 March. This was a bit early and I only narrowly avoided frost but I seem to have got away with it. These are Lady Christl and are sold by some vendors as first early and some as second. I grew them as the former and we have the best potatoes I have ever grown. They are firm when boiled and a decent size despite being in the ground for only 11-12 weeks. I am far from sure what conditions made this the case.

We have picked a lot of broad beans too. These are the overwintered Aquadulce Claudia that went in the ground last October. I bought the seeds in the first year we took on the plot. That year I took some from the packet and sowed them but that was the last that I ever saw of the seeds. There were certainly no plants. The seeds sat on my my desk at work for two years. They were in the pocket of a jacket I think and I took them out because it seemed not quite right to be carrying them around at the office. Eventually, I split them with colleague and fellow allotmenteer, Mark. They didn't look good, dark and far too wrinkled and I had no hopes for them but I was, as so often, quite wrong; they grew strongly through winter and spring and we took around two kilos of beans from the plants.

Some of our Lady Christl potatoes and a few broad beans, 16 June

 Right now it is mostly about raspberries and strawberries. I planted 12 Glen Ample bare rooted canes in March 2013 in a mild snow storm. I had some hopes that they would perform but I had no idea just how how much they could produce. They were covered in bees throughout April and May and now every evening I can pick 500g without difficulty. It is just possible that I planted too many....

The strawberries were damaged by a hail storm of biblical scale (Old Testament) about a month ago. Many were malformed as a result but, even so, we have picked something like two kilos to date. I have made jam, smoothies and a rather splendid mascapone cream tart (the last something of a team effort). Some of the result is pictured below and, despite some adverse conditions, things haven't turned out too badly.

Those who know me will attest to the fact that I am seldom optimistic; it is not the way that I was built to be. But I should probably learn from the experience of gardening. Sometimes, things turn out well despite fear of the worst.