Time for a holiday!

We're soon off to France for a couple of weeks which will be fabulous. Stuart has a key to the allotment so I hope he'll be able to call round once or twice and help himself to whatever is ready to pick. Undoubtedly there will be courgettes and the runner beans are starting to set now that they have reached the tops of their canes.

He can keep a general eye on things and pick whatever he sees - radishes will keep maturing fast now, and the chard could do with picking quite regularly now.

I harvested all the garlic and we've been eating the red onions regularly too. It's not been a sensational onion crop but hopefully what remain in the soil (including the shallots) will still be OK when we get back in 2 weeks' time.

I dug up the remaining Charlotte potatoes - 5 plants giving nearly 7lbs of potatoes so I think that sums it up - great crop and delicious potatoes! We'll take them to France with us rather than risk storage problems and no doubt smuggle a couple of courgettes in too. I'll do a final check tomorrow of pickable produce so that might also include some beans to go!

More news in August but for now we're getting ready for Brittany - the land of fields of artichokes (and much, much more!).

The fruits of our labour etc!

Finally we're really seeing our efforts coming to fruition at the allotment.

We have started on the Charlotte potatoes now - and they are delicious, exactly as I'd hoped. In addition we now have regular broad beans, courgettes, radishes, salad leaves (from the greenhouse) and very soon to be followed by dwarf French beans (is that sizeist?), chard and much more besides.

I looked closely at the kohl rabi yesterday - it's fascinating to see how they're developing golf ball-sized parts at the base of their stems. I'll need to check how big to let them grow, and also what to do with them!

It'll be something to impress the other allotmenteers with though!