Hot Potatoes!

The hot summer weather continues punctuated by severe thunderstorms and downpours. The result is that everything is growing like crazy. At the weekend I picked 4 large buckets of broad beans - and there's more to come - and I dug the first two rows of properly-planted potatoes. These are Colleens which I've had before and are pretty good. With all that rain the soil was muddy and not ideal for potato-picking but needs must as I want the space for some leek seedlings left over from the main planting-out.

Harvested about 30lbs of potatoes from the two rows (22 plants). They are in fairly good condition with only a few worm / slug holes. Had to pull one small slug out of a hole and chucked it over the hedge into the field (sorry Billy but the cattle probably don't mind!). Paul spread out the potatoes on newspaper on the conservatory floor to dry off and this morning I brushed the mud off, sorted out the damaged ones for immediate use and the very small ones for potato salad and stored the rest in cardboard wine boxes. Wine boxes are great because the cardboard sections prevent any rot spreading through the whole batch. Stored in our cool, dark garage they will provide good eating during the winter.

Rainbow

We're having a proper summer this year with spells of hot sunshine, warm winds and occasional heavy downpours. Great for the fruit trees and vegetables. Yesterday evening we were treated to a magnificent rainbow as the setting sun shone on the falling rain.

An eerie glow and you can just see the double rainbow with colours reversed.

Magnificent rainbow over Froggarts Cottage Garden

Bunnies

We have been visited by a couple of young rabbits. They have been playing about and eating the grass on our lawn outside the kitchen window. Very cute and entertaining.

However, Hubby has spotted a large rabbit (Mum or Dad?) in the vegetable garden sizing up the broad beans - so not so cute!

We are surrounded by fields with plenty of sandy banks where rabbits can make a home. Usually sometime in the spring a farmer has a shoot and the numbers are cut dramatically. But one of the fields has been sold with the School House so the rabbits are running free this year.