Trailing plants

Finally after months of trailing leaves we are starting to get lots of beautiful purple flowers on out borlotti bean plants and some have started turning into pods. 

Beautiful borlotti bean flower

Borlotti beans emerging

The cucumber plants are also flourishing with lots of flowers a few cucumbers. This is the first one and I'm hoping the spikes will disappear as it gets bigger.

First cucumber emerging

Unfortunately the pea plants all shrivelled up after a few dry spells. But they managed to give a few pods which we dried to try again for next year. 

Dried pea pods

The bittergourd plant doesn't seem to be doing so well outside surprisingly but we have one indoors that is trailing nicely. Lots of flowers on both but none are fruiting.

Indoor bitter gourd plant

The butternut squash plants are doing okay. We aren't expecting too much as they were planted close together sue to the lack of space so it's a bit of an experiment. There are a lot of flowers as well but again, none have fruited.

Trailing plants are great fun. I love seeing them grow and train them to places I want them to go. Since we have slugs, its a good way to keep them from eating everything. Next year, green beans are on our list of things to grow.

First potato harvest

Growing potatoes were a bit of an experiment as we had some store bought heritage potatoes that had sprouted and we thought instead of throwing them out, we'll try to grow them. 

It was a bit frustrating seeing all the leafy green shoots but not been able to use them, plus not being able to see the growth progress of potatoes beneath the ground. But all was revealed at the end of July when we dug it all up consisting of the two heritage varieties of Shetland Black and the other one we can't remember! We probably could have left the Shetland Blacks to get a little bigger

Although it was a successful experiment, I'm not sure if it's worth growing them next year unless we have a large spare planter box.

But the potato plant also produced some fruit after flowering which makes me tempted to experiment growing from seed.