Belated Happy Solstice!

What I forget to post yesterday!  Happy Solstice everyone.  The garden is a powerhouse of green and producing more that we can eat!  a bumper year for raspberries so freezing, bottling and jamming.  A great contact for kilner jars at better than supermarket prices for bottling fruit http://www.jamjarshop.com/buy/kilnerpreservingjars/?catid=46  . Yesterday we went to the estuary by Brightlingsea for a (very windy ) solstice celebration - very elemental. 

New cleaving brake in wood

I have now (nearly) finished a tripod cleaving brake in our wood. Now I just have to practice using it!

Saving seed

yes it is that time of year again and I am collecting and drying plants with seeds - currently; Rocket, pak choi, lettuce, spinach.

Blooming June

Just a couple of pictures of the vegetable garden in full production.  Lots of flowers visible, I like to mix all sorts of plants together so calendulas all over, borage and phacelia (full of bees) various things going to seed for saving for next year - rocket, lettuce, parsnip, radish (and for eating the pods)

Lots of borage

Squashes centre stage

We are still suffering the effects of Clopyralid (Persistent herbicide)

We are still suffering the effects of Clopyralid (Persistent herbicide) in our compost.  The latest problem is in our main crop peas (see picture)  I have also had trouble with my sunflower seedlings and bean seedlings in pots and in the ground. The pot problem is particularly frustrating as I was planting in pots to avoid low germination problems and inadvertently managed to use contaminated horse manure in the compost.   The Internet seems to offer only time as a healer for this problem! see this useful article;  http://www.jgpress.com/BCArticles/2001/070125.html

 Distorted peas

Damaged sunflower head

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace

I thoroughly recommend downloading the three episodes of this BBC series from i player (you can download on to your pc and have a month to watch them) and on utube. Helps to understand the process that led up to our current world economic situation and the role that the states played in the whole mess.

Gardening top tip!

Instead of sowing herbs like basil and parsley buy a tray of plants from your supermarket (intended to cook with).  My tray of basil plants contained 25 plants and cost me 50p - bargain!  These trays are often reduced in price as they reach their sell by date to be even cheaper!!

Rain at last

Strawberry tart - yum yum

Yes 21 millimeters of rain yesterday! All the tanks are full and I can plant out the winter brassicas today with no worries.  In the wood the new tarp collected 35 gallons - result!

Everything is early

Yes this is a spectacularly early year!
We are picking; Raspberries, strawberries, courgettes, cucumbers, peas and sugar snap peas and would you believe our first ripe tomatoes! According to my gardening diary of last year two to three weeks earlier for most things!

On the rain front; we have had 10mm of rain in the last month.  They are promising rain tonight so we are working hard to make the most of it.  Here is a construction we have made in the wood to funnel rain into a depression and capture it.