Sweet

We've been gathering tomatoes over the last few days, with a few courgettes now and then. Jean took some more beetroot today which still has a lot to come.

Today's highlight though was the sweetcorn. I've been watching the cobs growing and waiting until the tassels have all died back. I opened up the top of the cob to squeeze the kernel. Today the juice was milky rather than clear so it should be ready.

Sure enough a few minutes in a roasting pan and it was easily the best sweetcorn ever. If you eat a lot of sweetcorn, don't try it when it's very fresh - you be so disappointed with everything else.

Tomatoes and asparagus

The courgettes are still going strong - there are going to be courgettes given away up and down the street. The beetroot are also growing well, with a few getting to the size ready for us to use. The onions which we took up are dry now so they are at home now.

Another milestone was our first tomato of the year. One small niggle is the asparagus. We purchased the plants as only male ones. We don't want the plants to produce berries, both because we want the plants to fatten the crown for next year and not waste energy making berries and because if any of the berries ripen and fall they can crowd out the existing plants. Unfortunately one of our plants is female and producing berries. Today I pulled off some of the berries before they ripen and I'll pull the rest off soon.

First asparagus

We had our first asparagus today. There wasn't much - I took the first spears maybe a bit too soon but I have been waiting for over a year. It was very tasty. I look forward to much more.

Jean potted up the first batch of spring onions. They have germinated very well so we have over 70 little plants, far more than we expected. We planned to sow them in stages to keep having a crop, so there are more to come after this. Jean also potted some tomatoes six each of plum tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. This is more than we need, but we might give some away.

Right on cue

Last year our parsnips were superb. They were big, though a bit stumpy, tasty and not at all woody. We grew them by chitting the seeds on damp paper before planting the ones that sprouted into fibre pots. Once the plants were big enough these pots were then planted with their bases cut off to let the root grow on into the soil. All of this is because parsnips are hard to germinate and don't like having their roots disturbed. Planting plants out rather than sowing seed gives them a better start and avoids the disturbance from thinning. This process worked well so we are repeating it, albeit with some changes: We stated a few weeks later, we're planting the chitted seeds into cardboard tubes rather than fibre pots and they will go into the ground, tube and all, a bit quicker. The changes might help to produce less stumpy roots because there should be less root disturbance.

Last year the chitting process took about eight days and, eight days after starting, roots have appeared on half a dozen seeds. I wasn't too sure about how long it would take because we're using a different variety this year. The chitted and tubed tubers will go straight to the greenhouse.

The strong winds have died down and today the sun is shining down from a clear blue sky. The air is still cool but the forecast is for that to warm up too. Jean is sowing beetroot and tomato seeds. The beetroot, parsnips, sweet peas and some teasels for our garden will go up to the greenhouse to bring them on. We have had so little rain over the past month that the ground is dry and hard on the surface, so a day of heavy, warm rain would be welcome.

Concrete results

We took advantage of a fine, bright day, albeit a bit cold and breezy, to fill our foundation trench with a concrete mix. We used spare gravel from home mixed with a sand and cement mix left from some bricklaying at home to make up a concrete mix. It was a bit quick to go off so I think I got the mix wrong, but as long as it will hold a course of bricks it'll do me. It is fairly level, so a reasonable bed of mortar for the bricks will give a great base for the woodwork.

We took a cabbage and the last of the beetroot along with some tomatoes. The colder weather seems to be arriving, so the toms will need to be taken home on the vine to ripen. As soon as we do that we can start to extend the greenhouse.

Paving Slabs

I've been a member of Freecycle for a while. It helps put people who own things they don't in touch with people who cold use them. Most of the things offered would go to a landfill site if they were not taken by someone. I saw some paving slabs offered and I got them. We went with the trailer to pick them up today - they were heavier than I expected and it poured with rain while we lugged them to the trailer, but they will be useful.

We had some spare plants in the greenhouse in case some died, but everything has done so well that they were not needed. No one else seemed to need them, so they hit the compost heap. The only thing left in the greenhouse is a growbag with tomatoes in it. They're doing well, but we realised that we hadn't been feeding them so they got their first feed today.

The raspberries and broad beans will be ready for another harvest tomorrow. The runner beans are setting little pods, so we need to keep an eye on them to pick them before they get too big. That would make them stingy and tough.