The green bed has finally had all the brambles, blackthorn and road remnants taken out, 5 barrows of spare soil added to replace everything that has been chucked in the hedge and has been planted up with celeriac, summer (!) PSB, a few swedes, and some leftover chicory. The kohlrabi is in an ‘overflow’ bed where some of the charlottes were. Managed to give away all my surplus celeriac and kohlrabi, but the extra swedes had no takers and got composted.

It’s a huge relief to get that out of the way and the plants finally in the ground. Not least to clear my balcony! I’m quite proud of my slightly unconventional seedling transport – Maud turned quite a few heads as we sailed along the streets, brassica leaves waving in the wind!

Now to get back to the end of the purple bed, which needs finishing and then I have some remedial measuring to do and decisions to make about what to put where. Mum giving me her ancient fruit bushes was not in the original plan!

Digging up the potatoes: charlottes and the duke of york have been a real disappointment. The ones in the bag had quite a high yield. In the soil I got perhaps 4 charlottes per seed potato and 2 per duke of york. The bed was really heavily manured late last year and I can only think that it was all still too fresh or too full of wood chip, which will have taken time to break down. Another disappointment was the garlic, they are the size of large gobstoppers and haven’t cloved at all. To be fair I knew it was chancy growing it on the balcony. Next season it’s going in the plot!

Crops on the way: sweetcorn has 1-2 cobs per plant (woo-hoo!!), white cukes have about 5 cucumbers set and growing, the marketmores are going crazy and the squash just might have some fruit on them….! The habaneros are now flowering so I am crossing fingers for a good harvest.

Harvest tonight: jalapenos, the last rhubarb picking for this year and a small pot of cape gooseberries, which taste nothing like the ones in the shops* – they are tiny and yellowy and taste of honey, rather than the tartness I am used to. There would have been a tomato, purple beans and some blackberries too, but I ate them up there.

*because they ARE different, pruinosa not peruviana. Lesson learned…