Picking berries in the rain

I don't know about you, but I keep having to remind myself that we are now in July! It's mid summer and we’ve been tweaking the heating in the evening and wearing jumpers. The temperatures have been nothing like as high as they should be! I thought the planet was supposed to be warming up.

It seems only a short time ago that we were bemoaning the lack of rain. The weather gods may think that we gardeners are never satisfied but really moderation would be good. The weekend did remain dry so let’s hope that the tap has been turned off for a while but let’s not bounce back to drought conditions.

Last week we made a couple of visits to the allotment during the week. The first visit was to check on the damage done by the gales force winds.

Most things had stood up to the winds fairly well, but one of our cardoons is in a very sorry state. The other sheltered by a neighbouring plot’s shed escaped the ravages of the strong winds.

The only other 'casualty' was one of out brassica beds which had the enviromesh cover blown off. Fortunately the abysmal weather meant that the wood pigeons and white butterflies were probably too busy sheltering.

During the same visit we managed to plant out a few lettuces and some kohlrabi plants. We were going to raise all our lettuces at home in pots but, in the end we decided to pop some in on the plot.

The plants were covered by a wire mesh tunnel to protect against the ever present pigeons.

The dahlias had been sheltered behind the cold frame that had fortunately stayed in place this time.

6 July

We managed to direct sow various varieties of spinach, some Rhubarb chard, beetroot and swede, The swede is probably late but we will just have to see what happens.

On Friday we decided that we really did need to dodge the rain, if only to do a bit of harvesting. During the heaviest of the showers we took shelter in the shed but, as the rain didn't show any sign of completely letting up, we had to bite the bullet when the rain eased a little and carry on harvesting.

12 July

Some of the raspberries and cauliflowers hadn't enjoyed being battered by the heavy rain but we managed to salvage something.

The cauliflower went into a Baked Cauliflower Pizzaiola

12 July

We lift lettuces with the root so that they can be popped in a bucket of water to keep them fresh until we use them.

The weekend was an improvement especially on Sunday. Sunday lived up to its name, the sun made an appearance and I was reminded that it actually was summer. It was also a prompt to sort out some waspinators to hang in the plum trees. The idea is to make something that resembles a wasps’ nest so that passing wasps think the area is already colonised.

Saturday I made the first picking or rather pulling of peas and also cut the first of our courgettes.

11 July

Martyn was reading, on the internet, of a serious problem with some courgettes this year. People were reporting that they had become very ill after eating a small amount of bitter tasting courgette. The courgettes had an increased level of a substance found in all curcurbits. The problem arises when the flowers are pollinated and this leads to seeds developing a toxicity that is passed on to plants grown from the seeds. Apparently one cause is if the courgette flower is pollinated by an ornamental gourd. One supplier has actually recalled a batch of seeds. Apparently before using you should lick a portion of the courgette and discard the whole fruit if you experience a bitter taste. In extreme cases eating affected courgettes can be fatal.

On Sunday we managed to do more planting. One of our brassica beds was filled up with the addition of more cabbages. This time the variety was Kalibro.

We planted more lettuces and in the same bed sowed some left over peas and dwarf French beans.

Finally we planted leeks. Three varieties were sown - Porbella, Musselburgh and Below Zero. Unfortunately the indelible pen that we used for labeling them wasn't even indelible in the greenhouse so we have no idea which are which.

We also harvested more peas and berries. This time in the sunshine, a much pleasanter task. As I approached one of the fruit beds, I heard the unmistakeable  sound of a wood pigeon taking off, confirmation of why we don’t have a single jostaberry this year. Some you win and some the wood pigeons win!

12 July

Hope everyone is staying well and safe 

This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on 

Dave's blog Our Happy Acres

You don't have to have your own blog in order to join in conversations. It may seem that everyone who comments knows one another but bloggers always welcome new commenters, after all that is how we all started. 

PS: It's not just our gardens that suffer from blight. Martyn and I are currently suffering from an influx of blog blight. It seems that it is the season of the spammer. One in particular is persistently targeting our and what appears to be lots of other people's blogs. Most are sent to the spam or moderation folders as we moderate comments on posts over five days old. These spam comments are deleted and never see the light of day but unfortunately some do sneak through. I apologise for any that sneak through and end up being emailed to those who subscribe to comments, Please do not click on any links in spam comments which gives these nuisances satisfaction and encouragement. They can track where click throughs originate from and will target a blog even more if they think that this is causing more people to visit their site.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett