The plot so far

We've been making the most of the good weather and like the bees we have been busy on the plot. So what have we been doing?

We have planted most of the potatoes - royal we here as Martyn has planted all of the potatoes so far this year. Just another bed left to plant up. The last lot will be under weed control fabric. Whether under fabric or not our seed potatoes are planted using a trowel - just dig a hole and drop the tuber in. I've given more detail on this web page. We achieve a good harvest this way without ending up with a strained back and it is much quicker which is important as we plant quite a few potatoes.

Just behind the potato bed in the photo above is our second strawberry bed. I posted about planting up the first bed here. This wasn't our intended location but the strawberries needed to get out of their pots and the bed intended for them was still too claggy to plant so a change of plan was needed. We gardeners have to be flexible.

Just next to the wheelbarrow in the photo above is planted our first row of peas. These were sown generously to allow for non-germination and hungry wildlife. Seeds I planted in a trough in the greenhouse with the intention of growing pea shoots have been rootled though and carried off, presumably by hungry mice. The peas on the plot have just started to poke through so we have popped some twigs over the bed to try and deter the wood pigeons. A twiggy framework will be added before the peas grow much more.

Behind the peas above is the bed containing our first lot of brassicas, bought as plug plants from Marshalls. Usually we grow these under netting to protect against birds and butterflies but this year we are trying a lightweight mesh in an attempt to keep the plants clean of whitefly which is especially off putting when it infests broccoli and cauliflower. I wonder whether there is any correlation between the sea of oilseed rape that surround us these days and the increase in the whitefly population?

Also under mesh we have sown our carrot and parsnip seeds. This time to protect from carrot fly. Martyn posted about this here. I have also described our carrot growing technique on this web page. The mesh will stay in place until late autumn although I will have to stick my head inside the mesh tent to pull out any weeds that sneak through the gaps in the fabric.

The parsnip seeds are really covered just to prevent the wildlife and any cats from stamping on, or dust bathing in, the soil and disturbing the seeds. More about our parsnip growing method is here.

In the bed alongside the carrots are the autumn planted onions and garlic which are growing well. I know in some parts of the country these too have to be grown under mesh so I wonder how long we will escape the ravages of onion pests.

We - this time the royal we refers to me -have planted up two beds of onions and shallots. All the shallots were started in modules. Some onions were planted singly in modules, some in groups of three sets to a module and some sets planted straight in the ground. Hopefully this will give us onions in a range of sizes.

Finally the first batch of broad beans have been planted. These were started in modules with two seeds popped in each module, In most cases both seeds germinated and so each hole technically contains two plants masquerading as one.

No doubt the weevils are rubbing their antennae together with glee.

It's a battlefield out there and our defence spending increases year on year.

By the way since taking these photos the plot has been strimmed and beds edged.

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