[gardgydja]

Nearly midsummer already! Things have been a bit hectic here what with the family away for a holiday and then everyone of course being laid up with colds for a week and a half after we came back, so the plot has been a bit neglected. Our camera was stolen on the last day of our holiday as well so I still have no photos for you!! My lovely man promises to sort this out shortly (not sure if that means we get another camera or I just get the lend of his mobile phone) so I´ll try my best to have something soon.

The broccoli raab is by far the most impressive thing growing, besides the potatoes. The normal broccoli just next to the BR is struggling but hanging in there. The kale didn´t amount to much so we will sow more. The radishes are doing very well, mixed bunch and all very tasty including a firey purple one we´ve never seen before. The spinach is coming along, the ruccola as well. The broad beans are beginning to flower. The peas are a joke so we treat them as such- with humour. Will continue to sow and hope for the best until july. The french beans are not too bad. The carrots are not impressive but being stomped on by rabbits hasn´t helped. We know it was rabbits because we found poo. The cucumbers that we so lovingly sprouted on the sill were planted out a week ago and all of them died! We plan to sow more directly. The pumpkins and squashes also suffered great numbers of losses. The weather turned very cold overnight the day after we planted them out. We will just have to make do with what we have left. The tomatoes are alright but going very slowly. Two of them are flowering, the remaining 10 plants are still tiny. Peppers the same. The beetroot and parsley root are up but not much to see yet. The leeks are like blades of grass. The mystery haferrot is still a mystery. The herb bed is patchy and the grassy bit is doing well except rogue potatoes are always popping up all over it! The alpine sterawberries are going into a second fruiting. The only really sad thing is something has systematically broken all of our sunflowers, just the one left now. Birds?

Overall we are really pleased with the small miracles we see there but I can really feel how much later we were in getting started compared to the others around us. Our plan is to get properly sorted for the autumn/winter now, and mulch with seaweed once autumn arrives, and just enjoy whatever veg we get. We certainly enjoy being out there, and that is half the fun at least!

Best wishes to you all and have a lovely midsummer!

Melissa

[Yorkie]

That sounds really interesting, Melissa.

How does broccoli raab differ from PSB, and is your summer weather similar to ours in temperature, rain, sun etc?  I guess you may have longer days than us (I mean daylight hours, not more than 24 hours  :roll: ) at the moment?

I think it's great that we have members from such a different range of countries  

[gardgydja]

We had a real heat wave in May with 25c days and 12-15 c nights. It went up to the low 30s the week we were away (and no one to water for me!) but then the temp dropped again to a more normal 15c day, 10c night. The worst thing is the lack of rain, we have very sandy soil and you can water every day and it still is dry as a bone next morning iyswim.
The days are pretty long but we are in the very south of Sweden so it´s not really very different to say, Scotland in that respect.

On midsummer  in Malmö the sun rises at 4.24 am and sets 9.56 pm.
Back home in Reykjavik on the same date the sun rises at 2.55 am and sets at 12.04, so there is really no night at all! Not until August, really. So we feel like we are living in the tropics here, haha

Oh, and broccoli raab looks like straggly broccoli with no real flower, and it tastes more bitter. Wonderful stir-fried with garlic!

[kezlou]

Why oh why don't i move sweden, nice hot sunny weather. Your veg sounds great and your peas are like non existent as yet. But they soon will be ours are just hiding!

Now if only British weather could get to 30 i'd be happy!  

[gardgydja]

It isn´t hot and sunny now, we´re invited to an overnight dinner party at our friends´summer cottage on midsummer and the forecast is cold and showers. And we are meant to be sleeping in a tent, with the kids who are just over the colds they caught in Mallorca, where it was also cold and raining!

We need the rain though. There have been articles in the newspaper asking folk to put out food and water for the hedgehogs. It´s been a very dry spring, and unseasonably warm.

On the bright side, I have not seen a single slug.