Sunset the night before last. Very pretty but a touch sinister too. 
Pea Harvest - but not mine! We left the village yesterday and tagged onto a convoy leaving one pea field and making its way half a mile down the lane to the next one. You could smell the peas!
I've taken up wine making again. Dare I say, I made my first gallon 38 years ago! There's damson, gooseberry, rhubarb, rose-petal red cherry plum and elderflower here. Some are starting to drop clear so there'll be racking perpetrated soon.
One of the home-bred potatoes - this is Purple Heart - from true seed of Salad Blue. It's a fetching rosy pink at this stage but steams out, if cooked in its skin, to a drab grey. It's not a good scraper.
However, the inside has the purple flame and if peel is removed at this stage (Irish fashion) the flesh is white, the greyness being in the skin. The flavour was nicer than some Charlottes I used at the same time for a mixed potato salad though, and I usually rate Charlotte. It would never make a commercial potato but I selected it for its flavour and I'm not disappointed.
Still to come - Amethyst, which is still growing. Purple Heart was knocked back in its prime by the late frosts.
The first Black Sea Man beefsteak tomato. Very tasty it was too!
I'm growing out the F3 generation of crossed up beans from my Soldier dwarf french heritage beans. Most have flowered white but this is the flower from the deep indigo bean, which I have called Midnight. They are all like this so maybe these will come true. One, however, has decided to climb.
So I've given it a stick! I fancy a climbing variety. You get more beans per sq foot like that. I must check on the weight of beans from this and from one of the dwarfs.
These are the luscious Kent Blue mangetout peas. I'm vastly taken by these. They produce a monster harvest. I can pick enough for 2 people just about every day. I've given quite a few away. This is from just 7 plants too!
How to increase your expensive F1 tomatoes. Just sow a couple of plants and when the shoots appear in the 'armpits' leave a few to get to a decent size, remove them, pop them in water for a week or so and you get a free plant. As they say, the price is right! F1s are ludicrously expensive to buy.
10 comments:
Wow, I might have courgettes before you but the beefsteak tomato is a beauty. (Mine are only about 1" across!).
As for wine making, that Hazel has a lot to answer for. I first made some 30 years ago, am thinking of starting again {gg}
I'm growing some Blue Danube potatoes this year. I've never grown blue potatoes before so I'm looking forward to seeing what they look and taste like. I don't expect the colour will last after cooking though. My tomatoes are nowhere near ready yet, they're only just starting to grow.
I hope you don't have what happened to us - explosion in a spare bedroom in the middle of the night and finding grape skins splattered all over the ceiling!
The wine looks nice. I have yet to try making wine, but have done beer & cider so far. There is a witbier bubbling right now.
Congrats on the first tom. I have seen that one in catalogs and keep thinking I should try it.
It's not the first tom Dan. We've had cherry toms and a Brandywine already. The greenhouse helps! If you fancy Black Sea Man I can let you have some seeds. I'll be saving it again.
That sounds good! We can do a swap again late this year. I have lots of beans although you may have grown them all already. Lots of tomatoes and what not. Here is a partial list if you want an early peak:
http://veggiegardenblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/2010-varieties-list.html
I'm impressed with Kent Blue myself. They're lovely sweet pods, and seem to be best when the peas are half-grown.
Ohhh that tomato looks lovely! I am Jonesing for ripe tomatoes but am likely a few weeks off from having any and the pickings will be slim then too. Our tomato season really gets going in August and is done in no time at all - mid September.
Wow! look at that tomato! I bet it tasted wonderful. I am tantalizingly close to my first greenhouse sungold. Months and months of horrid supermarket tomatoes.
I had my first greenhouse sungold yesterday Matron. They'll be coming thick and fast soon.
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