I miss the food posts on this blog, they all seem to be over on the 'Year Without ...' blog at the moment, but I thought I would put up a photo of my just strung onions on here, as they are homegrown food and that's what our life is all about.
I even clicked on the Approved Food link on the righthand sidebar to see what they were selling these days, it seems ages since I did a blog post about them, but then I've not ordered anything at all this year. It was interesting to have a trawl around the website though ... and I was almost tempted to place an order.
Yes, the onion crop has been poor this year the ones you see strung here are pretty much all we have at the moment. The overwintered leeks all went to seed before I could harvest them and before they had time to put on any real growth to make them worth harvesting (and yes I have saved some of the seeds for next year) and the best onions I have in the polytunnel at the moment are the Spring Onions. They are doing well, this reminds me I need to get another batch of seeds in asap to replace the ones we are eating. The tomatoes are turning slowly ... ever so slowly ... red and the cucumber plants have started giving us enough cucumbers to keep us going. Shortly, hopefully, there will be some extra and I can gift a couple to my neighbor to say thank you for all the gooseberries and red and blackcurrants that she allowed me to pick a couple of weeks ago.
I don't know what has happened to my courgette plants, they seem to be on a go slow, at last there are a few flowers but no fruits to speak of at all, I'm sure I'm further behind than I was at this time last year. It seems nothing has enjoyed the strange unpredictable and changeable weather we have had over the last two months, well except the bugs, slugs and weeds of course.
One really good thing is that the Blueberries are now ripening and this morning I picked this trayful, currently open freezing ready to be tipped into a box in the freezer for free flowing easy use. I only stopped picking because the little tub I had taken over was full, so I will be back first thing in the morning to gather in all the rest that have turned that delicious shade of blue that means they are ready to eat. I'll bring you some next week Mum when I come to visit ... we always share they were Mum's bushes before they were mine :-)
Today's main job has been pruning the tomato plants of the excess leaves and extra little side shoots that have sprung out seemingly everywhere, but it was so hot in the polytunnel this morning that I had to end that and leave some for later on when the temperature goes down to a more tolerable level.
It's that time of year when it almost feels like a full time job growing the food we eat ... but a good one at that!
Sue xx