The last planting before the summer?

Last Wednesday we had what will probably be our last major planting day of this season's vegetables before it gets too hot for seeds to germinate and survive the hot sun.

Out came the rotavator, J dug 4 new beds which were then watered and dug again, each time the soil got finer and finer. They are all on terraces that we have never used, have only had olive leaves dropping on and rotting down into and one of them also used to have the compost heaps on, so that has produced lovely rich looking soil. After raking out the stones and making raised beds, we planted up 2 of them with globe carrots, kohlrabi, beetroot, swede and radish. We have never had much success with carrots, a lot of the soil seems quite good when damp but forms a crust when dry and the poor little seeds struggle to get through! Even when they do manage, the carrot seems to struggle to grow down. Last year we had what we called 'designer carrots' - small but perfectly formed. Last week though we received some seeds from my parents that we hadn't been able to find locally and took advantage of a few cooler days to get them in.

Another bed has potatoes in - don't know whether they are earlies, early lates, late earlies or what. Basically, if they start to produce shoots before we get round to eating them, then they get planted! We don't grow enough for the whole year and tend to eat them when still small. We still have a large bed not yet filled - it'll probably be left now till the autumn.



We were given this book the Christmas we moved here, and with the exception of a few things such as olives, sweet potatoes, capers and peanuts, almost everything we grow is in the book. It's got notes, bits of paper and seed packets tucked inside and even after almost 7 years, it's still looked at on a regular basis. Highly recommended!