I harvested my Shallots a couple of days ago. They had reached the stage where their leaves had flopped over and dried out and the bulbs were looking pretty big. So I took advantage of a sunny day and dug the whole harvest up.

I put them in a wooden tray to dry in the sun for a few days – with the precaution of the lid from my Victorian cloche over them. And today I rubbed off the dirt and put them in this old sieve ready for storage.

They like to have air circulating around them so anything with holes in is ideal. Sometimes I use old Orange bags, or netted shopping bags if I have a lot to store.

I’m pretty happy with the harvest. Last year I grew Longor Shallots which are more bullet shaped than these. This year I went for round ones (can’t remember the variety). Some are a little small but they make a good addition to my son, Jackson’s, meals since he won’t eat a lot of oniony flavours anyway.

I always feel a bit smug when I put away the first harvest of the season for storing. I’m always a bit sad when I see Lettuce go to seed, or a Cauliflower go over. All that effort and I just wasn’t quick enough to enjoy it. With Onions and Shallots it’s a different story – none of it goes to waste (assuming none of them rot) and it feels good to know that all my effort will be rewarded over the coming months.

One of my favourite Lettuces to grow is Tom Thumb. It’s a butterhead type with nice tight, bright green leaves and it tastes lovely with a good mustardy dressing. One of the reasons I like it so much, apart from the taste, is that it looks so neat in the garden!

Some of the Lettuces I grow are, to be honest, a bit floppy like Marvel of the Four Seasons, and a new one I tried this year, Drunken Woman (I don’t know why it’s called that either). And then your common or garden varieties like Oakleaf can get very big very quickly and take over the garden.

With Tom Thumb, they stay quite small (so you need to grow a lot of them) but they also stay where you planted them, in a neat row. I like that. At this time of year it’s my little piece of sanity in a garden gone mad.

They loved these alkaloid filled plants. I think they would be toxic to humans and horses if eaten to excess..

A lone Ladybird wandering around on the plot. These are such happy insects.I love finding them in the allotment or in the garden. They are aphid eating machines.

The Cabbages are nearly ready to be harvested. All the blood, sweat, bites and stings seem worth it once it has been washed, prepared, and cooked. The satisfaction of eating your own grown fruit or veg is amazing!I am almost evangelical..just try it and see.

The finished plates with artfully arranged New Potatoes, Pea’s, Globe Artichoke, and three types of Courgette from Hils (normal, yellow, and round).
We ate the New Potatoes with some Chicken on Tuesday. They tasted lovely. I need to go back to harvest the rest of the Charlotte New Potatoes.
The RHS Tatton Park Show yesterday was amazing. I took over three hundred photos. Tomorrows post will be about this years show. It runs untill Sunday if you are near Cheshire.
There was so much there to see. It is one of the highlights of the year for me..

I had to pull my Elephant Garlic because it was trying to flower. I’ve showed it here next to some Carrots I pulled at the same time so you can see how big it is. They’re about 8 or 9cm across.

I must confess myself a bit disappointed with the Elephant Garlic. It’s not as big as I thought it would be and also doesn’t seem to have split into bulbs quite as nicely as you see in the photos. Oh well – it’s still edible, I’m sure.

Next year I might switch back to my usual Garlic. You get more heads for the garden space and in a tiny plot you gotta use the space wisely. Is anyone else growing Elephant Garlic? Did you have success?

My Solanum Crispum is now about 8 feet high but is covered in purpley-blue blossom most of summer. I prune it to keep it at that height or it would go on to 20+ feet tall.

Plant Characteristics of Solanum Crispum

• This shrub is related to the nightshade and potato family. It is aka Chilean Potato Tree.
• The flowers have an attractive yellow centre surrounded by blue flowers similar to potatao flowers.
• The base of the shrub becomes a bit bare after several years.
• In mild winters, even in Yorkshire, it is evergreen.
• It has a lax habit and I tie in some branches to a nearby hedge.

Growing Tips

• I give it no special treatment of any sort, although it’s location is sunny.
• Theoretically it likes alkaline soil and a high potash feed.
• Propagate by layering, pegging a lower stem to the ground, or by semi ripe 3″ cuttings taken in late summer.
• Despite being related to Potato all parts are all poisonous.
• The variety ‘Glasnevin’ is the one to grow for prolific flowers.

Pruning Solanum

• Cut away extra long branches at intervals throughout the summer to keep the plant within bounds.
• Do not cut back into older wood as the vines do not always re-grow from the old stems and may die back.
• Solanum resent severe pruning so little and often may be best treatment. It may be necessary to cut a stem down to the ground periodically to encourage new growth from the base.
• As they grow older, the new shoots at the top of the plant tends to make them top heavy. This can break the original support.
• Ensure the plant has strong support before they become heavy.

Other Solanum Comments

• Solanum crispum is a vigorous woody climber often thought of as a vine.
• The branches require tying in as these plants are not self-clinging.
• Solanum bears masses of  yellow centred blue flowers similar to potato flowers and is also available with a white flower.
• These plants are a little bit tender when young and require planting in a sunny but sheltered position.
• Grow late flowering clematis up the lower branches of mature Solanum crispum
• This fragrant fast growing climber will bloom throughout Summer and Autumn with yellow-white fruits in Autumn

Weve moved on from the early days of tomatoes and potatoes and the current growing list includes globe artichokes, figs, blueberries, black currants, gooseberries, rhubarb, swiss chard, kale, sprouts, cabbage, purple sprouting brocolli, radishes, lettuces, broad beans, peas, beans, onions, garlic, rocket, pak choi, butternut squash, winter squash, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, raspberries, damsons, apples, far too many courgettes, beetroots and of course – tomatoes and potatoes.

So you can see why the growing space is ever expanding!

If its not planted up, there will no doubt be another courgette planted in it by the end of the week! My plan was to grow loads of them to make pasta sauces which we could freeze. I am starting to wonder if weve over done it – just how many courgettes can one family eat!

The chickens have their home on the plot. We bought their house on ebay and BH built the pen. The door is actually our old baby gate reworked – genius or what?

We recently scrapped some very rotten old coldframes and cleared a space between the green houses. This needs some serious tidying but in the meantime its become the perfect place for a spot of supervising.

Last year BH presented with me the most romantic gift a girl could ask for – hand built compost boxes – I swear that man knows the direct route to my heart… We took the covers off them in February and found that all those slimy peelings and cuttings had turned into the most awesome soil. It really is magic!

However this popped out of the heap today…

Its a ‘Grow Your Own Grandpa’!!!

This year my roses are a good bit later to come into full bloom. The cold snap in May undoubtedly caused problems.

A white rugarosa type had all the buds ‘browned off’ by a late frost and guess what colour that left me  -  ‘browned off too’!

Tips for June

• Deadhead repeat flowering roses to get a second flush. Flowering may stop when seed is set.
• Cut above the first leaf node and angled away from the leaf.
• Do not deadhead roses you grow for the hips such as Rugarosa types.
• If you have any blackspot wash your secateurs between each plant to avoid spreading the disease.
• Check for suckers, track them back to the roots and pull them off neatly. Cutting them may leave a bit of sucker and you will get two suckers from that one spot.
• If you are troubled by Aphids, and who isn’t, then use your favourite treatment. I have just organically squashed quite a large crop on the buds of my climber roses.

Getting Bigger Blossoms

• If exceptional blooms are required nip out the side buds and leave one bud per stem to develop fully. All the energy gets channeled this way.
• If the central bud is damaged sacrifice it and leave another bud to develop in its place.
• If, post pruning, you get too many new shoots it is inadvisable to let them grow too thickly, so thin them out. The aim is to allow plenty of air and sunlight into the centre of the rose.
• Sacrificing some shoots will put energy into the remaining blooms.
• In June, roses still need nitrogen rich fertilizer for stem and leaf growth.
• Cut flowers for the vase freely. From hybrid tea roses chose long stems. The rose will produce a new flower stem and it is better to have a flower in the house than bleached, blown, blossom.
• Hoe around the rose to remove weeds, water if needed and mulch to keep the shrub healthy.
• Pick roses early in the morning when they will have taken up moisture during the night. Dunk into tepid water immediately and recut at 45 degrees when rearranging them.
• Add a drop of bleach to keep the water fresh and free from bacteria.

We even got to our local beach and went in the water. Not bad for a bunch of townies.

The kids got their first real taste of digging in the sand…and got a bit carried away…

I dont think we can still quite believe that we live so close to the sea. I know we’re so lucky to be able to play on the beach without a long haul bank holiday drive and maybe a few more rainy days is the price we pay for it.

Also on the plus side I havent had to do any watering today apart from in the green houses. You do look a bit weird walking down the garden with a watering can in a downpour but needs must when there are tomatoes at stake!

I am fortunate to have a boundary wall that has two skins of stone filled with soil. This makes an habitat for plants that I can use to grow something a bit different.

The Pros & Cons of a Filled Wall.

Suitable Plant Types for Walls

• Dry condition lovers and sun seekers like Thyme
• Plants that like a baking like Pulsatilla
• Plants that hold there own water store like Sedums and Houseleeks.
• Alpines and similar plants with long roots.
• Trailing plants and poor soil plants.

Some Plants recommended by Cambridge University Gardening services site
Crassula sarcocaulis
Helichrysum ‘Sulphur Light’
Sedum acre
Sempervivum ciliosum
Saxifraga species
Euryops acraeus
Artemisia schmidtiana nana
Helianthemum varieties
Ajuga reptans
Aribis alpina
Dianthus deltoides
Geranium dalmaticum
Erigeron ‘Profusion’
Lewisia cotyledon
Lobelia cultivars
Portulaca grandiflora
Vinca minor
Phlox douglasii
Hypericum olympicum
Alyssum montanum