Friday 29 May 2015

Photo diary

Not many words but here are some pictures to show how the season is progressing.

wapato in the bath
The Sagittaria latifolia or wapato that Rhizowen sent me are doing well enough, but they'll need bigger quarters if there's to be a crop I think. Still working on that coypu. Maybe I should try one plant as a sacrifice, maybe coypu don't like wapato.

vila vila 3
Most of the vila vila are now in the ground. This one looks a bit starved but I'll pot it on for a few weeks more until I can find a place for it. Nice and spiny isn't it?

houseleeks
Houseleeks looking their best at this time of the year, but these will need splitting and repotting soon. I'm almost tempted into starting a small specialist nursery, then I remember how lazy I am.

seedling walnuts
I thought I'd blogged about the four walnuts we harvested from our poor old tree last year but I can't find it.  There's a pic on the twitter feed here. Anyway, I planted them and these two have germinated. The other two were subjected to vernalisation which I don't think helped much, I'm hoping they'll grow, one certainly has a root but they're not showing any top growth yet.

chives
Chive flowers are looking good but the foliage is a bit rusty. I'm increasing my herb stocks this year and have seedling rue, sage and greek oregano. The giant fennel hasn't come up though.

lavender and marigold
Herby favourites, lavender and an overwintered marigold. The green boxy plant behind is a common myrtle saved by me to and from many locations around the UK and France. I think the original was variegated but no longer. It very rarely flowers or fruits needing an exceptional couple of summers to get there.

wild redcurrants
The self seeded redcurrants are coming along nicely.

Dioscorea japonica
All twelve of the Japanese yam starts have made nice little plants. I'm planning to set them out in the bean trench soon.

tomatoes in final pots
What a difference a month has made to the tomatoes! Now in their final pots, there will be twenty in the greenhouse,  five in pots outside the back door, four under the poly tunnel cloche and four (still in small pots) in the ground if I can find a space for them.

cucs
Two greenhouse cucumbers. I've got one more that I'm going to try outside just because I've run out of space. In the past I've grown a variety called "Long Chinese" from Lidl on trellis outdoors but I couldn't get fresh seed and the old seed failed to show. I'll be looking out for this variety if anyone knows where to get it.

ulluc o
Some of the ulluco waiting for the bed to be made for them. Peru corner is going to look terribly sad this year if something isn't done rather quickly for it.

poly cloche
Tomatoes, melons and weeds under the poly cloche. It's not going to be big enough, it's not going to be big enough at all.

uchiki kuri (bought plant)
I was surprised to find these flowers on the Uchiki Kuri squash. The plant was bought in and is more advanced than the home starts but it still seems very early. Fingers crossed it's not about to turn up its toes and collapse in a heap.

first flowers on epicure
Flowers are now beginning on the Epicure potatoes so I hope we'll be able to take a first crop in a couple of weeks time. I've mulched with some grass clippings to save my back from earthing up but there is a worry it will harbour slugs. It might be better to do the work properly on the main potato bed.

main potato patch



1 comment:

Paul said...

And it is even more wonderful in the "flesh".