Mized trugs and Zingy flowers

The vegetable garden is becoming more productive and the trugs are filling up.  We have lovely Little Gem lettuces, lots of mangetout (which we eat raw in a salad or lightly steamed as a hot vegetable) and a good crop of Charlottes -  which are ‘First Early’ potatoes.  However, these are Late Earlies, if you know what I mean, because of the cold spring.

The radishes needed a bucket rather than a trug to bring them up to the house because we have a glut of them.  I have not mastered the skill of producing just enough of the 'catch crops' when we need them.  I do succession sow radishes but the rows either catch up with each other or one row fails and we have a gap in supply.  I had to pick all those that were ready today, wash them and put them in the fridge because the recent heavy rain is inviting slugs to dinner.  Still, homegrown radishes are much more flavoursome than those you buy so we don't mind pigging out on them for a few days.  They are lovely dipped in salt but we use them as dippers for a greek yogurt, grated cheese and mixed herb dip. 

I expect all the salad onions will be ready at the same time too but they will stand for a while and don’t attract pests.  There are several Lollo Rosso lettuces and a whole row of Webbs Wonderful that will probably bolt before they get to our plates.  I miss the chickens and today there were enough leaves to share with them.......

The baby 'bunching' carrots are those I sowed in pots in the greenhouse, during the late winter and I am very pleased with the results.  We have had 10 generous portions from 2 x 10 inch pots.  I just sprinkled the seed thinly on the surface of peat-free compost, sprinkled extra compost on top and kept the pots watered and fed occasionally.  The taste is sublime and it is a real treat to eat carrots which taste of carrot.  The carrots in the raised bed outside are growing slowly but hopefully we will get larger carrots for the main season which will store for a while.  However, I did not erect a baffle - working on the principle that they were sown very late and the carrot fly will have flown past before the carrots were up and about wafting their scent across the open fields behind us.  Only time will tell, of course.

There are pleasing eyefuls of colour dotted around the garden.  Roses and clematis lift our spirits and this clematis is the gaudiest of all at the moment.  It is called Fireworks and a single flower is bigger than doc’s hand.  They might not be the most sophisticated flower choice but who cares?  We need an overdose of colour after such a long, cold winter and disappointing spring.