(Nearly) everything is growing

"Orla" potatoes are growing really fast. "Premiere" and "Arran Pilot", planted a couple of weeks later are just showing above ground level.


Summer cabbages "Minicole" and "Marner Fruhrot" moved from root trainers into the ground last week. Slugs have made a bit of an impact, but most plants have survived.

The onion sets planted in the autumn are making bulbs now, and the shallots I planted a few weeks ago to fill in the gaps have all got a healthy head of foliage.

Wasp Nest

The last couple of visits to the plot, I've noticed a large wasp flying around the shed. Had a good look inside today and there was the start of a nest, including the first few larvae, attached to the roof.

Failed in my attempt to squash the wasp, but she flew away and I took the opportunity to remove her nest. I feel a bit bad about this, but the alternative is to not be able to use my shed, and possibly the lower half of my plot, for most of the summer.

Year 3 Begins

It's now nearly 2 years since I took possession of plot 24b. Nice to have completed clearance of the turf and weeds at the end of last season, so not so much work to get things ready this year.

Managed a good couple of days work, in sunny spring weather, this weekend. Fruit is pruned, top dressed with bone meal and chicken pellets, and mulched with a generous layer of wood chippings. The old compost heap has been spread over what will be this season's brassica patch, and sowings of shallots and broad beans made.

Frosty Morning

Very cold, frosty, morning. Visited the allotment to check on things before going to work. Picked a savoy cabbage and some rainbow chard for the week ahead.

Autumn Fruit

Autumn Bliss raspberries just keep on going. Not a huge crop, but half of the canes are only just getting established. Even so, 1-2 dessert bowlfuls a week since the beginning of August is not bad.



Runner beans "Scarlet Emperor" are just about finished now. Very successful crop, was forced to take the surplus into work, and have loads in the freezer.

Sweetcorn "Swift" produced mixed results: Out of 18 plants that survived to maturity, only about 10 good cobs - but they were exceedingly good! The rest seemed to give up when the cobs were still small and partially formed. We found a good use for them!



More to follow, but my camera phone is broken so you have to wait until the films are scanned and uploaded!

Harvesting

I lifted all the remaining potatoes last Sunday. Disappointingly, the printed labels that came on each pack were not weather-proof, so the experiment to find out which varieties worked best was slightly hampered. Best guesses though:

Colleen
Matured earliest, first row lifted in early July, but a noticeably larger potatoes a month later. Good number, and even but not excessively size. Virtually no pest damage.

Orla
Very low yield in number, only 2-3 per plant, but very good size. Bigger than any of the other varieties by a big margin, would make good baking potatoes despite being an early variety. Very little pest damage.

Milva and Valor
These are the two I'm not sure about, which is a shame because of the difference in results. Both yielded about the same, reasonable numbers of potatoes but a bit on the small size - not unreasonable as they are main crop varieties and shouldn't be lifted for another month but the foliage had died down so they weren't going to grow any bigger. One of the varieties showed virtually no pest damage, on the other about 50% of the potatoes had holes, presumably from slugs as there were still a few in residence.

Robinta
Best yield of all, although none were very big. Again, this is a main crop variety and should have continued growing for another month or so. In general very little pest damage, but a few that ended up in the middle of an ants nest had some surface damage - hardly surprising!



In conclusion, fairly pleased. Including the row I lifted in July, probably about a sack in total. This was on unmanured ground, big sticky lumps of waterlogged clay when planted, which had just been cleared of weeds for the first time in years. Another plus point is no problems with blight or other diseases, despite other plot-holders being affected this year. A bit of a puzzle why the main crop foliage died down so early, they were kept watered during the dry spell.

Next year, I think I will buy larger packs of Colleen and Robinta.

A mixed bag

Tidied up the roots bed. A few rainbow chard and salsify, plus some tiny leeks, but no signs of anything else.


The brassicas are doing well. Marner Fruhrot summer cabbage in the foreground, kale, sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts behind, then some plants bought in to replace what the pigeons ate: White sprouting broccoli, savoy cabbage, and red cabbage for the winter.

Alliumtastic!

Lifted shallots and onions in the last week. A few were starting to flower, and the space is needed for other crops.



A good harvest from both. The shallots are smaller than last year, but more of them. No complaints about the size or quantity of onions!

Strawberries!

First ripe strawberry picked 2nd June.
Enough to fill a dessert bowl on 8th June.
Last night, this:


And still plenty more unripe ones to come!

Nearly sorted

The plot has been greatly tidied up over the last few weeks. Nearly there, just in time for the weeds to get going - saw the first frond of Mare's Tail rearing its ugly head today!

I cleared the overgrown mass of wire, netting, sticks, and weeds out from behind the shed today. Several plastic sacks, an old pond liner, a large pile of half-rotten cardboard, and a few barrows of wood chippings later it looks like this:

A big improvement :-)

All three rhubarb plants are doing really well, but are also flowering.

Not seen this before, but chopped them off after taking the photo. Also pulled of a few stems and made a rhubarb crumble for tea!

Fruity

The fruit section of the allotment has some new additions:
A damson tree and logan berry bush from Deacon's nursery, and some strawberry plants, spread from runners last year.

The whole lot is now weeded and mulched, and the herbs which were growing in the corner last year have been moved to make way for the new strawberry plants.

Spring is around the corner!

It felt like Spring today: Sunny and warm, no rain for the last week, ideal to get outside and get the allotment sorted.



The grass divider across the plot has been covered with weed-control fabric, buried either side. The plan is to break up some pallets, use the wood for edging, then cover with bark chippings next time a pile is delivered.

Brought back 5 "Autumn Bliss" raspberry canes to fill in the gaps, a redcurrant bush, and a bag of "Red Sun" shallots, which are now planted next to the garlic. Apparently there is a shortage of shallots because of the wet summer last year, but there were plenty at the garden centre today.

Preparing for the Winter

The summer is well and truly over, there was a frost on the allotment this morning!

Sweetcorn, beetroot, courgettes have all died back. The total crop of three apples have been eaten. The red onions have been lifted and stored.

Spent the morning tidying up.

Completed the netting around the brassicas, cleared the summer cabbage bed and planted with garlic bulbs.

We also cleared the legumes bed and planted Radar onion sets.

The Rainbow Chard, in the background of the picture is still doing well.

The Raspberries are also still producing well, although the fruit doesn't have the fantastic taste it did back in August. The frosts may have finished the fruit season though.

Sun, in flower form

Not seeing so much of the real thing at the moment, but Tash's sunflowers are blooming this week.


The variety is called "Earth Walker". They are smaller than the normal yellow flowers, but much more interesting!

Lots of Shallots

Cleared up the weeds along the onion and shallot rows yesterday, harvesting the remaining shallots along the way. A better harvest than the potatoes:


Cleared the pea plants, which have stopped growing peas, and sowed some new carrot, fennel, and french beans in their place. In the background my new path, built from Dez's left over patio slabs, can be seen.

Blighted!

The entire site has been hit by potato blight. Lost about 1/3 of the Desiree crop, cut off the exposed foliage last weekend, then unearthed the potatoes last night. A lot of them had been infected, including this monster:


Still, managed to fill a large bucket of good potatoes so could have been worse.

The tomatoes, on the other hand, have been a total loss. Another week and I might have been able to pick the first ones, but the blight got there first and the whole lot had to go on the bonfire.

Peas and Beans

A good crop of peas this evening, and the first few broad beans.


Fairly sure that the Catriona potatoes have blight so have removed all foliage. Will leave it a week for the blight spores to die then dig the half-row which is still in the ground. Fortunately the Desiree plants don't seem so badly affected so I am leaving them alone for the moment.

The Weeds Strike Back!

Feels like I have spent hours clearing up weeds over the last week, but they are growing faster than I can remove them. At least the compost heap is growing!



'Feltham First' peas are really getting into their stride. I picked half a carrier bag of fat pods this afternoon to add to more potatoes, courgettes, and shallots. The broad beans have plenty of pods now, some of them are getting quite fat, but not quite ready to eat today.

Making a meal of it

Dinner last night was lamb chops, new potatoes, peas, sauted courgette and shallots.

Unfortunately the allotment isn't big enough to keep livestock so the lamb came from New Zealand, but everything else was grown on the allotment and dug or picked less than 30 minutes before being eaten.

Very nice it was too!

The harvest begins

The strawberry plants were the first - several handfuls of berries, which is more than I expected from new plants.

Dug up the first two Catriona potato plants at the weekend, yielding 20 or so decent sized spuds and a few tiny pea-sized ones!

First early peas eaten as Mangetout, first two baby courgettes, and four big shallots. Tried unearthing two carrots but they were disappointingly small and forked. The others need time to grow.

Not a brilliant germination rate, but there are seven sweetcorn plants growing strongly. Planted more seeds in the positions of the 4x4 grid where nothing had appeared.


The weeds were starting to take over so have spent a lot of time clearing them up over the last week. Beetroot, Swede, Turnip, Rainbow Chard, Pea, and French Bean seedlings now have some space to grow.


Feltham First peas, and Broad Beans are now getting very large.