Todays harvest....

Went out to shake the tree this morning only to find lots of mulberries had fallen without any need to shake.  Rolled up the nets, took the fruit indoors and weighed it....19lbs or nearly 9 kgs.
So another 20 ltrs of wine on the go, the nets back down and we'll see what drops overnight.

The dwarf Borlotto beans are 'beaning'  - we have 4 beds on the go  and these are the first ones to produce.  We are planning on eating and freezing to start with and if they produce faster than we need, we'll leave them to go to seed and keep either for soups/stews etc in the winter or next years planting.   The same will then happen for the next beds....or so we hope! (we have 80+ plants in each bed so they should produce far faster than we need and we expect to have a surplus of dried beans for the next few years planting and / or eating)

The cucumbers, courgettes, melon and water melons are all in flower,  the tomatoes are fruiting well as are  the strawberries, although the toms aren't yet ripe.  Spinach and mustard are being picked for salad leaves, although the mustard is also for seeds.  There are 25 sweet corn up  and they are about 2 ft tall - this is a much better result than last year when they just disappeared!

The red cabbages, cauliflowers and sprouts are all in 'cages' to  protect against cabbage white butterflies and so far that seems to be working, although the dreaded aphids have got onto some of the cauliflowers.  We now know to put problem plants  in lots of different places,  hoping to fool the insects and apart from that one group of cauliflowers, everything else is ok.

Peanuts and sweet potatoes are a new thing this year, and  we're quite impressed so far, over half the nuts have grown and 8 out of 10 sweet potato slips.   The nuts we'll keep as seeds for next year  and so we should be able to increase our stock, eventually having enough to roast!

A while back I mentioned how to increase stock by a) planting out the side shoots from tomatoes and b) planting the cut-off base of an onion.... yes, it all works and in fact I think the onions are stronger than the sets we bought and planted!!   Each base seems to make at least 2 if not 3 new ones, once strong and  rooted can be cut up and replanted.  At first I didn't think the tomatoes would take, but they have and are looking very healthy so give it a try!