At the root of it...with extra photos for Andy

No time for gardening yesterday but got chance for a brief visit today. It rained a lot overnight and it was forecast to rain from 1500 onwards today. As it turned out, there were showers from 1300 onwards.

I was planning to do a little bit of digging in Bed 9 to lift some of the main crop potatoes that I'd left there. I was expecting the ground to be a little too wet but actually it wasn't too bad. Hopefully, it hasn't led to too much damage to the soil structure. Lifting the grass that has been trying to take over was quite easy. I lifted a few carrier bags of muddy spuds. They were mainly on the small side as all the others have been this year. That will teach me for planting them so shallow. I really don't think I have lifted them all so will need to dug over that bed again when it is drier.

I was about to leave when I thought I'd check out the carrots underneath the mesh cloche next to the parsnips (Bed 5 I think). I hadn't looked at them for ages and as I haven't had much luck with carrots, I wasn't expecting anything. A good opportunity to clear them out and use the cloche elsewhere. Lo and behold, there were actually some carrots there (see below).







None of the carrots were huge but there are plenty of useful looking ones. My first decent crop of carrots! I think it was down to the cloche which kept the carrot fly off.

But the excitement (for me) doesn't end there. While I was pulling out the carrots, I spied a couple of parsnip tops amongst their leaves which are now starting to collapse (see piccie below).



Although I was planning to save them for Christmas, I just couldn't resist digging them up for a closer look. Some interesting shapes (see piccie below) but they look very edible. My foot is there to give an idea of size. They are not small. Not bad considering the number of stones in the ground. Mmmmm, roast parsnips...



Before leaving the plot, I took two cabbages to complete the week's harvest. Bring on the cooking!