First Pickings

OK, back to veggies! My various courgette plants have just started to produce babies. Above is an assortment of Black Forest, Defender and Soleil. This time of year the small plants do not have the energy to produce anything bigger than this so it is a good idea to pick them small so as not to stress the plant. These were absolutely delicious! Buddy adores courgettes too, so he was sitting close as they were being eaten. He would eat a whole plateful if given the chance!

This bright sunshine has brought on my strawberries. They need sunshine to ripen them from white to red and each morning I have a new bowlful to enjoy. Some of these actually make it back to the kitchen, but most are eaten in situ, straight from the plant, au naturel, naked with nothing on (the strawberries - not me!)

The raspberries are beginning to ripen too. The weather has been so dry for the past few weeks I leave the garden hose on the raspberries for a couple of hours to enable them to swell and ripen. This is truly one of the great garden treats! They do not make it to civilization, they are scoffed there and then!

Meanwhile back in the greenhouse these beefsteak tomatoes Country Taste are growing well. This year I am pinching out many of the tomato flowers in order to grow extra large fruit. I just leave one or two flowers per truss to see if I can grow a whopper. Watch this space!

I have more lettuce than I know what to do with at the moment. I was never very disciplined at successional sowing so I have all my crop all at once! This is just one leaf from the Labacher Ice lettuce. You can see it is about a foot across. Who would have thought that a single lettuce leaf could make a substantial salad?

One lettuce leaf, fresh Hurst Greenshaft peas and simple vinaigrette. Bon Appetite

!