Rioja fueled gardening

Well the BBC weather forecast is officially inaccurate (load of old cods - they said it would be beautiful today) now... it was supposed to be warm and sunny today. It is warm, but it is pouring with rain on and off.

Never mind. I still managed to get all my Purple Sprouting Broccoli in, all the Red Cabbage planted and the big round yellow courgettes into the beds. Plus get a new ring gear sprocket thingy fitted to Huw's BMX.

Here's some shots of the veg as it grows today. Give it a few weeks... and we'll be nearly there.

This shows the "farti"chokes just pushing up on the right hand side, the rhubarb doing well and just beyond the rhubarb the courgettes that I just put in this morning. The picture below shows them more.

Here's my poly tunnels (not perhaps what you thought they were Jo...?) and a homemade one in the middle. In the righthand tunnel are the Globe Artichokes, in the middle the red cabbage and on the left the purple sprouting broccoli.

Below are the broad beans. Something we all love are baby broad beans. For years we've grown green ones, this year in common with many other things we chose a red variety. They look the same at the moment!

Below are the 3 coloured runner beans. It's not the beans that are coloured but the flowers. They have yellow, orange and red flowers I think ( I may be wrong we'll see...)

The picture below (not as clear as I hope to be in a few weeks) shows a rare vegetable called Salsify. It looks a bit like a white carrot, but thinner and longer when grown. At the moment it looks like grass, and the seeds looked like long grass seeds. (maybe I've been had???) I've put a tight fence around it as the cats seem to be treating every patch of fresh earth as a handy litter at the moment and digging everything up. Hopefully this will deter them and the pesky pigeons from pulling up all the new plants.

In the picture below are the dwarf black french beans. Not much showing at the moment but hopefully before long we'll have little bushes of flowers and long black beans.

One of my most favourite plants in the garden. The Gooseberry bush. This year it is laden with ripening fruit already. Roll on mid June when Gooseberry crumble is on the menu every evening for weeks and weeks.

You can see the little Gooseberries here.


And the fuel to keep me going. This is my present from my dear friends Doug and Karen. Thanks guys. Much appreciated and now I feel well and truly relaxed. Cheers.


I'd just put the BBQ on when there was a knock at the door. Doug and Karen turned up with a bottle of my favourite Rioja and a birthday card. Thanks folks - I really, really appreciated that and needed it! I've got the badge on!