Another longest day

Female Broad Bodied Chaser

One of the better things about having kept this blog going for some time is that it's possible to dip back through the years and compare dates. Looking back shows me that this year I am more organised and the garden more advanced than ever before but still I have doubts and disappointments that things aren't looking better.

Last year at this time I'd lifted a crop of over-wintered onions and some garlic. There were no over-wintering onions set last autumn and the garlic was later going in too. It will probably be ready in a month, the elephant garlic perhaps a little sooner. Now the nights are starting to draw in (terrible thought) the summer onions will bulk up. They're not looking too bad at the moment but as usual I haven't planted enough.

Two years ago and I had garlic and broad beans in abundance. Again, the broad beans were started later than usual this year and are only just beginning to make beans so even though the spring allowed for lots of work to be done, it really does pay to get some crops started in the dead of winter.

A whole row of bean seeds have failed, the so-called Jersey bean from HSL, I'm really surprised as the beans were saved at the same time and in the same way as the neighbouring seeds for Royal Red dwarf bean and that row has had 90%+ germination. It's sealed the fate on the Jersey type bean though, I wasn't happy with the provenance and although the beans cooked well if they're of poor fertility they aren't for the home seed saver. I've replanted with some Orca which I hope will quickly catch up.

More cheerfully, the Annabel french beans and the Ice Crystal Wax, which had stalled completely in the dry, have enjoyed the refreshing rains of the last ten days and are now flowering. The courgettes are coming on stream, I already have more than one person can eat, and the climbing beans are sending up their runners.

Here's to the long slow slide into winter.