Following a very rainy day yesterday today started crisp and sunny. After sorting out some technical difficulties – a lot of them of my own making – I went to the allotment to do more harvesting. It was the turn of apples and chard. My little Bramley tree has given me some beauties. The tree itself didn’t look like anything and the apples themselves were rather small. I thinned them but they didn’t improve too much. I left them and all of a sudden they suddenly swelled up and look very tasty.

The rain was equally beneficial for the chard and I harvested a full plastic bag. I prefer it to spinach because it doesn’t shrink so much in cooking. The flavour is excellent and I use it the same way, I make spinach lasagne.

I grew the chard inside one of my net cages because otherwise the pigeons would strip it all. In the same cage I grew some cabbages and kale and I cut two little red cabbages. These are very tasty just shredded and steamed, we’ll have it together with some steamed potatoes and fish.