It's all kicking off here

At last...

The sun has arrived and everything seems to be loving it. We have more strawberries than I know what to do with :

I already have a jam making session's worth in the freezer, a couple of frozen desserts and the start of a rum pot well, I say rum it is actually 38% alcohol for fruits and can be bought here for about 10€ per litre so here's hoping it isn't too disgusting.

Remember the pathetic fig tree that I was so excited about last time - well, it took offence and just to prove me wrong went off on one - look at it now - actually this picture is about a week old and it's even bigger than that and growing fast in the sun.

So far (touch wood) the blight has stayed away. I'm being quite vigilant and spraying every couple of weeks with Bordeaux mix and crossing fingers. The grapes are starting to show - let's hope they loose their blue haze when they are ready for winemaking though eh?

I feel like a proper gardener now - walking along the plots, hands behind my back looking lovingly at everything that is growing.

The sweetcorn and broadies are romping away in this sun. I gave them a feed of Phostrogen which they seemed to like and we picked our first broad beans on Monday. Not quite enough to keep a sparrow alive but, hey, this is our first picking.

In the fruit "orchard" the red and black currants are ripening up and nearly ready for harvesting - that is, as long as we can get to them before the birds do. The apples, goosegogs and 2 mirabelles are also doing well so we may yet get a pudding out of them this year. Next year - organic or not, I am going to spray with every pesticide known to man in the hope of getting a little more fruit from the trees.

And lastly, we have been thinking that the outside of the house is a bit flat and boring so with that in mind Keith has kindly made me a frame for a raised bed so that I can have some climbing things in it that will grow up the wall and as soon as Flash heard the word bed he thought, that would be a good idea for a lie down and, as you know, it's best to let sleeping dogs lie :-)