I grew these because I saw them in Jon and Trish’s garden. They’re lovely (enorma elite or butler), but even though they’re “stringless”, avoid leaving them too long as they do, eventually, get stringy. Lovely in lots of salads.

One of the lovely things about growing your own vegetables is eating them. Today some of our vegetables spent less than a minute or two in the kitchen before being made into this salad (and we’re talking about food yards here). All of my salad recipes are here.

Everything is growing away except the seeds that I’d sown in the plot to the side of the garage. Not a sign of any parsnips or carrots. I planted out the carrots that I grew from seeds in the greenhouse (Paris Market). They don’t like being disturbed but they will grow eventually, we’ll see. I also planted up another row in the bed next to the greenhouse, along with another row of beetroot (good old Detroit). The other beetroot is doing fine and I’m looking forward to some.

Some of the runner beans, the Enorma Elite, are mostly up and growing but I’m still waiting for Prince, the dwarf green beans. The woman in the shop tells me that she doesn’t sow beans until May as they really like to be warm.

The tomatoes are all doing well and I’ve potted a few up into larger pots. I plan to keep these in the greenhouse in a bid to get tomatoes earlier in the year. I planted a couple of the Garden Pearl into a hanging basket. They’ve already got blossoms. I’m having a plant swap next week, so I’m trying not to pot on the rest as I plan to swap them. They’re getting a bit pot bound.

I’m playing catch up this weekend as I have 5 days of not working. In the greenhouse, I’ve potted out all of the chili peppers and most of sweet peppers and planted some runner beans (Enorma Elite) and dwarf green beans (The Prince). Meanwhile outside the potatoes are starting to show and, best surprise of all, the asparagus has started sprouting. Happy days!