Surprise Royal Visit

The hungry gap is coming to an end.  Soon there will be new potatoes, peas, lettuces and broad beans to add to the rhubarb already harvesting.  One crop that has taken me by surprise and jumped ahead of the rest seemingly out of nowhere is the flashy globe artichoke.  How could I have forgotten how early this crops?  I am following advice and removing the first heads to encourage the rest to grow to edible size.  Its proper name is Cynara scolymus and it is an edible thistle, but only edible if you pick it before it flowers.  Even then, only a very small portion of the flower bud  is edible and it is not easy to extract from the top of the stem, behind the immature flower. Additional  scrapings can be garnered from the base of each ‘petal’ (or more correctly  bract).  So little of the plant is edible that you wonder how this vegetable found advocates willing to grow it when food was scarce. But it did find advocates, wealthy and influential ones.  If any vegetable is to be called the vegetable of monarchs then this is it.  Exotic, ostentatious, expensive, status affirming. Henry VIII reputedly loved them (As did French,  Spanish and Italian aristocracy way back to the not so royal Theophrastus, Aristotle’s pupil)  When Henry’s sister Mary, Queen of France, got married in 1515 the commemorative picture showed her holding a globe artichoke. As with all scarce exotic fruit and vegetables it was said to be an aphrodisiac.    

Ready Set... Go Go Go

Edinburgh has had a terribly dry, dull, cold April and early May this year but things seem to progressing even before the promised rain of this weekend.  My early early row of potatoes has started emerging (and are being dutifully mounded). I've never been keen on watering spuds but I made an exception for the really early ones and they seem to have responded.

The Potato Patch

As you can see there are a lot more yet to emerge. Even the weeds have been discouraged by the conditions!

The soft fruit area is getting a move on too and soon I will have to sling a net over the newly painted wooden frame

Soft Fruit Cage

The redcurrants are shaping up nicely....

,,,and so are the gooseberries:

Three rows of raspberries seem to have sprung to life.

Raspberries

Not forgetting the strawberries

Strawberry Patch

Next door to the soft fruit the alliums are leaning to the light source from the south. The latest planting of sets is to the left and that's two rows of elephant garlic on the right with ordinary garlic between it and four rows of onion sets in varying degrees of development as some were presprouted at home and others set out directly.

Alliums

Squeezed in at the end I've recently planted out the first leeks (Jolant). Not sure where I will put the next lot (Musselburgh) when they are ready.

Leek planting and Rhubarb

Maybe I have been over generous in the space allocated to carrots. All the more because they have to be netted. I really am trying to make a success of carrots this year, being one of the crops that we eat most of all the year round, and yet they did miserably last year. (The tunnel to the left is sown but the hooped tunnel is going to house our main crop - and, hopefully keep out the root fly.

Carrot Nets

These peas and broad been are squatting between the weed suppressant fabric for the brassicas and the WSF for the cucurbits. The runner beans and French beans have been allocated another similar sized area on the other side of the brassicas which is currently still covered with WSF - which won't be removed until the last moment before planting out.

Broad Beans and Peas

It's the bit with the bricks in the foreground here:

Room for Brassicas and Beans

With these preparations and the sowing and growing in the greenhouse at home, and the promise of rain this weekend,  it really is all about to go in a clatter!



Go Go Go

Tour of the Plot - Green is the Theme

 Returning from holiday  (OK I've remembered this is a gardening blog) everything is green

Admittedly that's because most weeds are green.. but the potatoes have formed a nice canopy:

The first green courgette has arrived:

Through the (admittedly black) fabric the sweetcorn is shooting up.

and under the mesh the carrots are making headway:

The French Beans are growing

with the Canadian Wonder taking the lead,

Here's a busy fringe of Salad Bowl lettuces and Swedes.

Jerusalem Artechokes

Globe Artechokes:

Parsnips

The raspberries are nearly done cropping, but still very verdant.

To complete the tour there are the alliums and...

...beyond them the brassicas.

Provided I can get back on top of the weeding these crops should thrive.

Hope you enjoyed the end of July tour.