hello

I dug up my first purple potatoes the variety is actually 'salad blue' but to me the look purple! Read my article here on - how to grow potatoes - i also write on there about the other variety I grew which is 'mayan gold'. I went to dig some potatoes up with my 21 year old daughter. And we were both like look at that big potato - but it was only a old egg shell that hadn't composted yet!!

Below salad blue potatoes (they look so dark and almost like a beetroot)

Below - Mayan Gold potatoes

My trio of potatoes: red duke of york, mayan gold and salad blue - ready to be cooked.

I absolutely love the colours - I boiled them then added a bit of margerine and chives. very, very nice.

Picked my first beetroot last night - they've been quite slow this year. They have masses of leaves but just haven't grow big. Discover how to start growing beetroot in your garden.



I washed the beetroot and put some olive oil and a bit of salt over them - then popped them in the oven - 190C - for about 45minutes. Very delicious - they looked pretty ugly and the daughter kept looking at them - i said eat them - finally she did and the verdict was 'mhh very nice. The son he doesn't eat beetrrot usually that's because hubby usually boils them and covers them in vinegar. But he also ate them and found them 'yummy'.

I also picked some rainbow swiss chard I love the colours it produces.



My favourite recipe for swiss chard is this: chop the swiss chard, take a knob of butter put in a saucepan and let in melt, toss the washed swiss chard and add some salt and pepper and a little bit of water. Put a lid on the saucepan and cook for around 5 minutes.

Also have pulled up all the onions are they are hanging in bunches drying. You can dry your onions by tying them in bunches and hanging them in a dry and airy place - the tops will die down and then we cut the tops of and put them in onion bags in a dry cool area. You can also dry onions by placing them on wire netting in the sun - but sun isn't something we have a lot of here in sunny UK! You need air to circulate around them.



I've also pulled up the garlic and I cut the tops of as mine always seem to suffer from rust. I then place the garlic bulbs in a tray and put that out into the sun - when we get some.

When they are completely dry - I clean them of by rubbing off the outer layer, this then makes them all lovely and white.



The shallots were also pulled up I also cut the tops of as hubby has a way of mixing things up and I want the onions and shallots seperate. You can dry shallots the same way as the onions above. But I cut the tops of and place them in an old fish tray - you find these here on the beaches. This works just like the garlic above I place them in the sun when we have sun and if it's like today cloudy and rainy on this June day I keep them in the dry until I can put them out again.