Peas

The peas have started to set seed which is always something we look forward to! The pea that I am most interested in tasting is P. ‘Golden podded’. This is new to me. I got the seed while in Australia from The Diggers Club.

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Viola

One of the plants that I am very happy to see growing freely  in the very straight lines of vegetables is violas, I have a very new sweet one that I was sent the seed of from a friend in Australia. This is a named one, V. ‘Bunny ears’.

Tomatoes

It is a great feeling to now have the tomatoes in the ground and watered in. As a gardener in England we worry most about blight. To try and keep blight away as long as possible I have planted marigolds under with the hope of stopping the water splashing up onto the leaves and lifting the blight up onto the plants.

Support

It is a great end to the week when you get to a job that you have had on your mind all week. The broad beans needed to be tried up. I was worried that we would get strong winds and they would fall over. Support given.

Flowers

At this time of the year for me the most interesting thing happening in the garden is the development of flowers. The plant with the flowers I am most interested in is the blueberry. I love the simplicity of the white flowers. This is a new plant for me.

Beet tops

The winter beetroot has started to run to seed. This is a time when we need greens. The seed tops are very useful in the kitchen, either to eat as a green or sweated down for a tart with something like feta or even raw in salad. They have a nutty taste.

Kitchen yard

Each year I have enjoyed the kitchen yard more and more. It is a part of the garden that I often potter in while food is cooking or I am waiting for something or someone. This is the joy of these spaces so close to the house. It is a perfect size

Wild

It is the perfect moment to be in this part of Spain, the wild flowers are at their best.   I really love seeing plants that we grow in domestic gardens in the wild. The plant that I loved seeing the most was the lavender, I have never seen it in such a scale. Another area was a sea of blue Echium valgare and white chamomile.

Seasonal

I talked a lot yesterday about how important seasonal eating is to me and how much better the taste of fruit and vegetables are when in season. Today I had a great day out of the city looking at plants in the wild and also visiting a great vegetable garden. In this part of Spain it is the moment for strawberries and so I ate them like it was my last day on earth. No chemicals were used on these and they where warm, so perfect!

Water

It really does not seem that long ago we had the sprinkler out. Today we have had to get it back out to keep the seedlings moving. It really has become dry again down here in the south east and the growth on the seedlings has slowed down.