22 July at the plot

Last week, after going to the Tatton Show I headed up the road, with my faithful hound at my side, to compare our crops with the glories I had seen at the show. At the moment the raspberries are fruiting really well and we are able to have a few most mornings for breakfast. I know the raspberries aren't laid out in the same way those fruits at the show were. Clearly I'm using the tennis ball instead, because I wanted you to have a guage as to size. Aren't they wonderful? Surely first prize!

The blackcurrents are also still laden with fruit and so I could get another batch of jam made, if only I can find some clean jars! But those mystery current/berries can't be the josta berries shown at Tatton as those were growing along a single stem. This close-up makes it clear that our mystery black-fruits are each on an individual stem.

Everything is growing well and here you can see that our grapes have come along well in quite a short time.

A little further down the plot, our runner beans have grown to great height and so my mum has advised me to nip out the tops to encourage many beans to follow.On this closer shot you can just see the first bean forming, where the red flower is falling away.

The apple tree by the side of the beans turns out to be a cooking apple - big and very tart fruit. Some are falling off already so we have used some in with the soft fruit, to make a lovely sharp compote. Needless to say, the weeds are also growing well and down on plot 3, things are still quite jungly!Even here though, Colin has cleared some land and we have some new platings (radish, lettuce, spring onions, late potatoes and beans, and sweet potatoes). Not much to show yet, but the radishes are up.