Hot!

This week, I planted out the leeks that I have grown from seed. They look a bit sad, but that's not surprising - the weather has been very warm this week, consistently in the low to mid 30s, and it was 23°C at 7am today. Never mind, as long as they are watered regularly they will pick up.

I have been picking a lot of broad beans and peas. Picked at finger size, the broad beans are delicious eaten as mange tout - just cut them up whole and boil them - either as a hot vegetable or cold, just blanched, in a salad. The peas also are delicious hot or cold. I am delighted to say that the pea pods have been well-filled, with 8 - 10 peas per pod, and none have been spoiled by pea moth. This is because I covered them with a very fine mesh, and only took that off a couple of weeks ago after the flowering stage, when the pea moth lays its eggs. The broad beans are covered with a coarse mesh. This is not nearly fine enough to keep off blackfly, but nevertheless, none of the covered beans have been affected, unlike those that are planted 'outside', which have all got heavy infestations.

Runner beans have now reached the top of their supports, and are beginning to flower, so the first ones should be ready in a few weeks. French beans are similar. Early sweetcorn are now knee-high and doing well. Late sweetcorn are still to be planted out. This is because germination was virtually zero, so I wrote to the seed firm who supplied another packet, but this is very late of course, so will depend on us having some warm weather later on. Other things are also coming on apace in the warm weather. I pulled a garlic clove yesterday to see how it was doing - not badly is the answer!