May Strawberries!

I was delighted by the sight that greeted me at the allotment today!

No, no, not the thistles... No, not the bindweed! The red thingummys. And unmunched by bird or slug! Must get some netting over them pronto to keep it that way though...

Has anyone tried those white strawberries that apparently the birds don't touch? Just curious. Might give it a go one day, but today I'm very happy with the good old-fashioned red type.

Nom nom nom.

My Monarda Needs YOU!

Can anyone help me help my poor monarda plant?

It struggled last year for lack of sun and was very leggy. In our new home it gets plenty of sun and it started the spring very healthy, so I thought it was going to look great this year, but instead the leaves are discolouring...

...some of them have black crispy patches on...

...all the lower leaves are dropping off...

...and the stems have a white bloom.

My first thought (before I noticed the white fungal stuff) was that it lacked food or water, so I watered it more and fed it some fish, blood and bone. But first advice on the interent was that monarda thrives on neglect and was probably overfed and watered! Oh noooo!

I tipped the whole thing out of its pot to make sure it wasn't too wet, and it doesn't seem it. Not sure what I can do to reduce the soil's fertility now! And I've misted it with a sodium bicarbonate solution (1/4 tsp to 1/2 litre) to try to tackle the fungal infection. It's not looking any better so far.

Any ideas? I want me some more of these this summer!

Courgettes in May??

One of my courgette seedlings, which lives outside except on the coldest nights, decided it was going to start flowering and fruiting right there in its tiny 3" pot!

So on Monday I gave in and planted it out in a big tub. I wasn't really planning on growing one on the patio but it makes sense to have some closer to home; we're so rubbish at harvesting everything right on time at the plot, and we have enough plants for both! Again, we can still drag this inside if we have any more really cold nights, but it's put up with plenty of low temperatures already and I don't think we're really at risk of frost anymore. In fact at the moment it looks like the young plant is most at risk from the wind...

So unless disaster strikes, it looks like we could be eating the year's first courgette in just a few days. Crazy!

Radishes

My extremely delicious salad sandwich today included the first claytonia flowers, chive flowers, fresh oregano and the first 'French Breakfast' radishes!

But what's all this about, hmm?

They're not supposed to have cores!

Symptoms of dry weather, or pulling too late? Either way, luckily the taste and texture is still just fine.

I did the right thing growing French Breakfast this year - they're much gentler on the tastebuds than the ones I tried last year which nearly blew my head off! The other variety here is a 'Giant Radish' - they're not especially big yet, but these are just thinnings really. The flavour is nuttier than most radishes and they're supposed to be very mild, but they tasted pretty fiery to me! I'll blame that one on the dry weather too, I think...

Hurrah!

Our strawberries survived the frost! And what a lot of them there are!

I'd better get some straw...

Very pleased to see fruit forming on our apple trees too. The biggest harvest we've had from this tree previously was four apples, but this year there are four per branch! Will they all last...?

And this tree has never given us so much as a single blossom before, but this year is doing so much better!