Potatoes, beetroot and flowers

Spent 4 hours at the allotment today, mostly weeding, drinking coffee, talking to a couple of our neighbours and looking at all the gorgeous flowers. I dug up some potatoes, the leaves were turning yellow with brown spots, is it blight? Who knows. Just to be on the safe side I dug them up and will be having some for dinner tonight.

Shelley gave me some strawberry plants so I put them in where the potatoes had been.

I put some others in pots in case Seamus thinks they can go somewhere else on the plot, otherwise he and Paulene can take them home if they want them, I took four home.

It was quite nice and sunny with enough cloud to give some shade from the heat, and there were quite a few people there today, probably the most I've seen.

Here are some pics from today, a lot are of flowers from our plot and the ones around us.

Courgettes looking good..

Bindweed has such a beautiful flower...

One of our neighbours has some fantastic looking corn. Much further along than ours...

And their chard looks gorgeous too...

I had a visitor today, very cute little bird hung out with me most of the afternoon...

The sweetest peas

There's no nicer way to eat a pea than to pick a pod in the morning sunshine and eat the peas raw when they're young and sweet. Delicious!

I went to the allotment this morning and sat for a while, amazed how everything had grown so much since the heavy rain during the week. The ground was dark and wet, unfortunately the weeds had benefited too. I spent about an hour weeding, clearing grass and some nastursiums that were crowding the peas and beans.

I thinned some of the beetroot, we really need to thin all of it, but we really don't have any more room. So maybe we'll just have small beetroot instead. 

Some of the peas still aren't doing well, maybe they went in too late? 

Our jalapenos are doing really well, better than the plants I have at home anyway.

Beans are looking good, they're all climbing high up the bamboo poles and flowering well.

Here's a photo of nettle mountain! It scares me everytime I look at it...

Delicious leaves

I'm not going to buy any salad this week...I am going to eat only the delicious leaves from the allotment. I think my favourite are the nastursiums, they are so peppery and unusual. And we have an abundance, so I'll be eating a lot over the next weeks!

Everything is growing so fast. I spent a couple of hours on Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon at the plot and even overnight some things had grown more.

Much of my time was spent weeding with our handle-less hoe! Slightly back breaking and always monotonous, but very essential.

I also planted some more salad and some radishes. It is salad weather after all!

I've just been looking back at my photos from the past 3 months since we got the plot. I can't believe the transformation, and I think we can be very proud of what we've achieved in such a short time: