It's starting to look more productive in the veg garden, don't you think?
The male flowers are starting to emerge from the sweetcorn stems. As they blow around in the wind, the pollen will drop onto the female flowers below and hopefully pollinate the plants - the female flowers are those silky tassels that come out of the end of the cobs.
I'll start to thin out the parsnips now that they have germinated and the radishes will soon be ready to eat so they'll be coming out shortly to give the parsnips room to grow.
Since I've stopped cutting the asparagus, the bed is now a mass of ferns, Midsummer's Day was officially the end of the asparagus season. The ferns will feed and replenish the crowns to prepare them for cropping again next year.
The celery is slowly coming along, both varieties, Victoria and Loretta are self blanching which means there's no need to earth up the plants.
Baby pumpkins and squashes are hiding under the plants which are already trying to escape their bed. I've seen somebody wind the plants around the main stem to keep them contained but mine seem to have a mind of their own.
Kale, PSB, brussels, chard, beetroot, French beans and borlotti beans have all been planted out and are growing well as are the seeds that were sown direct (swede, carrots, fennel, coriander and dill). The yellow chard in the bottom photo is self set. One year I left the plants to go to seed and now I've got chard popping up all over the place!
I harvested the first of the courgettes over the weekend, the first few always seem to take ages but then after a few weeks you only have to blink and there's a courgette the size of a marrow! The round ones are called Yellow Ball and are great for stuffing and baking whole.
I'm not holding out much hope for any globe artichokes this year. The new plants arrived the other week and I think it's fair to say that pitiful is a good description. I'd have been far better buying some more seeds and growing them myself. One has already died and the others I'm keeping in the greenhouse until they look a bit hardier. Not exactly the garden ready plants I was hoping for - I'd love to know where Monty got his fabulous plants from, if anybody knows please let me know!
