Another nice weekend with warm and sunny weather. I finally finished tidying up the large conifer next to my shed. It does take up quite a bit of space but provides shade for the salad beds and partially hides the shed from the roadside. Beacause of the dry weather everything needs watering, sometimes twice a day! Some of the mizuna and pak choi in pots i have planted out to give them a better chance. Sunday was another hot and sunny day, too hot to work too hard so i sowed some fresh poppy seeds, pricked out the echinaea seedlings and put up some netting for the kids peas. then it was a rare time to put my feet up and have a snooze in the sun.

All the trees and plants attrct a variety of wildlife from insects, birds, frogs, toads and even rats! They come through from the chicken pens. I dont mind them too much but they do make you jump. There are plenty of birds nesting and feeding nearby. This baby coal tit was taking a rest in the trees

You can never have enough pictures of clouds and sunsets. Nothing more to say. Let the picture speak for itself

Finally, these are 'charlotte' potatoes that were grown in pop up bags. These were planted 8/3, three seed potatoes per bag on 4" of compost and covered with 2" they slowly filled up as the shoots grew. I was very impressed by how many were in the bag when i emptied out though i did notice the soil was very dry. So even with good watering they didn't rot and they grew well.

Charlotte

On Tuesday i emptied the bag of 'Nicola' potatoes and these gave a similar result, 1 1/2- 2lbs of new potatoes. On Wednesday it was 'Juliette' potatoes. The weather turned very wet and windy and they were in danger of damage, well thats my excuse anyway. I love new potatoes! The weather stayed cool and cloudy for Thursday but managed to plant out lupins into nursury bed, fennel and chard next to the peas. Harvested spinach, spring onions, turnips and radich for salads. I needed to build some kind of windbreak around the asparagus as they were in danger of damaging the crowns. The next to be tried was the 'Belle de Fontenay' of all the varieties tried so far these are my favourite. They have a nice old fashioned taste and hold their shape well quite sweet too.

Juliette

Belle de Fontenay