Playing 'catch up'

What with holidays and rain, it's taken a few weeks to catch up with weeding on 97A. Now that's nearly done, and it's starting to get to the stage where harvesting will come to the fore.

SomeBeans continues his toil on 99, and we've put down some weed suppressant membrane to try and reduce regrowth where he has hacked down the undergrowth. We will continue to dig this.

Blight having struck the potatoes, I have cut down the infected haulms to ground level, in the hope that it won't have had a chance to travel down to the spuds. The potatoes I dug up on Friday looked good. I've ordered some sacks so that I can dig up the remains of the potatoes ASAP, to reduce the risk of attack by slugs whilst underground.

Photo of potato beds with foliage removed

Our first courgette was harvested - very nice lightly fried in butter. I also harvested and roasted a bulb of elephant garlic. This has proved to be a hit, with some of the flesh squished into potatoes during roasting to give a mild garlic flavour. We haven't had to buy potatoes since May, which is hardly self sufficiency but still is exciting to me!

In the garden, the Californian poppies have been ruthlessly uprooted as I decided they were too untidy. This has luckily given me lots of space - to plant more plants! :) I bought a variety of plants from Penlan nurseries - most of the plants have now been put into the ground. The plants arrived promptly and were a good price - a recommended supplier. The front garden will have some of the love-in-a-mist removed, and hardy geraniums put in, to tidy it up a bit.

And, living up to the name of the blog, the Inelegant Gardener has a rather inelegant tanned segment on her back, from weeding in the sun in a tee-shirt which doesn't quite cover her back! Still, cheaper than a tattoo...