All a bit behind, I’ve had sprout and calabrese plants under cover in pots really wanting to be planted out for weeks, one day it might stop raining to allow me to do something with them. I won’t mention all the various cabbage plants, maybe something for later on.

On a rare sunny day I spent a bit of time in the evening to put the plants out. I used some of the old raised bed pallet collars from last year, not as raised beds but for something to help with the netting. I was going to just cover the top with netting but the plants were already too tall, so I used bamboo sticks to raise it up a bit and tucking the bottom under the collers.

While I was there I checked the beetles and noticed the covered carrots had a number of beetles on the netting not able to get in. It seems covering them was the right thing to do, uncovering them the other week was the wrong thing! Hopefully all the newly sowed carrots will soon start to show.

I dug some more potatoes and picked a load of raspberries.

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Still raining… Time to pull up the garlic having planted it six months ago and a lot of it has died back and suffering from rust. I wasn’t too surprised when the harvest wasn’t that impressive, the rust came quite early and over winter we didn’t really have many cold frosty days. A lot of the plants died back quite early. Upon pulling up we chucked out only two bulbs which had not developed at all, the rest had mostly not split into separate cloves which is what I thought might be the case. Not to worry as it is all still usable. Last year I laid if out on the plot to dry out but with yet another day with rain I decided to bring it all home and dry outside undercover. It is suggested lots of sun and very hot days coming our way which would be nice

By the time the weekend came it was suddenly summer and long super hot days we have been waiting for arrived. With so many plants will in pots waiting to go the plot, I arrived just before 7 in the morning with the aim of planting out everything that looked like a plant and was still in a pot or a plug tray.

The morning started with watering before the sun got too strong, followed by hoeing and weeding. A check on the carrots, no more beetles and I think I saw some of the seed I sowed the other week starting to appear. Likewise a check on parsnips and no beetles, plus a lot of new growth from what were pretty much destroyed plants the other week. The same for celeriac which was starting to hit the top of the netting. A check on courgettes, butternut squash and pumpkins and while they are all looking fine they have all yet to really get going, hopefully the sunny days now will sort that out.

Things that went in today:

• a bit more red cabbage
• white cabbage
• more radish (most of the last sowing went to seed)
• leeks (so many left to plant out. As soon as I dig up potatoes I put down some leeks)
• marigolds

Things I took home:

• millions of strawberries, nearly 1kg which must mean we have reached the top of these harvests
• first lot of beetroot, small ones from multi-sowing. I prefer slightly bigger ones and so I’m sure next time I’ll single sow
• more turnips (had them later on in the day roasted for tea with the beetroot)
• rhubarb (still pulling small bits)
• gooseberries (first lot ever of small red berries)
• raspberries (some big ones)
• salad leaves (pulled on plant up as it had gone to seed)
• potatoes (pulled just one plant with nearly 1kg)
• broad beans (still over winter ones, keep thinking we have picked the last ones and the next week there are still more)
• chilies

A very busy morning which by the time I left it was cloudy but very hot. I replanted the purple sprouting and kale into pots (from the plug tray), and re-potted the tiny swede plants from small plugs to bigger ones. A slight accident at home meant some of the pots fell off the shelf, hopefully I was able to rescue most of them.

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