This week in the Kitchen Garden, we will be starting to harvest our early potatoes. These were planted way back at the end of March. They have flowered and the haulms are now turning brown. There is nothing quite as good as the taste of freshly dug new potatoes – a delicious meal just by themselves.
We will also be harvesting out first broad beans. This is later than we would normally expect to be picking them, which is probably down to the changeable weather. However they are looking very healthy and the pods are fat with the promise of delicious beans. I can’t wait!
Last week we harvested our garlic. It has suffered from rust and was not looking in good form so it was dug up. This has now left a welcome space to plant out a new crop. In the cold frame we have lengths of guttering planted up with peas that have begun to appear. This week we will be digging over the soil and adding some well rotted manure.
Our Pea Support Frames will then be assembled ready for planting.
The battle against the snail continues and I think we will be fighting it all season, so we will be out picking them off the box hedging after rainfall. We have managed to avoid any serious plant damage with our regime so far. We had great success with Slug Halt in our salad maxi manger and elsewhere the organic slug pellets are keeping our enemies under control.
The big fruit harvest continues this week. Last week we picked a mountain of strawberries and have been trying all sorts of recipes to put them to good use – my favourite so far was strawberry yoghurt ice cream. Summer raspberries, tayberries and blueberries are all about to ripen so I have a feeling a summer pudding will be hitting the dining table very soon...
