Another very hot week to end May & 1st strawberry harvest

Did I say strawberry harvest, well yes the 1st of many. 

It's been so hot this week the fruits are ripening every day.

We had more peas ready to go in, so I put up a quick chicken wire support for them to grow up. 

Love the flag iris growing at the end of the pond. 

We spotted 11 Frogs today in and around the pond.

The other peas that were battered by the wind last weekend survived, despite the frame blowing down! 
So I reconstructed it and put extra supports in.

The apples are doing well despite the very dry times we have been having. 

Even our rain butts are empty, but we have a solution to our lack of water, see below. 

Gooseberries also looking good. 
They too are doing well without water. 
See next picture for a top tip. 

Top Tip: I found out that if you put rhubarb leaves under your goosberries its supposed to stop the sawfly rising up from the soil, where they are lying in wait. 
So everytime we harvest our rhubarb the leaves go under our bushes.

More strawberries, so Jo made a lovely victoria sponge cake filled with whipped cream & our strawberries. 
Lovely it was too. 

The brassica patch looking healthy, I had to make the net tunnel taller for the cauliflowers and the sprouts will be next for a taller tunnel.

Picked my 1st radish and had it with my pic-nic lunch, can't get fresher than that.

Rainbow chard looking good, Jo is looking at recipies so we can use it before it gets too tough, best to pick it young & tender.

Now that we are coming down in the evening to water, as its too hot during the day. 
I made little moats around the base of some of our plants, so the water doesnt run away on the dry sandy soil.

I did the same to the broad beans, so they get localised watering.

Because our site doesnt have mains water, we collect off our shed roof into 3 large rain butts, but now they are empty, this is how we are getting water to our plot, we have a small & a large Aquaroll totals 70 ltrs and we have been bringing this amount down twice a day recently!

Another task I have done to complete the pond area, is to put paving in front of the pond, this will stop the weeds taking over and gives us easy access to our other goosberry bushes at the end.

This picture was taken at 21:15 just before sunset, and after tonight watering & strawberry picking. 
We will return tomorrow with more water for our thirsty crops.

Thanks for reading/returning. Ian & Jo