Harvesting...

After a couple of wonderful wet days - yeah I know, strange statement, but the garden and allotment were desperate for a soaking and the front garden water butt was completely empty - today we popped up the allotment. Our onions have been a bit hit and miss so far, probably due to a vole or a mole we think, so J picked up some shallot sets in the bargain box of Poundland, at just 50p a bag we thought a late planting was worth a chance.  So let's see what happens now.

While he was doing that I picked some more cornflowers for the house. They are amazingly abundant this year and even after picking enough for two bunches for our house and another posy for our neighbour there are dozens and dozens left for the bees. The whole row of plants was covered in them and they even landed on the posies as I was cutting them - a really joyful sight and sound to behold and one of the many reasons we have flowers dotted all around the plot and never use pesticides. I made the most of the self-sown chamomile at the edge of the bean bed and added a few stems of that to the posies for contrast and scent too.

Next job was to pick some of the broad beans that are, at last, starting to develop plus some leaves from the chard plants and a few stalks of asparagus, we can truly say we are getting harvests from the plot now and are looking forward to those to come.

Climbing beans , peas and tagetes doing well

Purple Podded Peas and broad beans 

Pea flowers to rival any ornamental

Soon there will be spuds!

Chamomile and Cornflowers