Yesterday I harvested the first courgettes, from the greenhouse. We are going to fry them up with the first of Neill’s garlic for lunch in a minute.
On Wednesday we each ate half a strawberry at tea break time. They weren’t quite the very first strawberries, but close enough. Sebastian had the very very first properly rich red ripe one on Monday, but didn’t quite realise its significance at the time. The birds ate a few too, and Ruben, almost quicker than the birds, had a couple of stained red handfuls for himself before we got the strawberry netting fixed on Thursday.
The first outdoor lettuces are ready to harvest. We’re just trying to eat up the last of the indoor ones, which have been hastily pulled out to make way for tomatoes and sweetcorn in the old polytunnel.
This week we sent the first of our early greenhouse carrots to the market. They are clean and bright and fresh and crunchy orange, especially after the big tired old grey carrots stored from last year. It would be criminal to peel these carrots; criminal almost to cook them even. Though they are fantastic roasted whole. Ruben and Brendan and Alexander have been enjoying baby carrots straight out of the ground for weeks, but the rest of us were waiting for them to be a decent size before we started harvesting. In the end, the need to plant tomatoes pushed the decision to pull out a whole bed of beautiful carrots, which are, in my opinion just the perfect size anyway.
The first beetroots should perhaps have been larger, but they are just beginning to bolt in the heat of the polytunnel, so we started on harvesting delicious baby beetroot this week too. Also recommended roasted whole.
I’ve been hearing the first real cuckoo calling this week; on and on, loud and clear from the woods.
