Veg talk

The other day Jenetta, lovely faithful blog reader, asked me in the comments section to say what was happening with my attempts to grow veg, hence this post. 

I take a lot of trouble with my flowers, but I have always been rather bored with the idea of growing veg, partly because it hardly seems worth growing it just for me.  Dave is a vegetarian, but he scorns vegetables. I am an omnivore who adores cabbage. But I am trying to grow a few things this year that can be harvested before September because I thought there'd be problems with supply.

When we first moved into this house in 1996 the garden was completely overgrown with brambles, convolvulus and nettles. The first year we grew potatoes, leeks and purple sprouting broccoli. Here is Dave in his Christopher Robin ensemble washing the potato crop:

You can see we were still developing the garden. We've changed it a couple of times since this picture was taken, though Dave's dress sense remains unreconstructed.

This year I am trying to grow lettuce, 

and dwarf beans and runner beans,

You can see how few have germinated.

I found some potatoes sprouting in the veg box/rack in the porch so I put them in the bottom of a barrel and a pot and have been topping them up with compost as they have grown. I have not protected them from frost, but they are doing well. Our garden is very exposed, btw.

I have sown a row of cabbages and a row of spring onions:

To the right of the rows you will see the raspberries that have not been weeded.

You will also notice that the rows have not been labelled. i got distracted when in the garden and have now forgotten which row is which. Time will tell.

Lastly, I bought three tomato plant seedlings online. They were 4 inches long from top to root tip when they arrived, and now they are 18 inches high and spend part of the day outside, being hardened off. I don't have a greenhouse, so they need to be hardy.

I love tomatoes and I am more interested in the fate of these plants than anything else (not counting the sweet peas.) It's so hard in normal times to find tomatoes to buy that actually have a flavour. English ones are the most reliable, but who knows if they'll be available this year? In any case I doubt I'll see any.  

Yesterday I cycled in a new direction and met this 2 day old fell pony (over the wall, at a safe distance):

His show name is Boutime Peaky Blinder but his friends and family call him Tommy.

Then I went on to sit by the river, for legit rest purposes during my daily exercise. I am trying to have my morning coffee as part of my bike ride and walk. This is from Wednesday:

Wishing all of you hope and stamina. And a blackbird within earshot.