Late August

I recovered from the travelling and returned to work this week for a rest. We took the girls to Hardmuir Fruit Farm at Auldearn near Nairn and that was really good, they had all sorts of fruit to pick your own and a corn maize which was great fun...two hours spent looking for dinosaur clues in the maze! They also had go-karts which the kids could ride around the blocks of fruit which was great fun.

Whilst returning the girls in Bristol i attended the annual Balloon Fiesta and was really impressed with the nightglow. I also managed to track some rather good garden centres too but didn't have too much time to explore them fully.

I'm starting to pick carrots, i grow the round type and they're really gathering speed now and i cooked the first ones last week and they were delicious. I'm needing to lifting my onions and shallots, got good sized onions this year and good shallots too.


The cordon apple trees are showing a really good crop but still a while to wait for these before picking. They're all dessert apples and were very tasty last year.





There's still one or two strawberries but these are smaller but still tasty.

Still digging the tatties and getting good sized potatoes now. The crop isn't as good as other years although still reasonable which i put this down to the weather.

My caulis are just starting to form heads and so is the broccoli so i'm keeping a close eye on both. Hopefully i'll be cutting my own shortly. Pleased with the difference the netting made to the caterpillar problem. I only netted the brussels to protect from the birds so took the netting off but left it on the cabbages etc. The brussels had caterpillars but the netted brassicas didn't.

The green beens are gathering pace and in the space of a week are really huge, one picking is enough for a family of five and then some. I'm having to pick them every other day to ensure that they don't set seed. I'm always amazed at the difference in taste between shop bought runners and those you grow yourself. I've eaten some and frozen a lot, I don't think even Captain Bird's Eye could get them frozen as quick me! Not bad from three wigwams.