Welcome Rain

The overnight rain was a welcome event, the year has been very dry so far and fear of drought is still not far from our minds. The last of the crab apples are now picked waiting for maybe jelly or food for the birds. One of the biggest challenges of a kitchen garden is making use of all of your produce. Although I make a lot of jams and preserves, using it up within the year can be a challenge as we are not the tea and toast type of breakfast family. The afternoon has been productive, some weeding and planting. The new green globe artichokes are now planted, I am hoping to get enough to use as a subject in a painting. My tioga strawberries did not make as many runners this year but I have replanted two of the garden beds. The paths to the kitchen garden are planted with strawberries for easy picking but due to years of severe water restrictions I had to let some of the beds go. I have planted my red flowering broad bean seeds that I bought from Diggers. I hope to paint them and save some of the seeds for planting next year. Some of my friends tell me that they have perennial beds of leeks. I have never had any success with this. I managed to plant out some leeks today before the rain set in again. My leeks have always bolted to seed at the same time and not really self sown. My friend Helga told me the other day when we were in her wonderful garden that a friend of hers recently told her to cut the leek off at the ground rather than pulling it up. The leek is supposed to re shoot forming a perennial bed so I will be trying that this year.