Monday, July 1

Out of the frying pan!

After what seems  to be an age of bemoaning cold, wet, conditions, this week saw Blightwatch messages pinging into our mailbox. The warm humid conditions are ideal for the spread of the fungal spores that attack potatoes and tomatoes. To be honest once the spores find your crops there's not much you can do to stop an attack. One thing though is to try and avoid wetting the leaves of the plants when watering.
Then if this isn't bad enough, we have also noticed that some of the tomato plants growing in our plot greenhouse are showing signs of being affected by herbicide contamination of the compost in the grow bags, This is an issue that has been affecting gardeners for at least 11 years but incredibly many gardeners are still unaware of the problem. Each year newly affected gardeners react as though this is something new and social media is full of outraged comments but nothing changes and the chemical companies and compost manufacturers carry on regardless. If you want to find out more about this scourge I have an earlier blog post here and if you want to read more then I devoted a whole section of my website to the problem which can be found here.



Bad things come in threes, apparently, and our third challenge comes from the ever present garden pests. The woodpigeons are showing their displeasure towards us for netting the brassica plants, and for the first time have started attacking our dahlias. They are attacking both the leaves and the flowers! Strangely blackfly have also taken a fancy to the dahlias and the cardoon, whereas plants such as broad beans and nasturtiums are being ignored.

Anyway let's not dwell on the negatives. Much of the work done on the allotment this week has been tidying up and protecting crops.

We finished covering the old strawberry bed - just in time really before the hot weather baked the ground and turned it back into concrete.

The new strawberry plants were sending out masses of runners. As I don't want the plants wasting energy growing baby plants rather than concentrating on producing delicious berries, I cut all of these off, except for one which has been trained to root where the plant originally occupying the space failed. Of course, the day after, the plants were determinedly sending out new runners.
24 June
It is now officially brassica season on our plot. Cauliflower - Helsinki is featuring heavily in our meal planning. It's finding it's way into stir fries and curries as well as being used as a side vegetable. Even then we couldn't keep up so some has been frozen. Cabbage - Regency is vying for attention, but we hope that will hang on longer than the cauliflower would in the current warm weather but we are harvesting some for coleslaw.
26 June
Autumn planted onions - Radar are being harvested as required. We use lots of onions in our recipes but they should see us through to when the spring planted bulbs are ready.  Incredibly we are still using last year's shallots which have so far remained firm.
27 June
The soft fruit is beginning to ripen and attracting the attention of various birds so whilst, Martyn strimmed the grass I covered our precious blueberries. We are willing to share the rest of the fruit with the birds but the blueberries are ours!
At the moment the Sweetheart strawberries are providing our main strawberry harvest, although the later, Elegance is catching up. The other fruit shown above, picked on 27 June, are our first pickings of purple, Glencoe raspberries and a few gooseberries. We also picked a few redcurrants.
29 June
On Saturday, I noticed that the woodpigeons were homing in on the jostaberries so I quickly picked a few that had ripened and then more that had ripened on Sunday. There were also a few red raspberries to add to the purple ones.
30 June
We harvested a root each of two varieties of early potato - Casablanca and Rocket and were pleased with both despite Rocket really being grown as a sacrificial crop in a newly cleared bed.

The Aquiles, calabrese are now forming side shoots which are adding to our brassica haul.

We didn't photograph the cabbage and cauliflower given to a friend who paid us a visit at just the right time. A cauliflowers was also taken for my sister, we've enough to share as long as it's not sharing blueberries with the blackbirds.

Finally I managed to cut a couple of posies of cut flowers including some dahlias that had escaped the woodpigeons' attention.
If you are interested I posted a video tour of the allotment on our vlog, it can be viewed here

There are also one or two new harvesting videos see here.




This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on 

Dave's blog Our Happy Acres


By the wayWalton's are running a competition to win a shed which you may be interested in entering - if so it can be found here.

Thanks to those who responded to my invitation to make a comment. I appreciate you taking the trouble to say hello. I know I get lots of visitors who never comment and I'd love to know who you are - unlike the annoying spammers who can't seem to grasp that their comments go straight into my spam folder and never see the light of day.

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.






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







23 comments:

  1. It's the ying and yang of gardening now. Still, you have a good harvest despite the downs. A simple, roasted cauliflower soup is a great way to use up all that cauli, and it freezes well to keep for the colder days.

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    1. I was only saying yesterday Deborah that we would soon need to cover the whole plot

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  2. It's like the Biblical plagues some times! Expect a swarm of locusts to descend on your plot any time now... The weedkiller contamination business is such an annoyance! If only we could something done about it. Amateur gardening just doesn't seem to have enough lobbying power to take on the big agrochemical interests. Maybe we should all complain to Trading Standards that compost and growbags are not fit for purpose (and a health hazard)?

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    1. Things may be different now Mark but when we were first affected Trading Standards weren't interested and said that it didn’t come under their jurisdiction. Agricultural products did but not amateur gardening products. It was 11 years ago though. I’m just amazed that so many gardeners think this is a new phenomena.

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  3. Lovely harvests. What a terrible problem with the compost. So glad I only use my own compost.

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    1. We just wouldn’t be able to make the amount of compost that we use, Sue

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  4. The contaminated compost is also a problem here, though not well known. I have been avoiding commercial compost for several years now. Fortunately I can make plenty for our needs, though it is weedy at times. It has turned hot here too though it hasn't stopped raining! Instead of a plague of locusts it seems we might need to build an ark. Our land is high and dry and doesn't get flooded, but the 40 inches of rain we have gotten so far has not helped the fruits and veggies any. The cabbage was a total bust, and half the kohlrabies rotted before they sized up. Here's hoping things improve soon in both our gardens!

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    1. I’m amazed at how many gardeners here are totally unaware after all these years, Dave. I think it’s a case of it only registering when you are affected. We’d never be able to make enough for our needs. I too hope things improve for us gardeners.

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  5. Your cauliflower looks impeccable despite all the pests upsetting the balance of the garden. Crazy that the wood pigeons are attacking your dahlias. Never heard of such a thing. I have to fight rabbits. How do you fight these nocturnal pests?? Horrible about the compost. I haven't heard about it but I only use the compost I make which isn't much. As Dave mentioned I have some problem with weeds. At least this year I had tomatoes coming up everywhere I placed the compost. I guess tomatoes can be considered weeds. Obviously my compost doesn't get hot enough to kill the weeds, I mean tomato seeds. I left one at the base of the lilac bush we moved. I figured it could be the trellis for the tomato. :) I have never heard of jostaberries. I will look up these tasty treats to see what they are. Our blackberries are just coming into ripening. Had our first berry yesterday.

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    1. We don’t tend to have a problem with nocturnal pests other than the two legged human kind, Lisa. Wood pigeons have reached plague proportions probably due to lack of predators. They seem to eat anything. Most years they strip the cherry tree of leaves although this year they have left that alone.

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  6. Just LOVE your harvest. Yes, we all have to stick with the positives. I always get awful blackfly infestation on my elder trees, it's horrible. I roasted a cauliflower today with an array of spices...it was utterly delicious! Loving your cut flowers too.xxx

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  7. P.s, compost is awful now no matter where you buy it from.xxx

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    1. Even when it isn’t contaminated, Dina it seems devoid of nutrients and full of rubbish.

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    2. here here! perhaps try making your own?

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    3. We couldn’t’ make enough, Roger. The answer I guess is to avoid compost with green waste. By the way if you are likely to watch our video tour I am really really sorry in advance.

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  8. I'm so jealous of your stawberries! I need my second garden, for the space and sunlight they need... Oh well time and patience i guess...

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    1. Time and patience could be a gardener’s mantra, Kari

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  9. Your mention about aphid on dahlias sent me scurrying out to examine mine.
    Last year I found the young shoots plastered with them and a la broad beans heavily pruned out these new flowering shoots. Nature's balance was restored and all was well.
    No sign of any this year than goodness

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    1. They obviously prefer dahlias to broad beans on our plot. Fortunately although they are still on the cardoon they have gone from the dahlias

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  10. What gorgeous cauliflower! Once the strawberry runners start, it's so hard to keep up with them - I'm considering just letting them go within the confines of the bed and only dealing with those that try to escape.

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    1. They've had their second trimming now Margaret. The trouble is that once they are given free rein they are hardly to look after.

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  11. Yes the weather certainly went from one extreme to another Sue. Interesting to hear that your dahlias are being plagued by blackfly :( Will have to check mine.

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    1. Gladly the blackfly have gone or been eaten, Anna

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