Good Friday

The garden is looking lovely in all this glorious sunshine. We have been cracking on with the veg - the lettuce and salad leaves are in, as are the courgettes, carrots, broad beans and sweetpeas. There are lots of promising looking blossoms on the strawberries, and the mint is riotous (of course).  The tomatoes are coming along beautifully behind glass, and it's Good Friday today so the 'tatties will be going in tomorrow - not an old wives tale I'm reliably informed, but related to the lunar calendar...

Meanwhile, I've been taking study breaks from my 'Fin de Siècle' and 'Race and the Victorians' essays to tackle the thistles in the lawn with my trusty fork - most satisfying!

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Closer and closer to harvest time

We've been already enjoying the sugarsnaps, spinach and the rocket - and the strawberries and raspberries didn't last long en route from plant to mouth. 

We're just waiting for the tomatoes and the runnerbeans.

The Boy does a daily tally and breaking news flash for me - today there were 39 incipient tomatoes on the vine: we're trying Costoluto Fiorentino this year, strange beasts, ridged and squat like a squash, as you can see.

Also, we have an abudance of plums, which in previous years have dropped off long before now, so fingers crossed.

The runners are looking gorgeous, but no beans in sight yet. Closer and closer to harvest time, very exciting! 

A green thought in a green shade

Droplet
Originally uploaded by mindofbutterfly

Lots of summer induced activity in the garden.

The plants are gorging on current sunshine and recent rains.

The mangetout are in bloom, promising a luxuriant harvest - daily, we tally up and revel in the abundance. The strawberries are heavy, bowed to the earth, with hard green fruit tinged, slowy but ever so promisingly, with red blush. The raspberry bush, planted in a fit of optimism three years ago, is finally coming into its own and I imagine juicy red fruit come the autumn - not enough for jam, but enough to eat greedily straight from the branch. The tomatoes grow and grow and grow, sucking up water diligently applied to the roots and reaching for the sky. The runner beans have escaped from their 6ft wigwams, and as I write, are making for the roof.

All in all, "a green thought in a green shade" as Marvell says, and plenty of promise.

Urban garden

Stepping out into the garden in the early morning is sheer joy these days. The combination of sunshine, warm and heavy rain has left the greens lush and the seedlings flourishing.

It makes me happy, in a simple way.

This year, the raised beds so far play host to:

• Strawberries - these tend to go straight in my mouth and never make it to anything more sophisticated like fruit salad or jam
• Sugar snap peas - just think of the lovely crisp bite of a straight-from-the-vine bright green bean...
• Spinach - seems to grow like a weed, we are double sowing for a longer harvest
• Rocket, lambs lettuce, corn lettuce - to save on supermarket bagged salad, yuck
• Beetroot - recipes welcome, please, as I am not a fan but The Boy is
• Chives, parsely and mint - the mint is taking over, quick, better make some Pimms or some fresh mint tea

And, germinating nicely in the shed, are:

• Coriander and basil - it's great to have a proper shed for the more tender herbs
• San Marzano and Costoluto Fiorentino tomatoes - looking very promising, they are onto their first real leavs and are almost ready to upgrade to bigger pots
• Gardener's Delight tomatoes - worryingly, nothing showing yet...
• Runner beans
• Butternut squash - again, not a whisper of life, so fingers crossed.

This morning, I also listened really hard to the early everything-waking-up noises. I experimented wth sound recording on the iPhone, so you can listen too. (Audio file is MP4 on GoogleDocs and can be listened to in iTunes - if anyone knows a better way, please say, as this method is very roundabout!)

You can hear:

• The A12
• The Stansted flightpath
• Birds singing - I wish I could recognise what they are from their song, I only know I have seen blackbirds, wood pigeons, starlings, a robin and yellowtits
• Birds taking flight
• A neighbour's baby

Not bad for urban London at 9am on a Saturday!

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Fruits of our labours

Feeling very rewarded as fruits of our labours begin to be ready for harvest... and yes, more than one person has commented on how we seem to be morphing into The Good Life (1970s sitcom featuring a perhaps misguided attempt at self-sufficiency in suburbia) which is fine by me, as long as I can be Barbara (as opposed to Margot). Enjoy!

In praise of beans on toast

These big fat juicy broad beans came in this week's veg box from Abel and Cole (our driver's name: Orville). I was stuck for ideas, until the Boy flippantly suggested dip.

Goldmine!

I blanched the wrinkly white beans in salty boiling water, then whizzed them up with olive oil, a splash of lemon and liberally seasoned with coarse ground black pepper and chilli flakes.

Perfect on a slice of toasted honey-and-ale bread, crafted by the Boy's own fair hands.

My boyfriend loves the garden more than he loves me

Eccentric weather conditions - lashing rain, tropical sunshine and freak bouts of humidity have turned the garden rampant.

We have glorious flowers: stargazer lilies opening white petals flashed through with pink, abundant perfumed white roses, delicate purple clematis clinging on to the trellis in the random gusts of wind coursing up the passageway.


The veg patch - annexed by The Boy as his own fiefdom - has suddenly become exciting. Red buds promising runners beans have taken over the vines, which outgrow their supporting canes as rapidly as we construct them. I've also been feasting on ripe, sweet homegrown strawberries. The pumpkins have escaped the beds and are valiantly making for the other side of the garden, uncurling fresh trendrils everyday. We're in danger of being taken over!

So far, so edible!

I am also reliably informed that we are two weeks ahead of our competitor veg growers in Manchester, which makes us smug! Sorry, Aged Parents!

Down at the bottom of the garden, among the birds and the bees

Developments in the veggie patch:

• The salad leaves are rampant, thanks to the warm, wet weather, and growing faster than we can eat our way through the bounty
• The squash and courgette plants grow higher and higher, succulent Triffid-like monsters - embryo blossoms are starting to form, fingers crossed for some sunshine to coax them out
• The runner beans are a bit weedy but making concerted efforts to twirl themselves up the canes
• The strawberries are looking promising, more buds showing everyday - the cage was carefully constructed after an eye-witness saw a pesky squirrel making himself right at home in amongst the babies
• Peas (out of shot) are looking luscious, with six or seven fat little pods already
• And there's a veritable forest of broad beans

Here's hoping for a goodly harvest!

All construction efforts courtesy of The Boy: he has the necessary survival skills for a post-oil Apocalyptic world, for which today's transport strike has shown I am pitifully equipped.

He's coming with me - when the time comes, we'll head for the hills, and he can build us a raft ... and maybe a fort ... and maybe a wind-turbine.