Not long now...

Until we'll be reaping some of the rewards of all our hard slog over the last few months.

The first early potatoes are starting to flower and this is supposed to be a sign that they're ready. Although when I dug one up I only found 3 tubers...boo! I'll probably have to step up the watering and wait until more flowers have opened.

The peas have started to flower, can't wait for my first pod eaten, there and then! The broad bean flowers are now giving way to tiny little beans, so they'll need more watering too...sigh!

At the weekend we planted 20 replacements for the celeriac seedlings that got munched (an Ebay purchase) and 12 red cabbage plants that I couldn't resist buying at the garden centre the other day. The cabbage plants have been netted against the pigeons and butterflies and plenty of slug pellets put round all of them.

Planting Out

Last weekend was a very productive time on the plots. We dug and weeded the big bed on Plot 85a and I decided to plant the celeriac seedlings (all 36 of them) out into the bed rather than potting them on.
We constructed a sturdy bean frame and planted out the purple climbing french beans and the borlotti beans, which I've forgotten whether they're climbers or dwarf.

Then yesterday we weeded an area on Plot 86 for the courgette plants and introduced them to the real world...

Little and Large

The littlest seeds - Celeriac - have emerged at about the same time as the biggest - Broad Beans - despite being planted a week or so later. I suppose the Broad Beans have a big energy store that they can burst into life as soon as they're given the right conditions.

(You can see the tomato seelings in the background). But that doesn't quite hold true for all legumes as the sweet peas and the edible peas (only just emerging now) took quite a long time to germinate.