I wasn’t writing this morning, although I could have been (slap wrists), instead I thought I’d better do some updating in the vegetable garden whilst I could, as whereas my writing is earning me very little money (quite proud actually that I can say it does earn me some money, I earn about £10 every few months from Suite101.com), anyway whereas my writing is currently earning me minuscule amounts of money, my vegetable garden is actively saving me money, which is almost as good as earning some of the stuff (can’t you tell that I am so missing my tutoring income at the moment!). The salad I’ve grown and eaten alone has probably paid back the cost of all the vegetable plants I’ve brought for the garden, if I had brought the equivalent as salad bags from the supermarket (which I never like doing anyway, yucky brown stuff). However my mizuna, rocket and lollo rosso have been pretty much eaten and the remainder is bolting now, so I’ve cleared that part of my large Ikea fake bath planting tub and resown some more rocket, lollo rosso and a packet of oriental leaves (which included mizuna, which is one of my favourites). I’ve also sown some more basil, parsley and coriander, plus another pot of spring onions (which is it me or are they just incredibly slow growing?). I haven’t been that fussed about growing extra herbs this year because I’m still head over heels in love with my little shiny packets of Waitrose herbs from the freezer plus I do have my Rocket herb garden as well, which has some of the herbs that you don’t get in that Waitrose range (like basil) but herbs are easy to grow from seed and after watching Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall lovingly finger his fresh herbs last week in River Cottage and then making that delicious looking parsley pesto bread, I thought I’d better grow some of my own. So the parsley (two pots of the stuff) is earmarked for that parsley pesto and the coriander, mmmm coriander pesto, yum (I am not pesto obsessed, oh no, not at all).
Besides doing some sowing, I also repotted my courgette plant, my two aubergine plants and my three butternut squash plants. I am particularly proud of my butternut squash plants as I grew those from seed (I think my days of buying ready grown baby plants may be ending – sorry Rocket!).
And of course there’s my already well established plants in the garden, my potatoes in a dustbin are about to flower, which according to the oracle that is Alan Titchmarsh (and not the oracle that is my dad, who I consult for all other gardening matters, however my dad is not a veg grower so he told me to look in a book), when potato plants flower it’s a good indication that there’s a good crop under the soil, fingers crossed!
Then there’s my peas, producing some good size pods now. The pea harvesting is up to Mr. Lacer, as I don’t eat peas and he’s therefore got a better idea of when a pea pod looks ready.
And then there’s the strawberries, now I know when they’re ready.
That red strawberry strangely disappeared shortly after this photo was taken and I couldn’t possibly tell you that it tasted extremely nice, far better than those non-organic imported things, because then you might come and pinch the rest of my strawberries 
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