Last year’s remnant decided to sprout up in our seedbed of leeks, so we have no leeks, just potatoes… can’t complain

Tomatoes are looking great, all green so far, but hopefully a bit of sunshine this week will have the glowing red!

Cauliflowers = disaster  Birds and bugs have got at them.

Siobhan has promised to make Beef Wellington (geddit?!) once we harvest too, so the protection from pigeons begins now, with a bit of fun of course

We’ll have to resort to nets though given the advice from allotment neighbours, rather than our ‘oh, the pinwheels are so cute’ approach!

This is what’s coming up in the same spot, so we *think* it’s the artichokes!  We really have no idea!

We can’t wait for our roses to bloom – this is our Princess Alexandra of Kent from David Austin Roses – pretty pink blooms and a beautiful scent

But we’re a little worried because one of the buds (which you can just see in the pic) and one of the leaves has a white, slightly powdery, residue on it – is this mildew? And what’s the best way to get rid of it? (if we need to?)

One thing we’re a little concerned about is the number of runners… they are everywhere, but we’re not sure whether to keep them (we have plenty of space) or cut them back – help?!

The herb garden on the plot is going crazy!

Sage is enormous, thyme flowing everywhere, chives have seeded all over the place and the applemint that we thought had been dug up is also popping up where it shouldn’t!

This is great, but we need to find a way to use or preserve them asap…

The most popular, and possibly easiest, way to preserve herbs seems to be to dry them, so that’ll do for us to start with!  First one we’re trying out is sage… we’ll let you know how it all goes

We’ve also had some tips on oven-drying and freezing which we will certainly try out in the coming weeks.

Please let us know how you like to preserve your herbs… we have never done this before so need all the help we get!

Dips from top left are:

Spicy Tomato Salsa made with tomatoes, onion, garlic, tomato paste and cajun seasoning.

Avocado Dip made with avocados, sour cream, mayonnaise, olive oil, tabasco sauce, garlic, lemon juice and fresh coriander.

Sweet Chilli Dip made with low fat cream cheese, home made sweet chilli sauce and fresh coriander.

Tomato, Chilli and Coriander Dip made with tomatoes, lime juice, home made sweet chilli sauce, fresh coriander and tiny bit of brown sugar.

All very scrummy and we cannot wait to try them again once our tomatoes have grown!

We have never grown cauliflower before, so we’re a little nervous… we have read we need to fold the leaves over the florets as they grow, so they’ll need a little more care than our ‘shove it in and see what happens’ approach!

Forgot to take pictures though, sorry!