Yes, these two have been keeping me pretty busy at home! I've had them for a week and they are so brilliant, hours and hours of fun. Their names are Boris and Poppet, brother and sister, they were born to a stray at a vets just across the road from the allotment. I heart them.
I've also been away a lot - Cannes, Helsinki and Ireland. A big thank you to James and Seamus for watering the allotment while I was away. I don't know what I would've done if they hadn't put in a lot of hard work for me, thank you!
I've been back for 2 weeks now and have been up to the lottie as much as possible. Its just amazing up there, everything is growing so well. I've been harvesting and picking as much as I can and freezing lots of soft fruit. The strawberries were fantastic and all the currant bushes have produced delicious fruit this year. The rhubarb is still going strong too. Other high points have been potatoes, chard and all the other leafy greens - cavelo nero and kale.
I also have some parsnip seedlings! Whoop! And I'm very proud to say that this year I have finally managed to grow carrots!
Low points are the cauliflowers, I managed to grow 6 gorgeous strong plants with perfect curds developing but then I think they had just had too much heat and the curds started to 'flower' - long white shoots so not very tidy. I picked one and it was delicious, but I think I might only get one good one out of six. I've covered the head of the good one with a leaf so the sun can't get to it. I don't know if this will work but fingers crossed. Also all my lettuce and spinach went to seed while I was away which is a bit of a shame but not the end of the world, I've sown more. The sunflowers haven't been great either. The name on the packet said Giant but there was nothing giant about the plants that grew! It has been very hot and dry for weeks and weeks so I think everything has take a bit of a beating this year. My runner beans have been badly hit by some sort of black fly and I'm not sure if I'll get many beans.
An very good family friend Naomi has been visiting us from Japan, she's in London now doing a garden design course at Hampton Court Palace. I brought her to the allotment last weekend to show her how we grow our veg in London.
As I mentioned, the soft fruit has been great this year. I picked the most beautiful red and white currants the other day, they looked like jewels.
I made a soft fruit tart with the red currants, some raspberries from the lottie and some from the market to fill the gaps!
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