Plums!

Our plums are ripe at the moment. It has been a really great year for plums, plenty of large, sweet plums that are completely free of maggots this year. This year, I just didn't get around to setting a sticky plum moth trap in the tree, but it seems it didn't matter! These will be eaten quickly!

Just have a look at the effect that the shortening days have made to these onions. On 20th June they were straight, as above.

and as the plant senses that the days are getting shorter, they start to store energy for the Winter. These Bedfordshire Champion onions were planted as seeds on Boxing day!

The Bishops Kiss chillis are just starting to set. Lovely, big, healthy plants in the greenhouse.

These are a brand new variety of cucumber which I am growing in the greenhouse. Delizia cucumbers are new this year from Medwyns of Anglesey. A short, pale green cucumber which is closely related to a melon. I look forward to seeing these grow.

These Crimson Flowered Broad Beans are in full production at the moment. A brilliant crop without a single infestation of blackfly. As with the lack of maggots in the plums above, I wonder if the very cold Winter has knocked back a lot of the pests? I've not known a year like it.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

This week sees Britain's largest flower show at Hampton Court. It is ENORMOUS! You are hard pushed to go all the way around in just one day. A stout pair of walking boots and regular refreshments are called for. Matron stopped for afternoon tea at the Palace Tea Rooms.

I was thrilled to see so many talented artists and sculptors a the show. I dare not buy anything precious for my London garden, thefts in suburban gardens are frequent and brutal. I would have loved this little robing sitting on a fork! The Grow Your Own area at the show demonstrated how you can position colourful vegetables in your flower border!! grrr. Certainly very pretty and ingenious. But I am left wondering whether there is a class issue here? Perhaps having a beautiful mixed border in your garden is seen as the preserve of the middle and upper classes, and the productive allotment is seen as the preserve as the working class man! Am I raising a contentious issue here?

You can pop in a few cabbages, swiss chard, pak choi or purple climbing beans in your flower border. I wonder if this is what new gardeners aspire to when they make the decision to try and grow their own veggies at home? The GYO Marquee however was fantastic!

My old friends from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight were appropriately rewarded with a RHS Gold Medal for their display.

A beautiful display and demonstration on how to string garlic. If you ever find yourself on the Isle of Wight, be sure to take a visit and try their unusual 'garlic ice cream'....

Experienced visitors to the Hampton Court show came prepared with these wheeled boxes to carry home their purchases! They were a bit of a nuisance among the crowds, I very nearly tripped over several times.

Anyway, Matron kept her purchases to a minimum. A wonderful selection of stalls and shops on display here. Tasteful and interesting.

This purchase was right up my street! I saw it and knew straight away I had to have it!

Peas and Beans

Absolutely no problem getting my 5 portions of fruit and veg every day! My favourite eating pea is Hurst Greenshaft. Here I find I get plenty of peas in each pod, and they stay tender and sweet even if you can't pick as regularly as you'd like.

And here are my first pickings of my Buddy Morris memorial vegetable patch! You might remember that I am growing a selection of veggies which have 'black' in the name. Well, here are the first pickings of my courgette 'Black Beauty'. Buddy adored eating courgettes! Happy memories!

These runner beans 'Salford Black' are nearly ready as well. I've not grown these before, but they have a dark strip on the outside of the bean. When the beans develop and dry they are jet black and beautiful!

These dwarf French beans 'Royalty' are just starting to set. They are very heavy croppers and you can see here they have beautiful purple flowers. There are masses of flowers on these plants. It's going to be a good year!

Now, I tried the 3 Sisters in earnest this year. Three crops which you can plant in the same spot and do not compete with each other, having different growth habits - these are squash, sweet corn and runner beans. Well, I have found that these runner beans don't know where to run! I thought they would find their way up the sweet corn stems, but they have run all over the patch! I had to poke some tall bamboo sticks in the ground this morning to show them where to go! The sweet corn is about 3ft tall, but the runner beans are 5ft already!

These lovely leeks are flowering all over the place! From the same packet of leeks, F1 hybrid Oarsman, have come two different colours of flowers, purple and white. I wonder if The F1 crossing is between these two varieties? Whatever the reason, the bees adore them, and they are flying into my veggie patch just in time to pollinate the pumpkins!