Lots of flowers continuing in our perennial bed this week, especially those glorious dahlias:
We’re also pleased that the courgette flowers last week have turned into actual fruits:
We harvested some of the crop but left others to grow into marrows next week, LOL! The French climbing beans continue to do well though we didn’t pick as many as last week:
And those late peas actually have a flower on them!
So today’s harvest is: courgettes, French climbing beans, blueberries, alstroemerias, dahlias, roses and a few gerbera:
It’s definitely a win for the dahlias today as you can see from this picture of our perennial bed, though the roses are also still in abundance. It’s interesting that the pink dahlias last so much longer in the vase than the yellow ones, and also interesting that I have obviously chosen the same kind of colour palate for both dahlias and roses – pink and yellow!
One of our lettuces has definitely died this week, LOL! Though the other two are just about surviving:
Our two unexpected pea plants continue to grow so I have now tied both these up with string.
But the winning vegetable of the week continues to be our French climbing beans – another good harvest today though not as much as last week:
Whilst there, we took the protection off both our Brussels sprouts beds in order to give them a thorough weeding – the weeds everywhere have been a nightmare this year! And K also strimmed along the edge of the plot too, to make it look neater.
Here is this week’s harvest, which consists of dahlias, roses, alstroemeria, one freesia, sweet peas, a few gerberas, plus soft fruit, one beetroot, one lettuce and French climbing beans.
The French climbing beans are still doing brilliantly with more flowers on there as well, so a good harvest though not quite as enormous as last week:
The lettuces are hanging on in there though getting a little past their best now. Still, there’s enough lettuce from one of these to keep us going for a week:
And we have our first decent sized crop of beetroot which is great news! The type we grow isn’t the usual red one as I don’t like the stains, so this one is stain-free – sorry I can’t remember the name but they’re readily available if you want beetroot without the mess!
The perennial bed is looking good too, with more roses and dahlias, and even some of our new alstroemerias in bloom (just peeking out at the left of the picture).
We put a lot of weed-killer down on the paths between beds this week as it’s all been getting rather out of hand, so we’re hoping that next week it will look a lot clearer. So, here is the harvest, which consists of alstroemerias, dahlias, roses, gerberas, sweet peas, one lettuce, one beetroot, a lot of shallots (which keep for months in the garage), soft fruit and French climbing beans.
I’m finally back on the allotment after three weekends away due to ill health, so I spent a lot of time beating down the weeds today, LOL! Still, after yesterday, at least we didn’t need to water. The lilies are looking amazing:
And the sweet peas are hanging on in there:
But just look at our perennial bed! It’s a riot of roses (second bloom of those this year), dahlias and gerberas:
However, the outright winner in terms of how much crop there is has to be awarded to the French climbing beans! There’s a veritable glut which we are freezing – see later pics!
Mind you, there are a lot of courgettes too – so we’ll make and freeze soup with them:
And we FINALLY have some growth from our peas – though we’re unsure whether we’ll actually get a crop from those now as it’s very late in the season:
And the lettuces are going crazy:
This week, there is just SO MUCH harvest that I have had to take two pictures of it! We have one lettuce, 5 huge courgettes, lilies galore, dahlias, roses, gerberas and sweet peas, plus a few mangetouts, those French climbing beans and some soft fruit (hidden by the beans!) Here they are:
The Allotment Wife 