It's all about weeds... and carrots.

What a horror of chaotic awfulness awaited me when I finally made it over to the plot after far too long today.  Having worked through most of the great weather and had more pressing things to to do like tax returns recently, I found the weeds were trying to take control of the situation in the polytunnel and outside it.

The pepper plants had disappeared beneath a blanket of weeds, the onions were indiscernible from the grass  and the parsnips were lost.

The weed piles just grew and grew today as I reacquainted myself with my veg.

Five knackering hours later I had managed to reacquaint myself with my veg. Inside the tunnel I found my rocket was in full flower, the spinach had finished it's life of lusciousness and developed brown spots on the leaves, the parsley had called it a day finally and gone to seed, and my chard was tough but tasty and now needed cooking to appreciate.

Brown spots on spinach leaves... time to seed some more
(3 weeks ago would have been preferable but better
late than never)

The good news is the tomatoes are looking good - pinching them out  between the stems has paid off and once weeded they are not crazily overgrown bushes, I can still walk between them with care and I was thrilled to see not only heaps of flowers but my first two pea-sized baby tomatoes.  The varieties got a bit confused since I was rubbish at labeling them, but at least one has hefty double petaled flowers which I'm presuming are going to turn into fabulous lumpy beef tomatoes.

Little darlin's!  First tomatoes appearing.  These I think are
cherries toms - orange and sweet.

The sweetcorn is strong and above knee height, the peppers are slow-growing but bushing out and healthy enough, but the real success story so far this year has got to be the carrots.  What total beauties they are.  I'm still thinning them out and the thinnings are mainly straight, decent sized and oh so tasty. I've pretty much thinned them so that the remainder I can leave in to grow into big healthy chaps.

Sweetcorn...

Peppers...

And these are just the thinnings... 

When I'd finally revealed my parsnips I set about taking the advice of Ed Hughes, my experienced parsnip-growing friend, who told me I must be utterly ruthless and thin them out to six inches apart.  He reckons if I do this I'll end up with parsnips as broad as a strongbow can! (the nearest example to hand at the time).

Looking forward to my super-fat
parsnips.  Brutally thinned to become the size of
a beer can!

The onions were next, and my hands are sore from being a human hoe as I tore the weeds from the poor strangled plants.  Disappointingly, they're not swelling wonderfully, not the ones I planted from sets or less surprisingly the ones I grew from seed.  Unlike the onions Sue planted in November which I thought would never survive - they are big and fat and look like they'll turn into prize-winners!

Slightly disappointing onions - one is about to flower already.  What did I do wrong??

The runner beans are running, the mange tout are climbing a bit pathetically up the pea netting, but the broad beans are fantastic, and despite high winds are undamaged and I have now tied them up with string (I'm such a novice - who knew you were supposed to tie them up?  Every gardener on the planet, that's who!)

Splendid broad beans - pods appearing..

The celery I planted last year which came to nothing is lush and verdant this year, but upon spying the small, ground-hugging bushes, John, (the great gardener from whom I inherited the polytunnel) pointed out that they needed to be in tubes so that they had to grow upwards to the light and the stalks would remain white and well, celery-like.  Aha!  So that's what those lengths of drainpipe laying around the allotment are for!

So, next jobs - more weeding and hopefully soon, with a bit of nice weather I'll be harvesting stuff to feed my family.  Because that's what it's all about really.