Squash brings a smile

Much excitement down on the plot today! (Well, it's probably just me.) One of our squash plants has three little squashes on! Hurrah! I actually did a tiny little jig of joy when I saw them! The variety is 'White Custard' and it's one of the little flying saucer style summer squashes that you can cook with the skin on.

We've also picked our first yellow courgette today - along with lots of green ones - and there's a nice round courgette growing nicely too. PLUS the cucumbers are really getting carried away.


Above is a kind of support I put up with canes to keep the cucumbers off the ground, also because the bigger plant was starting to grow over the smaller ones and I didn't want them to get swamped. We ate a freshly- picked, small but perfectly formed cucumber along with hunks of cheese and chunky bread for lunch. Very rustic, and very tasty.

What else did we get up to? I did lots of weeding, 'cos with all this rain the weeds are getting a bit manic. I also tied up the tomato plants as some of those had put on a growth spurt too (no red tomatoes yet), and I sowed some spinach too, a variety which is apparently good for summer sowings and shouldn't bolt. Also pulled up a dozen or so small onions which are now drying outside (I'd like a bit of sunshine but at least it's not raining.)

Adam began weeding the overgrown strawberry patch - a mammoth task. 'But wait!' - I hear you cry - 'didn't you clear the strawberry patch already?'. Yes, indeed I did, some of it back in the winter and some in early May with Jo, but the weeds have once again taken over. I blame the patch next door which has run to rack and ruin since the plot holders' rotavator broke. Then they seemed to lose interest...

Adam also dug a bit of manure into the ex-broad bean bed... Did I not mention the manure? Last week we popped to the garden centre to get a plant for our garden, and on the way back saw a place selling well-rotted horse manure for 50p a bag. Too good a bargain to miss! So we took ten bags, filled the back of my tiny Ford ka, and drove the 5 miles back home with all the windows open. It was a very hot day... poo!

Here are some pics to get you all up to date with what's going on down on Our Patch of Earth...

Little French beans, yellow courgette, pretty Swiss chard, baby runner beans, our first round courgette and a lovely cucumber flower, which the bees seem to like.
































Here are our very healthy looking squash plants (they've got bigger than we expected, otherwise we'd have put them further apart!) and part of the sweetcorn patch in the background.

Louise gave us ten little cauliflower plants a week or so ago - 5 different varieties: Cheddar, Emeraude, Nessie, Gitane and Graffiti. They've now been planted out and covered with netting to try and keep the pigeons at bay. Why do pigeons like brassicas so much?