Sunday 17th June 2007 - Weather: Overcast but warm and muggy

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

Today was a mad dash visit as we had mates coming over for a BBQ and I wanted to dig some new spuds and pick any ripe strawbs. Well, thanks to all the rain and warm muggy weather I have a possitive plantation of weeds! Boy am I going to be busy on Tuesday weeding getting things tidy before my op on Wednesday. I picked nearly 6Ib of ripe strawberries! Almost crazy. Mum will be over on Tuesday so someone else to enjoy them, and the little girl over the road is very keen, so I might keep her supplied for the next couple of weeks. Then I filled a punnet with lovely ripe raspberries. The fruit cage has worked perfectly and the redcurrants are all red and hanging on the plants like rubies.

Couldn't decide what spuds to try really, so figured on Kestrel. One plant yielded only 6 spuds, but 4 of them were HUGE! Hmmm...should have dug them a few weeks earlier it seems. Moved on and tried International Kidney. Now thats more like it. A big bowl full of spuds mostly golf ball size, although a few were fist size. Again, I think I left them a tad long. Oh well, mum loves new pots, so I shall dig a load on Tuesday so she has them at the ready.

Last job was to pick a couple of the lettuce. I picked a soft leafed green called Salad bowl and a firmer red leaf lettuce whoose name escapes me, but it is like an oak leaf lettuce.

When I got home I had the booklet for the summer show. I hope to be able to enter gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants, lettuce, spuds, broadbeans, french beans, peas,rhubarb and sweetpeas. I may enter

courgettes in the 'other veg' section. Just hope I heal nice and quickly to allow me time to gather. The show is on July 7th.

We had a lovely barby, the food was great and between us all, we scoffed a big bowl of berries. Looking forward to Tuesday and hopefully I will be able to list exactly what is what and what isn't whatting!