Getting there eventually.
Dug up some wallflowers for the front bed at home.
Even though we hardly came down during the summer we seem to have an endless supply of produce.
We're in the middle of a decent warm dry spell so going down when we can, just for an hour or two, to cut back and weed. Getting there eventually. Dug up some wallflowers for the front bed at home. Even though we hardly came down during the summer we seem to have an endless supply of produce.
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Well, we're not going to be short of things to do down the allotment over the coming weeks...... ...... and a couple of hours later...... Squirrels have been having a nice time with the sweetcorn. As well as weeding....... and weeding....... we found time to pick some produce. Just popped down to weed and generally tidy up and pick anything that's ready, although it's early in the season. Also just checking up on everything. Potatoes are looking very promising. We're looking to pick some tatties in the next fortnight. Sweetcorn is looking very good. Tomatoes doing well. Onions look huge. Carrots are doing a lot better this year. Celery is doing very well. Mange-Tout and Beans are coming along nicely. Should start getting a few of both of these in a few days. Leeks look good, if still a little small. Squashes............ Courgettes.......... The wallflowers are growing strongly. We've stopped picking the asparagus so that they can prepare for next year. The wild garden area is looking lovely at the moment. We picked some comfrey to dry out in the sun and we'll use it as a mulch on the tomatoes. The roses in the wild garden are looking nice. Picked a bit of produce. Should only increase from now on, especially if the weather stays so good. We went down for a couple of hours this morning as there appeared to be a lull in the wet weather. This time last year we were sweating in temperatures nearing the thirty degree mark; for the last week or more temperatures have struggled to reach thirteen degrees and the rain has been pretty much continuous during that time. Some areas of the country have had three months rainfall in a week According to the rain guage in the garden we've had over 80mm in the last week which is almost double the monthly average. We were surprised to find that nature hadn't taken over and the plants hadn't gone berserk in the rain, but I think that the cold has kept a lot of plants from shooting up. An exception to that were the potatoes which seemed to have shot up. Unfortunately we couldn't really mound them up as the soil was just too wet and claggy. Planted a bed of tomatoes. Planted seventeen parsnip plants. Planted just five squashes in one of the bottom beds. Last year they went wild so this year we're giving them plenty of room. We also managed to plant three outdoor cucumber plants up the "Wigwam". We picked another small crop of asparagus. It'll certainly be enough to accompany Sunday lunch. This year the carrots seem to be coming through a lot better than last year. The celery is doing extremely well but then it is supposed to like it a bit wet. Elsewhere, the courgettes are doing well. As are the tomatoes. And the sweetcorn. The mange-tout and the french beans are doing well. Finally, the artichokes are starting to ripen. Went down for a couple of hours just to check things over and to plant the celery. Given up a bit on the celeriac and gone back to ordinary celery. Planted the celery in sunken beds and surrounded with black membrane to aid blanching. Had a quick look round at everything else. We noticed a lot of cuckoo spit on the rosemary which hasn't been apparent before, We also noticed that the beds we spread a lot of our home-made compost on earlier in the year are now sprouting dozens of little tomato plants. I bet if you planted them properly they wouldn't come up half as well. We've had a small amount of rain since our last visit so everything seems to be thriving. Potatoes. Sweetcorn. Onions and broad beans. Artichokes. Blueberries. Mange-tout And the asparagus is still providing us with a small but steady crop. Bank Holiday Monday and the weather was OK, not brilliant, but OK. We went down prepared to do a full day but at lunchtime we got distracted.............. The mange-tout and the beans are looking OK. Potatoes in the top bed are doing fine but can't decide whether to "mound-up" any more. Artichokes are in flower. The Goji Berry appears to have some mildew. Don't know why so gave it a good watering as it's very dry down by the cemetery wall. We didn't do any celery last year; instead we concentrated on celeriac - but that was a bit of a failure. This year we're going back to celery, but the bed is a bit bumpy and full of weeds. Cleared all the weeds from the celery bed. Flattened out the big lumps and dug five channels for the celery to be planted in. We have about fifty plants so that equates to ten plants per channel. We were just about to stop for lunch when Mercy, Jessica and Sophie arrived to help. Here's Mercy ready to plant a sweetcorn. In fact, everybody gave a helping hand with the sweetcorn. Here we have the sweetcorn in and ready to be watered. And here's the sweetcorn planted and netted. Started putting in the courgettes as well. And here they are, done. Spent most of yesterday down the allotment and Stacey popped down too for about two and a half hours. We got a lot done including weeding and tidying and I also moved all of the contents of the third compost bin into the first bin, leaving a whole new empty bin to put material in.
We tidied up the large fruit cage ready for the winter and we tidied up the rhubarb and trimmed the celeriac. We picked all of the potatoes that were left down there and also picked almost ten pounds of tomatoes. We also topped up the water butts and fed and watered most of what what was left. Picked most of what was left of the blackberries and picked a couple of cucumbers. Down the allotment for eight hours today and also picked our first fruit of the season - redcurrants. Probably wouldn't have been quite so long down there if there hadn't been a delivery of chippings that were the best we've had for a couple of years. Usually the chippings are about 70% leaves and 30% wood but this lot, as can be seen from the pictures, was about 60% wood and 40% leaves. Put new netting round the large fruit cage. Made a new door for it as well. Planted and shaded the celery. Celeriac's taken well. Potatoes are flowering so we had a look but they're only the size of marbles. The Goji Berry doesn't look too happy for some reason. It seems very woody at the base, though there's a bit more greenery higher up. Weeded and dug the top couple of beds. Weeded, dug and covered the old strawberry bed. Removed the netting from the large fruit cage to let the birds in during winter. We think we might have a touch of blight so picked all the decent tomatoes and I took everything else from the tomato bed down the tip. Picked the last of the soft-fruit along with the tomatoes................... ............ and the first row of celery. Doesn't seem to have made any difference not surrounding them with black felt. Excellent crop of celery this year. Goji Berry has settled in well. As we spent the whole day down here (Janice was bitten five times - a record!) we had a subway lunch; well we were going to the fish and chip restaurant for tea. Started picking the celery in earnest today. Also a few more red potatoes, though they didn't seem of very good quality and had a few worms in them. Very near the end of the soft fruit now. Picked what tomatoes were left as it looks as though blight has finally taken a hold. Will have to come down the weekend and get rid of what's left. |
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