Allotment Booty!

Well we have been home for just over a week now, and I am beginning to catch up with the 'news'!
First job (apart from the mountain of washing) was to visit the allotment. I couldn't wait to see what had changed! I'd already been out to the greenhouse and found the tomatoes bearing masses of fruit and these little lemon ice cucumbers!
I took the tubtrug with me as i thought there may be a few broad beans left to pick, and I needed some potatoes for tea. This was only half of it - it was overflowing by the time I dragged it back to the car. It held potatoes,squash, carrots, broad beans, peas, onions and shallots. We had a delicious frittata for tea using home grown eggs with some french salami and shallots and squash from the allotment. Yummy!

I couldn't carry everything! Look at these beauties! The squashes had escaped onto my neighbours patch and into all the beds adjoining theirs! I had to pick them, although I now wonder if I shouldn't have left them. They have since been utilised into soups, casseroles and rissottos, and some given to friends! They are lovely - very sweet and tasty, much nicer than courgettes.

The growth on the plot is amazing - what a difference 2 weeks makes! I have runner beans and brassicas (not sure what yet, there appear to be at least two cabbages, several sprouts and some purple leaved things, probably purple sprouting broccoli)

Huge onions - pulled up the biggest ones and took them home to dry on the greenhouse staging.

I can't tell where my fruit patch and next doors weeds begin and end (although we have new neighbours now and they have been very busy clearing the weeds!) My marigolds look gorgeous!

I can't believe how much everything has grown!

The sweetcorn is the best I've ever grown - there are loads of cobs very nearly ripe! There is some lovely looking chard there too. Sadly the beetroots and radish have disappeared underneath the marauding squash.

Carrots and parsnips amongst the marigolds. Only a couple of carrots with very minor carrot fly damage.

The whole site is looking amazing - and to think we didn't think we would be able to grow anything but potatoes on it this year!

Square Foot Gardening

That Omlet forum has a lot to answer for! First it was an eglu and 4 chickens; then a second eglu and more chickens; then a veg garden and a serious bid for self sufficiency (well, mabe a bit of veg for dinner at the least). After much huffing and puffing, OH deigned to help me build them and they were ready by mid April - just in time to plant out some peas, runner beans and cucumbers that I'd already started in pots. And in just 3 months - voila!

In the far bed are: sweetcorn, runner beans, peas, courgettes, carrots and leeks.

Middle bed: dwarf french beans (note to self - this means dwarf plants, NOT dwarf beans, so in future do not plant at the back behind the broccoli), broccoli, peppers, spring onions, leeks, tomatoes.

Nearest bed: Assorted planted by my sons and eaten by the snails living in the kniphofia, radish, lettuce, cucumbers and nasturtiums.

I also have potatoes in bags, curly parsley in a window box and more tomatoes in another window box.

Produce so far = plenty of radish and salad leaves, peas, potatoes and one sweet little courgette!

It's a start anyway!