June is a crazy ol' month

One has to go a little bit crazy in June to keep up with the bonkers growth going on everywhere.
Suddenly everything had to be planted out, and space needed to be dug for it to all go in.  Any digging I'd done earlier in the year I was immensely grateful for, but grass and weeds were doing that mad June growth thing as much as the plants, so I had quite a big job on my hands.

Luckily uni was finished for a year, and after half term I didn't have many hours at work, so I had plenty of time to catch up.

First in - runner beans.  These had become beyond a joke and took quite a while untangling them, a bit like Christmas lights but more delicate.  Apparently you can't snap them off in the process or they won't continue to grow, so armed with this information I was mega-careful.  The result was amazingly well brought-on runner beans - instantly climbing and flowering!  Next year we need to be a month later on the seed planting though .

My home compost.  Full of tea bags, egg shells
and tomato seeds that feel the need to
germinate the minute they are released
from the compost bins.

The courgettes were big and wholesome and well beyond the slugs appetite (I do hope those aren't famous last words), and the poor little pumpkins were completely potbound in tiny little pots and were desperate to go out. 

This year I was determined to feed the ground so emptied one of my well rotted compost bins from home and barrowed it over to enrich the soil.  I also took the advice of Dawn & Ed and bought some farmyard manure for £5 from the local farmers co-op.  I forked a load of this in and five hours from when I'd started, I finally planted the courgettes, pumpkins and french beans.

Every single cucumber seed had germinated and they were desperate to be planted in some proper soil, so I planted as many of them along the back walls of the polytunnel as possible and remembering how they love to climb, added some strong sticks and criss-crossed them.

Tomatoes from various sources were also begging for some polytunnel space, so, teeny as they are I whopped them in.  Some are from Tywyn market from May, some from seed grown by Sue, others the gorgeous little orange cherries from my mother, and some were ones that germinated from my home compost, but since I buy mainly cherry tomatoes at home, they will hopefully bear lovely little cherry tom fruit.  Unfortunately I didn't sow any big ugly beef tomatoes this year.

The salad leaves continue to be daily pickable and I can hardly keep up with the spinach production.  Oscar asked me tonight (as I made spinach and chickpea felafel after last nights spinach quiche), why we have to have spinach in absolutely everything at the moment?

The carrots were suddenly in need of thinning.  For weeks I've been pulling up the odd root to find a skinny llittle pale thing at the end and now out of the blue the roots are orange and baby carrot-like, but obviously far too many to be able to grow successfully.  Next year I must be more careful with my carrot seed sowing.  I seem to have a mass in one spot (I do vaguely remember dropping a load of seeds) and many of them are not ever going to be worth eating because they have no room at all to grow.  

Another hour's work and I now have a bowl full of lovely baby carrots to throw into salads or munch on as a snack.  (Actually hard to open the fridge without eating one).

Cute carrots!

 What a difference a mow makes.