Plum lucky

Well this wasn’t how I had planned my day: but I have been a harvesting aplenty today. And have just come inside to revive and rest my arm from the heavy bucket of fruit. Ooh what a show off. But it’s true. The plum trees below the house and the mirabelles on the path up to the potting shed are shedding like mad.

And what a crop. Here are the red plums that I was able to reach. And the rest are just going to have to rot. They are too high up and with a slope there is no way I can get them.   I only noticed them when I was watering the small olive trees underneath. And they are alive and kicking. What a winter the poor things had.

You can’t really tell from this rather odd photograph, but there is growth and it bodes well for a crop in about, oh, ten years time.

I really need to do some careful strimming of this little bank. There is a lot of growth around the trees. Even though I have put a mulch of river stones around each plant.

The day started a long way from trees: up too early owing to a mozzie bite on my foot, I couldn’t get back to sleep so decided to just get out there and plant 100 leeks. It’s dead easy as I have already made the holes in the weedproof fabric. And I whipped them into the ground in no time.

The tool I used to make the deep hole was a lovely inheritance from my late father in law. It is a heavy steel spike, perfect for pushing about eight inches of soil aside to make way for the seedlings.   And I missed him greatly when I bent to the task. He had so much wonderful knowledge about gardening and particularly vegetables. I like to think he would approve that I have now more than 160 leeks in the ground and was even contemplating planting 50 more. There is the space.

I have two new cloches – made by Bernard yesterday. One I have already placed in the long row ready for the swiss chard crop. It is under the thick netting that started life as the broad bean protector. And as soon as I prick out the newly sown chard, this will be the perfect place for them.

The other cloche will serve a job as protector against the four footed beasts for my new beetroot crop. Beet tops are just too tempting for my favourite deer. So they will have to be double netted like the lettuce cloche. But I dont have time to build the netting just yet. And besides, I haven’t even pricked out the beetroot seedlings or potted them on. So I have about ten days or so left.

And that is my allotted break time. Tea is over, mp3 recharged. I need to get more plums in before I flop onto the sofa and watch the Mont Ventoux stage of the Tour de France.

And here is the haul. Just under three kilos. Or thereabout. I had a bit of trouble getting them on to the scales.

Now I have a nice afternoon job to do. Halve them, poach them and then either make tarts, or freeze them. Bliss.