Sunday visit to church

I love my veg, but I refuse to be tied down to it. Recently I've been itching to get out walking so despite the 27 degree temperatures I took Leesa out for a leisurely 10 mile hike yesterday. She'd heard me enthusing about the 'Roaches' in Staffordshire and decided she'd like to come and see what all the fuss was about, so I left the veg to fend for itself in the heat, packed the rucksack, donned a ridiculous pair of shorts, laced up the boots and off we went. Leesa likes to walk light.....

...so guess which turnip had to lug the heavy rucksack as usual?

First stop was a 200' long chasm 50' deep in the wooded hillside called 'Lud's Church'. It was much cooler down here and as you can see from the ferns and mosses clinging to the side, sunlight doesn't penetrate much.

I made a new friend along the way!

After some gentle uphill plodding we reached the top at approx. 1660 feet. A young lady kindly took our photo. Always offer to return the favour.....then run off like billyo with their camera!

At the end of the day a deserved pint of Abbot's Ale....

....and half a shandy!

Back on the plot things didn't suffer too much in the heat but I am having to give the onions quite a lot of water to keep them ticking along. I should shade them or lug them outside but to be honest I just can't be bothered, and they seem to be doing very well despite the heat. There's a class in the NVS National Championships for onions over 1kg but smaller than 1.5kg (3.3lbs)so I will try and get a set of 5 for that for a giggle, although they're easily the best i've ever had at this stage of the season and we still haven't reached the longest day yet so who knows what size they'll end up.

I did manage to get the leeks collared on Saturday. This year i'm using these plastic coated twist wires that you cut to your desired length (Dave Thornton gave me a huge bundle of it) and they make the task of collaring and uncollaring the plants on a regular basis much easier than fiddling about with bits of string as i've done previously.

I got all the shallots 'dished', that is the soil removed from around the clump so that each bulb can swell out without any chance of stones or hard lumps halting their progress. I'm still watering them at the moment but will stop this in the next few days with a view to starting to get them ripened off by mid-June. They're all roughly 33mm diameter in the main at the moment. As soon as these are lifted I'll sow some globe beet in their place which should be about right for Malvern or Westminster.

As well as 15 bags of Kestrel (just popping through) I got 10 bags of Amour set out. I was going to do 20 of each but I may well leave it at that now.

My celery plants have continued to grow well and I'll be planting them out over the coming Jubilee weekend. I am having to make sure the pots are thoroughly wet at all times and having the plants in these blue trays means I can pour an inch or more of water to achieve this, celery being bog plants in the wild that don't much care for wilting sunshine.

The long carrots in pipes in the greenhouse are another crop that are suffering in the heatwave, and I think I may have to abandon this idea as an alternative way of growing long roots in future. A few that were growing away ok have just been cooked to a crisp! Getting enough water to them is proving to be problematic, and I think i'm probably only wetting the top few inches but I'm also worried about flooding them. Back to the drawing board.

However, mad mexicans seem to be enjoying this sunshine......

....and the herbs also love it, being mainly of Mediterranean origin. Funnily enough I thought I heard the ghostly voice of Robin Gibb emanating from my herb bed earlier but when I went to investigate it was just the chive talking.