Hotting up

What a difference a few days can make when it comes to the weather. They reckon it hit 25C yesterday, today the mercury wasn't far off 30C.

A neighbour's plot (pictured, above) looked lovely first thing. I love the weathered old blue wash on her fence and shed, which leads the eye into a busy garden with plenty growing. Perhaps it's the variation in layouts, colours, smells - you name it, as summer finally looks like it means it in our corner of Norfolk.

The clematis shed has burst into flower over the last few days. One of the prettier features on the ramshackle track through the allotments, this corrugated tin structure brings life to its surroundings and always makes me pause to take a picture if I've got a camera on me.

Elsewhere, things are kicking off and growing nicely. The early spuds have got over the shock the frost gave them, growing back nicely.

I harvested three buckets we'd grown new potatoes in, kicked off early in the polytunnel. Nothing massive, but enough for a nice potato salad, to go with one or two other bits from the garden.

After a few problems with mice, the peas are now going for it in the 'tunnel. They're now 18ins or so high and either flowing or in pod.

It hit 100C in there today. Ditto the greenhouse, which has the luxury of automatic vents, which at least make a token effort when it comes to preventing the place from getting too hot. I'm hopeful we might get a pea or two soon, despite many previous failures when it comes to trying to grow this crop.

Tomatoes are also looking like they mean it in both the tunnel and the greenhouse. Those in the latter have their first flowers coming, so give it a month or so and we should be on track for our first toms.

I've also snuck some sweetcorn in, sowing seed in nine stations with canes already in to lash them up against to protect them from the wind.

Today also saw completion of the herb bed, as I dug a load of dirt for a feature elsewhere which provided enough muck to fill the remaining central section.

Instead of herbs, I wanged in alternate rows of red spring onions and those little round carrots to see how they get on.

So much to do, but there's half the fun of it. Sunburned, knackered, top day I'll end with another picture of the amazing clematis shed...