Pea tendrils

I've been photographing my peas in close-up (rather than weeding!) - they are very beautiful : )

Gardeners' friend

Click for bigger - look at his little face! : )

Summer harvest begins...

Last night I brought home my first half-decent harvest from the allotment. I got a good handful of broad beans, cornsalad, perpetual spinach, and new potatoes. Yum!
Hopefully, from this point onwards, with a bit of careful planning, I'll have a fairly continuous supply of goodies...

The other day I picked a big bagful (is that a word?) of juicy cherries from a tree in a park just outside town. The park also has a few plum trees - I'm eagerly awaiting the fruit from those as they were very sweet and tasty last year. They were early too - along with some wild cherries they made a fine "June jam".

Mystery plant...

I found this plant growing in some woods near to my allotment, and wondered if it might be some kind of currant or gooseberry. What do you think?

Carrots!

Today I harvested my first (mini) carrots of the year : )



They were just thinnings really. But they were tasty!

May Blossom

Last night I went out with a friend collecting May Blossom (Hawthorn) for winemaking. The recipe I have is for a dry white (using white blossom) or a rose (using pink blossom). We really wanted the pink variety, but it only seems to grow in peoples gardens!

Hawthorn is a very useful (and very common) shrub. The young leaves and buds are good in sandwiches. You can make wine with the flowers, and eat them in salads. The Haws (fruit) can also be used for winemaking, and preserved in other interesting ways such as by making fruit leathers (experiments to follow!).

Yesterday was a really good allotment day.

First thing, I got a text from a workmate, saying "I left glass cutting on your front door" (he meant grass, which I later used to mulch my potatoes).

Then I went to pick up a wheelbarrow from Freecycle, which turned out to be very useful as I spent much of the day transporting woodchips to my plot in order to make paths between my (sort-of) raised beds. I now need a gate - lifting a full wheelbarrow over a fence goes against allotment health and safety regulations. Probably!

I also, recklessly perhaps, bought a push-mower and attempted to mow the "lawn" (space on my plot reserved for barbeques etc). Hmmm...

My last aquisition of the day was an old shelf unit, which I snaffled from the skip to use in my greenhouse : )

Here's a pic of my first early potatoes, which I'm growing in an old water tank thingy (click to view bigger):