Friday 30th June 2017

Cucumbers and beyond...
It’s been rather a long time since we posted in the ‘Fruit, Veg and Trees’ section.. whoops!! All is going well, although the extremes of weather we have been having (dry and very hot to really wet and cold) have not been great. This month we recorded a whopping maximum of 46.3°C in the greenhouse on 20th June and then nine days later the maximum temperature that day was just 20.1°C.
Relaxed at Home
The case for a second greenhouse has been made by the courgettes: the ones we are growing outside are literally a quarter of the size of the ones we have growing in the greenhouse. The cucumbers in the greenhouse are similarly prolific as the photo shows, and we now have so many that the surplus ones can go to the pigs (and we have surplus despite the fact we are eating cucumber EVERY day at the moment). Interestingly, by law, we can only give the cucumbers to the pigs (and indeed any other vegetables we grow) as long as we DON’T take them into our kitchen. This is in case they come into contact with any meat or meat products – a law that has been in place since shortly after the BSE crisis of 1993!!!
So, produce harvested to date: courgettes, cucumbers, salad and lettuce leaves, sage, coriander, basil, cauliflower and tomatoes. Lots more to come, including a few apples maybe from one of the trees in the green lane: an unexpected surprise!!