13th July

It was a hot week tunnel with temperatures hitting 49, it was toastie in them.

The tomato and cucumbers grew over a foot, and we had to go in twice during the week to get the side shoots off and tie them up.

Out in the field it was high 20s, fantastic for the Courgettes, we had our first courgette harvest on Wednesday with 30 kilos coming of off them, and the following day another 30 kilos, that is a great early harvest, and we should be able to give everyone courgettes pretty soon and right up until the frost comes.

All the squash plants are looking great and this week we hand weeded them all for the last time, we won’t be able to do that again as the plants will grow really big and we won’t get in with the bed weeder.

We are now onto bed weeding the leeks for their second time, and hopefully their last time.

This week we are harvesting neeps for everyone.

Yes, it is early, but we had a neep for tea this week, just boiled nothing else, they are so sweet, so it would be a sin not to give you all one to try.

They are early, and it is because we blocked the seeds and planted each neep as a plant, and not direct sown in the field, the traditional way.

This way they got a great start over the weeds, and we have only had machine weed then hand weed them once, which means the spacings are perfect and every neep has grown.

The beetroot is exactly the same, and we have saved on hundreds of thousand of seeds that is required when direct sowing in the field.

Last year and every year before, I had to go through with the weeding machine, by almost guess work as to where the middle row is, because the weeds germinate at the same time as the beetroot or swede seed, we then had to hand weed them four times.

Last year I had to re sow them as it was so cold and wet in May.

This is one trial that has been a great success.