Glad of the Rain

After endless weeks of endless sunshine it has been lovely to have some refreshing rain.  Makes weeding a whole lot easier!  And fewer trips to the tap with the watering cans.  Just the polytunnel and greenhouse needing water at the moment which is much less effort.  Cleared the broad beans today and picked the last of them, going to leave that patch fallow for the rest of the year and just enrich it as there was a large patch where nothing much grew.  Onion patch is all empty now and waiting for some purple sprouting broccoli to go in, and some more leeks.  Climbing beans and runner beans are all flowering now.  Cabbages and other brassicas are seeming to be avoiding the cabbage white butterflies thankfully but time will tell.....  Got quite a bit of bare space now but hoping to get some more things started, with the ground a bit softer and damper now it will be much better.  The beetroot seeds I put in just before the hot spell havent really done very much at all.  So, picked the last of the broad beans today for dinner - and some chard and curly kale.  Also the elephant garlic came up.  HUGE!  Really pleased with them.

All the onions are hanging now and hopefully will be enough to see us through the winter.  The freezer is heaving with beans and soft fruit which is a little unfortunate as the freezer is on the blink and we are awaiting delivery of a new one today.... hopefully it will come before everything has defrosted!