Taken Saturday morning. :-D So happy that I now have access to free woodchippings for my temporary paths. They look so neat. Shallots and onions, all planted back in November, growing like the clappers. These are for harvesting from July onwards. This is plot number 2 which I have started to turn over now. The small fenced area is number one sons patch which he grows his sunflowers and carrots in. Looking down plot number one, right to left. Looking down plot number one, left to right. Daffodils about to burst into sunshine yellow. A bursting redcurrant bud, full of promise for this seasons bounty.
Looks good to me. Do you make red currant jelly? I do and love it . Planted one black currant bush an it looks handsome now. Also a gooseberry bush. Keep up the good work.
I do make some redcurrant jelly, but I tend to mix the currants with the blackcurrants, gooseberries and jostaberries and make a lovely tutti fruiti jelly which my daughter adores. I am not so keen on eating redcurrants in the raw, but blackcurrants I adore and eat them by the handfull! And I just love the scent of the foliage. I purposely have them planted along the edge of my plot so I brush past them as I move about.
Then I am on the right path.. I added black to red this year an we loved it ....... Do your gooseberrys have jaggers?
Do you mean thorny stems? If so, then do they ever! I have lime green ones, I don't know the variety as I inherited them when I took on the allotment, and they are really mean and hook onto my legs as I move about the fruit cage. However, I have a smashing standard gooseberry with purple fruits and that is practically thornless which makes picking a lot easier! I love gooseberries and make a fab goosegog chutney in late summer.
Your lotties look really tidy and progressing well. Oh, I sure do wifh that was as far along as you. Oh well, perhaps in another two weeks or so. Those daffs look positively supurb. Do I see cardoons there?
Thanks for the lovely compliments everyone. I am really chuffed with how great it is looking, it does get a little easier every year as the soil improves. Yes Sjoerd, the plant on it's own is the cardoon, the 3 or 4 in a row are globe artichokes. Managed another 2 hours there today and not only sowed some more seeds, but dug and filled my runner bean trench with soggy newspaper and even soggier stable manure. The only thing that worries me now about the seeds is we have a cold snap forecasted! Oh well....fingers and toes crossed.
Looking good EJ . That is a lot of hard work and I am sure it will pay off with bumper crops. Here I go again - showing my ignorance... what is cardoon? :?:
A cardoon is a huge plant, a member of the daisy family I believe, but the flower is a huge thistle. Unlike globe artichokes where you eat the flower bud, on cardoons you actually blanch the flowering stem by wrapping cardboard around it for a few weeks before cutting that section off and cooking it. Apparently it resembles celery. I don't grow it as a veg, only for fun as the flowers can reach 10 to 12 feet tall and the bumble bees absolutely adore them.
I feel I have had yet another history lesson today... about cardoon. This is so interesting to learn things about other countries. Thanks EJ. Oh BTW, your lotties are looking good!
