Needing the rain!

The allotment is still needing the rain, though we did have some yesterday. Apparently, we should be getting rain all day tomorrow (hurrah!) so that will be wonderful if it happens. Nonetheless, the autumn raspberries are looking the saddest and driest I’ve ever seen them, so I hope they can hang on until tomorrow …

Anyway, in better news, the French climbing beans have even more crops than last week – it’s strange how they look so sparse, with hardly any leaves to speak of, and yet we keep getting those lovely beans from them.

Speaking of plants drying up, the sweet peas are nearing the end, but are still producing some flowers which is great.

The dahlias and gladioli are still going strong.

And the sunflowers are getting taller!

Here is this week’s harvest – which doesn’t include another white courgette, as I put it in the trug just as we were leaving:

And here are the flowers at home:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

The Dry Allotment

Very dry this week at the allotment. But the plants are bravely struggling on, go them!

Here is the beetroot, still producing a crop in these difficult times:

And the courgettes of course just won’t stop, LOL.

The gladioli are also doing well.

However, the sweet peas are really on their way out now, and I nipped off quite a lot of peas this week just to encourage them to flower a little bit longer.

The sunflowers are growing and one of them even has a flower head, hurrah.

Meanwhile, the scented lilies are on their way, just …

Here is this week’s harvest:

And here are the flowers at home.

Have a great Sunday, everyone.

Anne Brooke Books

Multicoloured Vegetables Galore

Yesterday, we decided to go to the allotment in the evening so we could water things more successfully, which worked out well as the site in this heat is much more bearable then. This week, our lovely multicoloured vegetables have been out in full force – though to be honest we’d forgotten we’d chosen the ones in mixed colours, but they’re simply amazing. Here are the climbing French beans – they’re purple, yellow and green, though to my eye the purple ones are so dark they’re black:

Not to be outdone, our round courgettes apparently come in green, white and yellow and we have an enormous glut of them! Possibly time for K to make more courgette soup to see us through the winter …

Here are some of the courgettes and climbing beans on the plants:

Meanwhile, the first of the gladioli are in flower, double hurrah! The pale orange one is called Princess Margaret and I really love it.

The dahlias are also doing well:

Here is the harvest:

And here are the flowers at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Blackcurrant Bonanza

The blackcurrant bushes at the allotment have gone crazy in this last week and we had to visit the allotment yesterday twice as we ran out of containers to put them in! We’ll probably have to go back today (Sunday) as well as they are still lots more to pick, with lots more still to ripen. Gosh indeed. That’s a heck of a lot of home-made blackcurrant ice cream for K to make, hurrah! Ooh, and blackcurrant gin – K is going to make that too, double hurrahs.

Meanwhile, the beetroot are getting larger and the courgettes are cropping well:

The French climbing beans have reached the top of their poles and have started to produce actual beans – they’re a funny yellow colour but easy to pick.

And the mangetout mountain continues, though the onions are far slower to get into their stride.

And here, in all its glory, is the asparagus forest …

Turning to flowers, K and I bought some asiatic (scented) lilies and some alstroemerias at Hampton Court Flower Show last week, and have put these in the allotment for cut flowers. Apparently the lilies will flower this year, and have certainly started to sprout.

The coreopsis is looking lovely and the dahlias seem happy too – I keep spraying these so no sign of the dreaded blackfly yet.

The sweet peas are going well too, though I’ve had to start searching for and removing the ‘peas’ where they’ve gone over, as I want them to keep flowering for as long as possible.

In exciting news, the first of the gladioli are about to flower and one of them is definitely going to be orange – so thrilled as I LOVE gladioli and they are always brilliant in vases:

Here is the harvest. As you can see, we cropped the one gooseberry (the light red berry in the right hand pot) the birds left us, LOL – but then in the evening I found a second one so we ate one each! Much sweeter than shop-bought gooseberries, but still with that essential kick at the end.

Here are the flowers at home:

Have a very good Sunday, everyone.

Anne Brooke Books