Hot hot hot

Off to plant my sweetcorn.  Squashes went in last week.  Just have winter veg lined up at home now, waiting for beds to be dug ready for them.

Another scorching day in Wales... will it never end?  Yes, apparently on Wednesday, but the word is it's been the driest and sunniest May since records began.  So it's been all about watering and weeding for me on the allotment.  I go over nearly every day, usually in the evening, and between the watering and weeding now comes some harvesting too.  

The Red Russian kale I sowed is delicious and plentiful and is a great veggie barbecue addition mixed with onion, garlic, carrot, breadcrumbs and an egg to make kale burgers. 

The rocket has been plentiful, but is now going to seed already and the chard and spinach have been slow and a bit tougher than normal.  I think it's because it's been so dry.  None of the salad seems as tender as normal.  

I buy my lettuce seeds from Lidl at 29p a packet and they are always reliable and delicious.  These are no exception, but I've lost the packet so can't name the variety.  El Cheapo Lidl variety.  This year I'm going to be all over seed saving for next year.

Chard - plentiful and colourful, but slow and a bit tough. 

My mange tout are up and running.  Going to mulch them up when they've grown about a foot high, then let down the netting suspended from the polytunnel frame.

Runners are mostly up.  Glad I waited til after fear of frost, and thankful that it's such a dry time as there are very few slugs about to feast on them.

This lovely weather has meant that my strawberries are doing really well for the first time ever. There is nothing like the flavour of freshly picked strawberries.  Reminds me of when I was a kid in Hampshire, where there was lots of commercial strawberry growing.  We'd all go strawberry picking as an after school job.  We ate as many as we pcked.  It was always hot and they tasted like bliss.

How can this be?  Even now, when I haven't seen a slug hardly anywhere, when my sunflowers have not been eaten and my lettuce is untouched because it hasn't rained for weeks.... a tiny hole in the side of a strawberry reveals this little bugger when you cut it open.  HOW ANNOYING!!  I asked a lady I know who grows great strawberries and she says - pick them the minute they are ripe.  Go over your plot two or three times a day just to get to them before the slugs.  She's probably right.  But I'm never going to be that organised, so I guess we'll always be sharing our strawberries with the slugs.  Just have to plant more.

I waited til the sweetcorn was good and strong til planting in the middle of the courgette bed.  The weaker ones I've put in  with squashes.  Praying for fabulous weather to continue all summer to grow beautiful squashes and succulent sweetcorn.

This year I'm stepping up my winter veg provision.  As well as leeks, parsnips and purple sprouting broccoli, I'm also growing swede and cabbages and hopefully the kale will keep providing leaves.

Thrilled to see the peas have their first flowers, so now they'll race on as long as I can give them enough water.  Last year's peas were amazing, grown in a no-dig bed with really rough semi-rotted compost, and they loved it - I had an astonishing crop from the wild entanglement of peas.  This year I've tried to be a little more ordered about it, with rows and paths to walk between them.

What a miraculous difference a mow makes.  Still amazed by the joys of the petrol mower I inherited from my next door neighbour when he died last year, and mentally thank him from the bottom of my heart every time I mow the paths on the plot.  

Actually Oscar did it - he doesn't trust me to not destroy the mower!