The veggie garden

I remembered to take my camera into the garden yesterday to take some photos of the seedlings.  Everything is behind, in growing terms, because of the prolonged bad weather.  Even now, the soil is still very cold, and there was a frost again the night before last, so we're hesitant about planting too much out quite yet.  What we are doing is moving the seedlings from the house to the greenhouse, and getting them aclimatised that way.

Runner beans in various stages - looks like we could be in for a bumper crop this year

Pea seedlings

Tomatoes

The only cucumber to germinate - still indoors

Yes, those blue things are slug pellets, sorry :-(.   We have struggled so much  in the past with slugs eating all our tender little seedlings, we have to resort to drastic action.

We bought a bag of salad potatoes a little while ago, and some began to chit.  Not wanting them to go to waste, N has been nurturing them along, and at the weekend he planted some of them out into one of our raised beds (we have 4, but only 3 are for vegetables; I have flowers in the other).  The netting is a deterent to the local cats who do enjoy digging in newly turned soil.

In one of the other beds, N has put up some netting for the peas.  It's the first time we've tried growing peas, and we're eager to see how they do.  Against the fence is a sturdier trellis for the runner beans.  

We've also sown spinach and carrots, but so far nothing to show.  Hopefully the warmer weather over the past few days may be an encouragement to the seeds.

Doesn't this salad look delicious?  We are hoping we will be able to be eating our own home-grown leaves, tomatoes and cucumber later in the summer.  In the meantime, I will simply enjoy and appreciate N's ability to produce such a beautiful-looking plate of food - it was very tasty, too!

And finally, in between the painting, which is becoming a bit of a labour of love, I have a new project on the go.  I'm hoping it will go together quickly, as it has to be in the post by Friday - no pressure then ;-)