How the Garden Grows

The last few days - from Friday onward, really - have been a combination of clear skies, low winds, and high temperatures. It got up to 25C around our place yesterday - I don't have a reliable thermometer at the moment, but that's from a weather station a few miles away.

The garden is responding to this by growing visibly. The above-ground portions of the potatoes are easily half as big again in five days, the peas are starting to climb the cones, and the beans are putting on something over an inch a day. The onions aren't showing much change, but I assume they're swelling away under the surface there, and the strawberries are starting to fruit. I need to get some willow hoops or something under the netting there; they're coming up against it. The basil - recently moved to a bigger pot - is also booming along, which is vaguely surprisingly; my experience of basil before has mostly involved withered plants. And we were given a very fine mint plant by a friend, so I'll be interested to see how that comes on. I gather mint will take over any space it can, so it's staying in its nice terracotta pot for now.

In the meantime, the lettuce seeds sown ten days ago are now all coming up, and as soon as they're past the seedling stage, they'll be transplanted - some to the east end of the long bed, and some to the shady bed that's been lying fallow, so that I can see which works better. There's no sign of the pumpkins yet, but I live in hope. Once the lettuces go into the ground, I'll follow up with more sowings in the pots.