6th July

I'm tired!

Not because I stayed up to watch the football, although I did appreciate the results of both the England game (for my sake) and the Norwegian game (for Issy's sake).

It troubles me that I will never hear the last of it from Issy's family if it goes against us next Saturday! 🤦‍♂️

The reason that I am tired is because I've been trying to start work on the field super early in this hot weather so it has now been a long day 😎

When I was at school, the answer to that from a teacher's perspective was simple - put on a betamax or video and sit back and snooze. I'm going to do something similar, and go heavy on the photos.

Let's start with microgreens. I messed up in the last heatwave and cooked these in the polytunnel. I now start them off to germinate in a tray in the garden, with another overturned tray on top. Two days in the dark, then off to the polytunnel once they have started to germinate. I sowed this batch on Thursday.

They looked like this on Saturday

And like this today

We will have a good offering on Friday

But the star addition this week has to be this guy

The first ripe tomato this year but there are lots closely following, so these are back on the website this week

They room with cucumbers, which are also really taking off.

Full size

Mini

And weird!

I believe that these are a variety called Marketmore. The seeds I had planted were a variety called Akito!!!

More research to be done but you need to shave the spikes off before eating

We won't sell these as our normal offering, maybe just have them at the Lido - unless I get any special requests

Runner beans have started, but not many so far, so we will hold them back for another week

French beans are growing well

As are the climbing beans

They are both now on the website with a description of "green beans"

I have mentioned before that in my humble and biased opinion, our vegetables are the best you can get locally, especially as I have just seen that one of the main box suppliers is still using Spanish beans and tomatoes. 😒

However, I also believe that we can only ever be second best to vegetables grown in people's own garden or allotment. I seriously recommend giving courgettes a try, especially if you are encouraging the kids to do some growing. These things grow like crazy (even faster than weeds!), and also look spectacular! The yellow variety (Gabriella) are proving to be very popular

Even more vigorous are squash, and we already have a jungle even though the squash themselves are still very small

I also need to mention our beetroot which is proving to be very popular, and apparently is so good for you (not good for a white t-shirt though as I found out the hard way 🤦‍♂️)

I am worried that we may have a barren patch when the current crop runs out, but the next crop is working hard, and won't be too far behind

Final mention goes to our rainbow chard, which is also proving to be so popular. I cut these to the roots two weeks ago and they have already grown back!

I was once told that the more colours you have in your diet, the better it is for you! Try this fireworks variety! 😎