Everything's Growing!

Almost every day things are growing and ripening. That is one of the joys of growing your own veg, you can go down to the allotment and something has changed since yesterday. These 'Tigerella' tomatoes were a freebie with Grow Your own magazine this Spring. They are so lovely to look at. Awaits the taste test.

My runner bean hedge is taking over the world right now! With all this rain and sunshine over the past few weeks, the bean wigwams are about 8 or 9ft tall. I have about 8 different varieties of climbing beans. These 'Eden' are clearly the first to reach edible size. They have a lovely creamy white flower, these beans appear to be a smooth flat bean. First one has been eaten! completely stringless and very tender.

This butternut squash has been romping away! Every day it gets bigger and bigger. I have been foliar feeding all my squashes and pumpkins this year, following the advice of the vegetable growing guru Medwyn Williams. I still have some liquid manure left, from my stinging nettle soup.. I have been feeding the leaves with a very dilute mixture. Quite hard in the current conditions because it rains about 10 times a day at the moment!

Summer Pudding!

It's that wonderful time of year when all the soft fruit seems to be ripening all at once. The blueberries lend themselves to just snacking in the garden as they seem to ripen about one berry per day. Blueberry bushes require at least one other blueberry bush in order to pollinate its flowers. If you have one blueberry bush on its own, the chances are that it is not doing well.

Raspberries are a fantastic gourmet treat! I have a small selection of Spring, Summer and Autumn fruiting plants and I look forward to more treats. You must keep your raspberries well watered, well mulched particularly in the hot Summer. Raspberries do much better in Scotland because it's cooler and wetter up there!

Loganberries are an extremely prolific crop. Not as popular as the other Summer fruit as they are quite tart or sharp if eaten raw. They are wonderful just lightly cooked with sugar. My favourite thing to do is to make a 'loganberry fool' with a mixture of cream and gelatine.

Blackcurrants seem to come all at once. If left to become properly black they need very little sugar at all, but I do not have a sweet tooth - you may like to sweeten them. When I was a little girl I loved to make a lovely sweet sorbet using the blackcurrant leaves. Just boil up a handful of leaves and make a thick sugar syrup, and freeze it. It is divine - try it!

My pheromone trap has kept nearly all the codling moths out of my plum trees this year. Not a very big crop, but the individual plums this year are huge. Just starting to ripen in the last few days, they are so sweet and juicy. You will never get anything like this in the supermarket.

Sadly, I do not have any photos of my gooseberry 'Invicta' - I have had about a dozen very sweet ripe fruit this year. Again, you will never buy a sweet, ripe gooseberry in the supermarkets. They pick them unripe for stewing.

Finally, all of the above will be finding their way into an English Summer Pudding in the next few days. Take a 2 pint deep pudding bowl and line it thickly with thick sliced white bread, custs cut off. Overlap the bread so there are no gaps. Lightly stew a selection of Summer fruit, NO WATER, just fruit and sugar. Cook in a saucepan or microwave till soft and allow to cool. Pour the fruit into the bread-lined bowl and then top with a layer of bread. Weight this down with a plate on top, and leave in the fridge for at least 24hours (48 is better). You will find that the juice soaks into the bread, and the starch in the bread thickens the juice. Turn out onto a plate and eat with cream.

The Big Pig Manure Debate!

Yesterday I visited a smallholding in Bedfordshire. I have found a fantastic source of fresh chicken, pork and lamb. I know where the animals were kept, I know the place they were killed and I met their parents.... I visited a shed full of Berkshire piglets yesterday, and behind the shed was an eye watering HUGE pile of well rotted stable manure from pigs. The farmer was only too delighted at the thought of getting rid of some of it. Living in London, I cannot get enough of it.

Here's the dilemma. My Sister said that pig manure isn't really suitable for gardens because pigs are omnivores, they eat proteins and the manure is not the same as horses and cows who are vegetarian. Apparently these pigs are free to wander round a field and their diet is supplemented with "pellets". Can anyone shed some light on this mucky matter?