Fruit and veg revival

This is something I never expected to do this year: I’m harvesting buckets of jostaberries.

Was it only a few weeks ago I was spending hours each day squishing the infestation of gooseberry sawfly caterpillars from these shrubs?

Twas the 22nd May, I just checked.

The yield is down. And I think I’m going to need to sort out some winter pruning. But so far so marvellous.

I even did that best early evening job of sitting down on the grassy path in the potager and picking from underneath the bushes.

Cool and shady and oh so productive.  I’m going to freeze this first batch and make them ready for the jostaberry tarts I will churn out over the summer.

And I’m even delighted to see that the caterpillar nasties in the cabbage patch are also ‘so last month’.

I walked up yesterday to have a peer into the long bed. And goodness, are those calabrese?  You would call them brocolli.

I can’t believe the size of these heads.

[Why on earth are they upside down? This has never happened before. Mortifying moment of blogdom.

There, up the right way.]

I whipped out the secateurs to take a shot with scale.  And that was the last time I saw the secateurs.

Did I leave them up there? I swear I brought them down.  Once I’ve finished this cup of tea I’ll wander up and see if I haven’t left them by the path.

Anyone who wants to invent trackable tools for the busy and forgetful gardener, you can use me as a guinea pig.

And just so you don’t get just a blast of green with hints of crimson; here is another revival.

The dahlias have started to flower.

And believe me, with the rat taupier infestation I had this winter, I was sure they would find the tubers underground and munch the lot.

They are in pots sunk into the ground, and I’m going to have to move them up a size this autumn when I cut them back. Some of them are struggling into growth.

But each tall colourful bloom is a way of sticking two fingers up at the invasive taupier beasties and saying ‘nah nah na nah nah’.