Gardening & Growing thread

Most seed sowing is now done with only carrots, parsnip & suede to come in the next 10 days. We have harvested autumn planted spring onions, lettuce & brocolli with autumn planted cauliflowers & broad beans to come within 7-10 days ( benefits of a polytunnel). Our first early potatoes will be ready in a couple of weeks. In addition we have the following herbs ready to use - mint, rosemary, bay leaves, sage, parsley & thyme with French tarragon & marjoram available soon.

Outdoor sowing has started with autumn planted onions, garlic & shallots all doing well - these should be ready to harvest around late June/early July. Leeks will be going out this week having been started in the polytunnel. Mid & Late summer vegetables are all in various stages of growth with tomatoes, cucumber, sweet peppers, beetroot, spring planted broad beans & onions, melons, sweetcorn, peas and french beans all doing well. One of our favourite late summer veg - runner beans will be planted this week. 

Spring is a very busy planting time of the year and from now on its usually the watering which keeps us busy. We are very lucky in that we have over 3000 litres capacity stored throughout our garden in butts. If anyone has any questions regardless of how basic you may think it is feel free to ask. If we can answer we will. Growing our own has contributed wonderfully to our lives over the past 15 years health & well being wise. We can strongly recommend it. 

Between you and me Oracle I still have some supplies of liquid morphine from when I had my knee replacement. Obviously thats between you and me. 

My have to rely in my vino stocks

Well how our climate can change. two weeks ago I was complaining above about how spring had been disappointingly cool. Since then we have had an unbroken run of glorious weather, no rain & a forecast taking us through, at the moment, to 8th June with no prospect of any rain and temperatures rising into the mid 20's. Our reserves of captured water are running low so plan B will soon be introduced - we have a stream running through our property & during prolonged dry periods we pump water from this stream to irrigate our plants. Just off to set it up and crack on.