First spuds

Oh the smug feeling that comes with eating the very first new potatoes of the year. These little beauties - the delightful Lady Crystle (one day I'll learn to spell that!) - were grown in a large shrub tub under the greenhouse staging.  They were fleeced up when frost was forecast and generously watered over the last couple of weeks.  I furtled these from under the soil so the 3 original plants are still growing.  More spuds to come!

Desperate for a pea!

A couple of views of my pea trellises with the mainly purple but a few white flowers.  As good as sweet peas to look at.  (But you can't pick them and they don't have scent - but you can eat the pods!)  Today the first flowers are leaning towards going over so I will soon have little pods appearing.  After a week of dashing in and out like a mad woman to see what's flowering I shall be doing the same to check on pod production. 

Here's the start of my next project.  On the left is Goldensweet, a yellow mangetout, said to have been used by Mendel in his genetics work.  (It never opens further than this). On the right is Ezetha's Krombek Blauwschok, a pretty pink-flowered little mouthful!  I have found it one of the more pleasant of the purple podders to eat fresh.  In the coming week, forecast to become cooler, I shall have a go at removing the anthers from some Goldernsweet flower buds and transferring pollen to the stamen from some EKB flowers.  The trick is then to tie a bit of string, wool, cotton or what have you, to the pollinated Goldensweet buds to make sure they don't end up on the dinner plate!

I have another cross I'd like to do this year but it depends on two more of my peas flowering co-incidentally.