Boxing clever

Salad box

Lettuce relief

Earlier sowings of lettuce didn't survive a mollusc invasion during the early June downpours, but a later lot have made it through to provide more than enough for the present.

Salade du jour

Sweet crunch

Daily pickings

Lettuce thin

Might be no need to thin out these lettuce seedlings if the slugs and snails get there first but the dry weather's kept their numbers down.

Making a meal of it

Plenty

Cloche nosh

Protected from the cold, slugs and birds with bottle cloches throughout the winter, half a dozen lettuce plants have survived and are putting on growth as it slowly warms and brightens up.

Rage against the dying of the light

One final bunch of nasturtiums and even a late sunflower, before the temperature dips too low. The cabbages, chard and lettuce cope a bit better with the cold, as does celery, parsley and spinach, so there's still some food to harvest. Carrots and parsnips become sweeter after a frost, so there's an underground carbohydrate store too.

Lovely lettuce

Satisfying to be able to harvest a near daily supply of lettuce for a lunchtime sandwich. It's getting a bit chilly at night so protection under cloches is a good idea from now on and also reduces the chance of slug and bird damage.

Easy pickings

Very veg

Mix and mash

Plenty of food around now. It all needs picking and storing, processing and eating. The first of the summer raspberries are ripe as the strawberry crop dwindles. Making jam with both, separately, together, with blackcurrants. Mix and mash.

Smugly

                       Smugly self-sufficient-ish, for a bit.

Crisp & Fresh

                  Plenty of crisp, fresh lettuce about now.

Baked garlic with side salad

Early spinach, fresh lettuce and some of the early garlic crop, which has benefited from baking in the sun.