It’s been a rather dreary and wet week so a bit difficult to motivate the children to spend time down on the allotment (although if you asked them to roll in a muddy puddle…) The majority of our harvest is still coming from the garden, although in no way planned, I’m hoping it will work having the early harvest from the garden with the allotment produce being ready later. Most excitingly we picked our first blueberries this week. I’ve had two blueberry plants (in pots) for a few years now but we’ve never had many blueberries from them, mainly because the birds always got there first. So, this year I was organised and have netted them and we’re reaping the rewards. It’s only a small handful of blueberries every few days but the children love them so it’s definitely been worthwhile.

We have been spoilt with fresh soft fruit over the last few weeks, mainly due to our pick your own organic farm where we’re still picking currants, tayberries, and blackberries each week. This week there were also raspberries which are our favourite. We’re also still picking our lettuce, broad beans, mangetout and the dwarf beans are in full swing now. We also picked our first ever cucumber this week which was so much tastier than any shop bought version.

As an experiment this year I planted a large pot with purple climbing beans (Reading Purple) around the outside and broad beans in the middle. I hoped that the broad beans would grow quicker and be harvested before the climbing beans blocked too much of the sun. It mostly worked, the broad beans did grow a bit tall and probably didn’t have the biggest harvest but the pot has looked good since spring and the purple beans are delicious.

I’m still trying to remember to keep a mind on filling gaps that will open up for winter veg. I have started to plant out my leek seedlings but don’t have much room at the moment which is annoying as I know that come winter I’ll have empty beds. Maybe I’ll see if I can sow anything else next week.

On a totally separate note, we saw another grass snake this week – this time swimming across a river. Having only seen a handful of snakes before in my life that’s three this spring/summer. There seem to be lots around at the moment and I’m hoping it’s a sign of the environment benefitting from us being in lockdown and perhaps recovering a little from the destruction that we cause.

More about Lucy...
Lucy is part of the fantastic Heritage Seed Library team, working hard to grow and preserve seed varieties that are no longer available so that our members can enjoy growing them at home. Raising two young children, Lucy is keen to grow an array of fruit and vegetables to become more sustainable and to encourage her children to get involved in growing.

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