Oh NO! Not this year too!

I wrote the bit below while at work ready to edit and add photos when I came home. As you will read I was pleased I had three small courgettes. But when I got home and walked around the garden to see how it had faired in the rain I found that one of the courgettes had rotted at the tip! What causes this? I had so much trouble with this last year and it was a hit and miss affair as to how many courgettes I got! The picture below says it all! Firm one end and soggy the other where the flower was. Not fair!

I got up early this morning and watered the pots and seedlings as the weather forecast had been for a fine if not necessarily sunny day. Having made this huge effort to water before there was any sun around to burn the delicate seedlings it was with mixed feelings that I greeted the onslaught of rain later in the morning. I am very pleased as the rain will do a much better job than I can and it has been raining steadily for the last four hours and will probably continue for another four! It did! It has made the roses sway their lovely heads nearer to the ground and the herbs are all awry in their bed, but in general it is doing nothing but good. Tomorrow the sun can come out and the temperature go up and then the plants will really grow.

Poor Rose battered by the rain!

 

Fennel looking very attractive with rain droplets on its feathery spikes.

We are picking all the salad greens now and I have given up buying salads. The Lollo Rosso is doing wonderfully well and the Salad Bowl although overshadowed by the LR is performing well. I have flat leaf parsley and sorrel to add to these two. Plus the thinnings from the seedlings of what the packet called ‘Spicy Salad’ adds a bit of zing. In this mixed bunch the only one I recognise is Rocket.

What these are I do not know but they sure grow quickly!

I have three baby courgettes but I am resisting picking these until they are a bit bigger. My Gardening Year book tells me to pinch the top out of Ridge Cucumbers when they have seven leaves to let the laterals develop. Well that sounds good but getting those seven leaves is a slow job! Last year I didn’t pinch the tops out, which is probably why I didn’t get a glut of cucumbers. In fact I only had half a dozen from two plants! I am determined to do better this year. There is something quite addictive about picking one’s own food out of the garden!

And then there were two! Boo hoo!

Borage getting ready to flower. That patterning on the leaves is the sun! And last but not least the blueberries are nearly ready for picking. Just a bit of sun and it will be all stations go!