No change in the weather and no change to the outlook. In fact, if anything, it's gradually getting warmer and sunnier. Mind you, the sweetcorn loves it.
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No sign of Lockdown ending any time soon, although we are being given a bit more freedom of movement so might start spending more time down here and, for the first time this year, we had fish/pastie and battered chips down here as the chip shop in Wynall Road has jut reopened. In the seating area, where the artichokes used to be, we planted Ipomoea next to the rose and we also finally gave up on the Clematis and dug it up. Planted peas around the bean sticks. And we planted the first sweetcorn of the season. 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. Difficult to believe that a couple of weeks ago we'd had three months worth of rain in about three weeks but already some of the beds look dry on the surface. It hasn't helped that we've had a couple of really hot days and as many of the plants are quite new we need to water, and possibly feed too. Already two outdoor cucumbers have perished, though that may be as much to do with the earlier cold and wet as the hot and dry. Sweetcorn is looking excellent. Potatoes, hopefully, will be better than we've had for the last few years. Onions, too, are looking really good. Carrots are also a lot better than last year. We have our first two courgettes of the season. The comfrey leaves from last week have dried out so we placed them around the tomatoes as a mulch - looks a mess but very effective. Some more produce. First blueberries of the season. 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. 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. Again, hardly any rain recently though not quite so warm. Sill, needed to water and there was plenty to pick. The carrots have gone a bit wild; wonder if they're as big as they look? Sweetcorn, too, looks pretty good though one or two of them have fallen over. Squashes seem to be taking over the world............ Tomatoes are looking very good. The comfrey bed however is beginning to show signs of neglect as we've concentrated on watering and feeding the actual edible stuff. Finally, here's some more produce that we picked today. We've been getting on top of the allotment since we came back from holiday and now all beds except one have something in them. This is an overview with what's in each bed. The small fruit cage is looking good and the blueberries have settled in well in their new home. The gooseberries are looking good even if there's not a huge amount of them. The asparagus just have to be left now to recuperate for next year. The beetroot is looking promising. The sweet peas, cucumbers and French beans are coming on growing up the canes. The two beds of potatoes are also doing OK. After a disastrous year last year and a slow start this year the carrots are finally looking reasonable. The wallflowers are doing OK but the radishes look to be doing very well indeed. Courgettes are also OK. Sweetcorn too, is OK. Tomatoes seem to be fine. Onions, as always, are coming on OK. Mange-tout and celeriac. The large fruit-cage, as every year, promises much. Parsnips look to be OK. Tomatoes, parsnips and rhubarb. As you can see the leeks have only just been planted. Cabbages too are looking good (through the netting!) The squashes are looking alright but will need to be kept well watered as they're in the very dry/sheltered bottom bed. The main blueberry bath looks to be OK. Finally, there is just one spare, empty bed, and that will be planted up with leeks on our next visit. We clipped some wire netting over the picnic area for the vine and clematis to clamber over but the clematis looks a bit poorly at the moment with parts of it seemingly dying away. Finally, the two trees grown from acorns are growing really well up against the cemetery wall; but the buddleia has pretty much had it. Looks like we brought the nice weather back home with us from North Wales. With hot dry weather forecast for the next few days and with a day out planned at Gardeners World Live we decided to do some more watering and also plant some sweetcorn and celeriac. Sweetcorn's in the top bed having replaced the mares-tail!! Celeriac's in as well, next to the peas and beans. The radishes and spring onions are in with the wallflowers. We gave the carrots another soaking just to be on the safe side. |
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