Summer has finally arrived :)

Wow, what a difference three consecutive days of sun make, especially when there is the prospect of more to come.  We were all beginning to wonder what the strange yellow ball was in the sky and then something from the depths of our memories began to come back to us.... Warmth, light, SUN!

We spent a good three hours today tending to Doug's needs (some of us more enthusiastically than the others!)  

Purple Haze Carrots

Supper!

I pulled up a few more carrots - strangely two more were displaying the split root feature of the first one we harvested. However, these were at least edible and one of them was definitely a Purple Haze.  The area is crawling with red and black ants (I disturbed at least four nests with plenty of eggs being hurriedly transported back underground by concerned adults.) I also thinned out the turnips, swede and beetroot so we had a good selection of root veg in general to add to our supper.

Pink Fir Apples & one Purple Majesty

Two meals of peas ready to go

Phil dug up the last two rows of potatoes and we came away with a rather nice haul of Pink Fir Apple and Maris Piper (the latter cropped very nicely considering the recent weather.)  Phil also gave several areas a good going over with the hoe.  Lyta concentrated on the peas and beans area, giving them a good weeding and collecting all the ripe pea pods.  I dug up as much as possible of the weed growth around the fruit bushes and then planted out a half dozen tomato plants we bought at the shop to replace the ones we lost during the recent deluges. 

I then picked a Lollo Rosso lettuce for our lunch and some of my sweet pea flowers.  We cannot believe how fragrant they are (not to mention purple and very pretty!)  Every time we now come into the lounge, we are greeted by a fantastic aroma.  Beats buying cut flowers any day!

These smell amazing!

Peas, sweet peas & lettuce

Finally, we had to water the plants!  No kidding, we actually had to use the watering can.  We took the opportunity to feed everything too, as we are reliably informed that the rain might have leeched the nutrients from the soil.  We were also given the "unofficial" confirmation of the next plot we would be getting.  We had requested a half plot upgrade and one of the committee members had mentioned his because he, in turn, is going up to a full plot.  Changeover is on 30th September.  Very exciting.