Two Days of Sunshine and Two Tomatoes

We have been very lucky recently here in the South Lakes. On Thursday it was sunny and I was able to weed around the raspberries and harvest the shallots, and yesterday it was also sunny and we were able to harvest our first tomatoes. All two of them. Which, were promptly eaten by Theo (kindly modelling them above).

The sunshine seems to have given the fruit plants a bit of a boost. We have been awash with raspberries and gooseberries, the loganberries are beginning to ripen, as are the blueberries (at last). Unfortunately, the strawberries have not faired well this year, there are loads of them but because of the excess rain they seem to have either gone yucky or been devoured by slugs :-( I am a bit upset at this because I was really hoping to make some strawberry jam this year.

This is one of my Lebanese courgettes. Like most things, they have been slow growing this year. I grew these for the first time last year and they are the best courgettes to grow, ever! Last year I had tons and tons of courgettes off one plant, and they are so tasty. This year I sowed seeds for three plants, three weeks apart, in a hope to extend my harvesting season. Fingers crossed they are going to undergo a growing spurt soon.

It was even sunny enough on Thursday for the Livingstone Daisy's (Mesembryanthemum - meaning "midday flowering") to bother opening up! 

This is about 50% of our shallot harvest this year. I dug these up on Thursday and they are currently drying. At least these seem to have avoided any rain-issues. Unfortunately the potatoes look like being a different story. The Sharpe's Express first early's were pretty successful but we dug up some Arran Pilot yesterday and the yield was really disappointing - about 5 potatoes per plant. I don't think we'll be growing them next year.