Just a couple of things to watch out for - beans and leeks

You may still have some broad bean plants in the ground - keep a sharp eye out for black-fly on them and ruthlessly pinch off any leaves, stem or pods which have any infestation (unless it is very light in which case hose them off) - that applies to other plants too.

When your broad beans have reached the end, don't dig them up, but cut the plants off at soil level as that leaves the roots with their nitrogen-rich nodules in the ground.

Now you can dibber the holes in the empty bean bed and drop your leeks into them (you may need to pull off some over-bushy root to get them to drop right down in). Then don't back fill with soil, just top up the hole to the brim with water.

Early July Harvest

I probed about amongst the roots of a few potato plants about three weeks ago and thought they weren't doing too well (we've had a long dry spell here). Today I took the plunge - or rather the garden fork - and unearthed the first plant of the first row. A variety called Premier - not a bad lot of potatoes from one plant. The other pictures are the rest of tonight's dinner (except for the scarecrow almost lost in the raspberries he's meant to be watching over).

The veggie patch flourishing

With so much sunlight, all the plants have plenty opf growing time, and now that the cold spell is well behing us they all seem to be enjoying life. That cold dry weather back along though has slowed some things up, today I probed under three different varieties of first early potatoes and none of them had anything bigger than a golf ball yet, so better be patient a while longer I think.

The New Summerhouse

Well, even gardeners have to put their feet up, though painting it seemed to take for ever, the wood was very thirsty.

Friends down the road at Picket Lane

Generally speaking, if you can't eat it, I'm not too bothered about growing it, that's not to say though that I don't exploit Mrs Soggy's efforts in the flower garden, I also enjoy the enthusiasm of my friend Neil at Picket Lane Nursery, not far away in South Perrott.

We've just put up a summerhouse, and some plants to soften its new straight edges are called for and so we headed off to Picket Lane. Neil and his family are masterful in plant propagation and even I can see they have some wonderful stuff. I think the veggie influence is rubbing off on him too though. He has made available some of his land for villagers to cultivate allotments, not only are they looking very productive, but Neil now has beehives to help with pollination. Last year in this area some crops, such as broad beans were a bit patchy, with flowers not setting and the bees are Neil's answer.

How many pesticides and insecticides are you eating?

My sister-in-law (thank you) sent me a link to a CNN article examining the level of pesticide residues found on food crops, things such as Celery, Peaches, Strawberries, Apples, Blueberries, Nectarines, Sweet bell peppers, Spinach, Kale and other brassicas, Cherries, Potatoes, Grapes, Lettuce. To find out more have a look, here: CNN "Dirty Dozen"

I grow some of those, and everything I grow is produced organically, so I'm quite happy to eat straight from the garden without washing (the veggies I mean, not me!) Organic farming food production has been around probably since the dawn of agriculture, so our bodies are well adapted to healthily produced food; only time (and lots of it) will tell what the long term effects on our species might be from ingesting pesticides and insecticides. Until we know better the consequences, why take the chance, grow organic if you can and shop organic if you can't grow it.

Bon appetit

Outdoor tomato plants

I always end up with too many seedlings and hate throwing them away, so in addition to the 9 plants in the greenhouse, there are about a dozen outside, here's three of them, variety Ferline, which showed best blight resistance last year.

Cauliflower

Variety Maystar, our first of the year, the leaves eaten with dinner tonight and the cauli itself will make cailiflower cheese tomorrow.

Daffodils at Easter

No finer sign is there, that spring is getting under way, no matter that the weather is finding it hard to let winter go.

Onions and more

The fine netting is protecting over-wintered onions, two types of garlic and autumn sown broad beans (helped along, with gaps filled by spring sown replacements - all Aquadulce Claudia).
In the foreground are more rows of onion sets with bigger mesh netting which is generally succeeding in keeping the mice and other pesky visitors off.
In the background are the potato beds ready to plant them all this Easter weekend. I have prepared trenches, I'll plant the chitted seed potatoes a few inches deep in the bottom of the trenches and then, as they grow, the sides can be pulled in to earth them up.