The vegetable garden this Easter

Mange tout peas yesterday.

Easter has come early this year but the vegetable garden is well under way despite heavy snow three weeks ago. Here are a few photos to show some of the jobs we have been doing and some of the changes underway.

Potatoes and weeds!

With longer days, plenty of sun and rain  everything starts to grow fast, weeds included, so a lot of time has to be spent weeding. 

The same potato beds a couple of hours latter just after weeding and earthing up.

Our vegetable garden is dynamic, some crops and varieties do better than others and we try to grow the best tasting varities that are most suited to our conditions. We have been growing the standard strawberry variety Selva for some years. It produces lots of firm large red fruits but the flavour is a big disappointment. So we when we got offered some suckers from a local organic grower of the flavour full variety Albion we jumped at the offer. We over wintered the suckers in pots in the greenhouse and have now just planted them out in a new bed. In the existing strawberry beds we are interplanting with artichokes and more raspberries with the idea of removing these strawberry plants after they have fruited this season.

The new strawberry bed just planted.

Artichokes interplanted in one of the old strawberry beds

Raspberry canes interplanted in another of the old strawberry beds

One of our established autumn raspberry beds shooting well.

At this time of year some crops are in their prime for harvesting and some of the best plants we select for seed production.

Asparagus ready for cutting

Abundance of late purple sprouting ready for harvest

A superb swede plant selected and left for seed production

From the greenhouse we are cutting lettuce and we will soon be planting tomatoes where the lettuce are. However at this time of year the majority of the greenhouse is dedicated to producing plants for planting outdoors.

Lettuce in the greenhouse ready for cutting

Pepper plants in the greenhouse house

On a farm like ourse there is always plenty of maintenance to be done

Andrés repairing the compost bins

Like much of Europe we had more snow than normal this winter with a big snow storm three weeks ago. The dammage from the snow wasnt from the cold but from the weight of the snow.

Three weeks ago; tree branches next to the hotel broken under the weight of the snow

Two weeks ago;  broad beans flattened under the weight of the snow.

Yesterday; the broad beans fully recovered from the snow and enjoying the warm weather.

Our early potatoes yesterday only 3 weeks away from cropping and showing no signs of snow dammage.

 Happy gardening and healthy eating!