C was busy this morning in the fruit cage and round the back of the gooseberry bushes. He has been weeding and then trimming back the hedge/trees along the boundary. We cut this hedge right back to ground level maybe 10 years ago and now it's back to 12 feet tall, a mix of Ash, Elder, Blackthorn and Hawthorn. It's taking all the moisture from the raspberries in the fruit cage. We will need to do a proper big cutting back job in the Autumn.
I picked the first Broad Beans for our dinner tonight, another thing to add to the list of fresh food available. The pods are very long but only about 5 beans in each. I noticed some blackfly on the tips of some of the plants so they have been pinched off and destroyed. We will need to keep checking from now on.
The last of the first bed of early potatoes were dug and sold today so C quickly ran the rotavator over the bed, raked it down and we got the Sweetcorn and Leeks out. Some of the leek seedlings I had sown in pots and the others C had sown in the garden. The garden ones looked better. In the space where the leek seedlings were, swede have now been sown. Although they never do well here, it's usually too dry, but we keep trying. We will cover them with fleece later to keep the flea beetle off.
My Cucamelon plants have arrived in the post. They were on offer with seeds from the James Wong Homegrown Revolution collection at Suttons Seeds. I've potted them up so they can get a bit bigger before going into the small poly-tunnel where we had the very early potatoes. Most of the seeds (bargain 50p a packet) are a bit late for this year so will be saved but I have sown the Bergamot. I shall be picking up the James Wong book from the library van on Friday to find out more about the unusual varieties.
Not much excitement here today unless you count a large party of Ipswich ramblers who stopped to look at and discuss everything on the stall ( two came back later by car to buy gooseberries) and the men in the motorised hanging cradle thingies zooming along the high voltage power cables to replace the spacers, presumably power must be off at the moment!. Here is the photo I took in June last year when they did the other side. Plus lots of helicopters rushing about. They didn't look like the big ones Prince Harry piloted when he was based at Wattisham in Mid Suffolk, so I don't know what was going on.
Sold today at the gate;- 1 small cabbage 30p, 2 small heads of calabrese 40p each, 1 pot of Basil £1, 18 boxes of 6 eggs at £1 each and 16 punnets of gooseberries at £1.50. Plus £8 for eggs from 2 regulars who came to collect and £24 for 1 campervan for 2 nights.
Many thanks to blogging friends for comments yesterday, always appreciated.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
