It is early-June in my little veg patch. We have been having really odd weather so far this year. It was blinking freezing here in the North East of England until basically the end of May. I was beginning to feel pretty unconvinced that the warmer weather was going to arrive!

That didn’t stop me from playing fast and loose with the weather predictions and deciding to move my tomato seedlings to an unheated plastic greenhouse. I lost around 60% of the tomatoes that I had lovingly nurtured from seed in a late frost. Its my own fault really for getting them out a bit early – I just wanted my windowsills back.

Oh well, I’m only learning!

We have had some really lovely sunny days recently though and that has made all the veggies a bit happier.

Everything is just so green at the moment. I love greenery and I certainly longed for it when I lived in a city. But, it does look really ‘samey’. I found this last year too. I have companion planted lots of flowers in my beds this year in an attempt to cheer the place up and to control some of the pests by either acting as a sacrificial plant (looking at you nasturtium) or by attracting pollinators and bugs to eat the evil little critters. But they are yet to put on their display. I look at other peoples’ gardens and posts online and everything seems to be flourishing – maybe I’m doing something wrong? I don’t know.

However, the borage’s leaves are really quite big now and I can see that there are little flower buds beginning to form, I am beyond excited. This is how I get my kicks now – what happened to me? I can’t wait for the bees to find it and start flitting around the plot – hopefully pollinating everything they get their little legs on – hello bigger harvests!!

My ‘gigantes’ beans are starting to twirl themselves around the canes. no signs of flowers yet but they are putting on growth at a rate of knots. I’m growing these and ‘Yin Yang’ beans this year, both for drying. I wanted to do away with the plastic packs of beans from the shops. I know they are cheap as chips but I thought I’d try and grow my own. We chuck beans in loads of things to replace meat or meat ‘alternatives’. Lentils are an absolute godsend for veggie chilli. I wonder if I could grow my own lentils? Please leave a comment if you have and give me advice on growing them!

I also succession planted some ‘sweetheart cabbage’ in the space left by the potatoes I harvested last week. This was a request from my mum – I’m calling it my allotment fee and a few cabbages is a small price to pay, I reckon.

New to the veg patch this year are 4 little fruit trees; a plum, a pear, an apple, and a cherry. All cordon types (which I have no clue how to prune) I popped them in big pots until I decide where they should live permanently. They seem to be doing really well and are happy. There’s lots of new growth but no flowers on any of them yet? Maybe they aren’t old enough? I did notice that there are some greenfly making their home on some of the new shoots at the top! I made the decision from the very start not to use any pesticides or anything of that ilk in my garden so I’m just waiting for a hungry ladybird or ten to find them and have a tasty meal.

Finally, the purple mangetout are starting to bear fruits. I harvested a grand total of 4 pods last week. I absolutely love these guys. They continue to produce allll summer long and I just think the flowers are so beautiful.

How’s your veg plot coming along? Let me know below.