A week of two halves

Last week we shared our time between the allotment and garden. The first half of the week, we worked at the allotment. It was the drier part of the week so we were back to watering.

One job was to plant out some savoy cabbages - Cordesa. 

We had already planted annuals and sweet peas in the garden in a bed that was due for renovation. It had been previously cleared and we decided to use annuals as a temporary solution until we decide on how we want to replant it.

We also planted up the annual flowers that we didn't need in the garden. This included three teepees of sweet peas. Unfortunately this coincided with the weather turning, firstly very hot and then heavy rain falling accompanied by gusty wind, so I'm not too hopeful of their survival'

The peas that we sowed last week are now germinating well, however, as usual it is the variety Onward that is doing the best for us.

Towards the end of the week it was sunny and hot so we decided to work in the garden hiding in whatever shade was available.

The area around one of our bird baths was planted up for spring with tete a tete daffodils. The bulbs were planted in pots sunk in the soil. The idea was to remove the pots after flowering to make room for summer bedding. This was done last week. The pots of daffodils have been sunken elsewhere in the garden where they can live until the time comes for them to return when the summer bedding is over.

The bed has been planted up with impatiens 

Currently we are avoiding going into shops including garden centres. Unfortunately despite protocols being in place, too many people are not complying with social distancing so we prefer to stay away. (We had booked a ticket to visit the Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Monday but comments on Facebook relating to how people were ignoring protocols put us off going). People seem to be becoming complacent so I guess this is going to be an ongoing problem. A local garden centre offers a click and collect service whereby plants are ordered online and then picked up from outside in their car park. The only downside of this is that where there are colour choices of the plants offered, you have to accept their choices.

Anyway, we decided that we would just have to work with whatever we could get and spent a day planting up pots on the patio, outside of the summer house and outside of the greenhouse door.

Martyn, emptied the crate containing our International Kidney potatoes. In hindsight they were probably not the best variety to grow in a container that we intended to empty early. The variety maybe needed to be left for a while longer but the tops were enormous and getting in the way.

 There were plenty of potatoes but they were on the small side.

I reused the two tubs that had housed the potato plants, Casablanca had been harvested a couple of weeks ago. One crate has been sown with White Lisbon spring onions and the other with Boltardy beetroot.

I also sowed some wallflower, sweet William and sweet rocket in a large tub.

I had previously grown coriander (cilantro) in a pot in the greenhouse and this was now in danger of running to seed so I harvested it all and have frozen it. I use lots of coriander so I have sown a second batch along with more parsley and basil.

We picked lots of strawberries last week. We had been concerned that the spell of heavy rain would have spoiled any berries but we picked fruit on both sides of the showers.

We are also continuing to dig up the autumn planted onions as they are needed. We may as well leave them in the ground to carry on growing until they are needed in the kitchen.

23 June

As well as picking strawberries we have picked a few, tayberries, purple Glencoe raspberries and some redcurrants. We are disciplining ourselves by not picking punnet after punnet of redcurrants to freeze as we really won’t use so many and the birds will love their share.

22 & 26 June

We also harvested a couple more Regency cabbages.

27 June

If you have half an hour or so to spare, we filmed a tour of the whole of our plot which is interrupted by Ruby's antics. I'm afraid at the moment she is nowhere near as well behaved as Monty Don's furry assistants, hopefully one day!

Stay 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

Roses and Friends

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

Brassicas and berries

The rain that fell over the last couple of weeks meant that, Martyn was able to go over the remaining beds with the rotavator, but believe it or not one bed was actually a bit too wet.

We managed to plant more vegetables and the beds are now filling up.

Brussels sprouts were added to the bed housing the late brassicas where there is still space for more brassicas as the plants become ready to plant out.

The first two rows of Onward peas that we sowed are now on flower so more seeds were sown. We sowed four more rows of Onwards and half a row each of Oregon Sugar Snap and Terrain. The former is a mangetout and Terrain is reputed to be mildew resistant. As mildew can affect later sown peas it is suited to later sowing.

Alongside one row of the peas we decided to plant a few lettuce which we will add to as plants become available.

The above photo shows our trial potato bed where we grow four tubers each of six varieties that we have never grown before. As you can see growth is variable across the varieties. It will be interesting to compare harvests.

We usually grow some tomatoes outdoors in an old cold frame 'skeleton' covered with enviromesh. Previously this has been a way of using up left over tomato plants which have been crammed into this space. This year we have taken more care and planted a dozen San Marzano plants which will be given more care.

The garden greenhouse was sorted out and the tomatoes are now in their final positions. These plants are being grown in large pots containing potting compost as we are avoiding using growing bags this year due to last year's problems with suspected weedkiller contamination.

The blueberries were on the point of ripening and so it was crucial that they were netted. Without protection, the blackbirds home in on the berries which the birds will strip off before they are fully ripe.

The same is true of the redcurrants, however we have stopped netting these as there are usually more than enough berries for us to share.

The blackbirds still complain noisily when we are picking our quota.

Our overwintering onions are now ready to start harvesting. We have only had to buy one small bag of onions in the tiny gap between our stored summer onions starting to shoot and these being ready to use. Hopefully the overwintered ones will take us up to when this year's summer onions will  be ready.

Onion Senshyu

Our strawberries are now producing lots of tasty berries.

These too are netted but this doesn't stop a mischievous puppy, with a penchant for fruit, stealing the odd berry from the punnet when your back is turned.

Red and green are very much the predominant colours of last week's harvest.

16 June

Some calabrese/broccoli went into a chicken and vegetable stir fry and one cabbage went into a batch of coleslaw whilst the other was a major ingredient in Ethiopian Cabbage - a sort of curried stir fry.

20 June

The strawberries below were picked from the few plants in our garden cold frame.

I popped a few garlic cloves saved from some of the garlic grown last year when they didn't grow very well, in fact I wasn't going to bother planting any again as they never seem to produce for us. In the end, I planted some in a large pot. They still haven't grown very well. They have divided into cloves but the bulbs are very small. These are hard necked garlic. I have another pot in which I planted soft necked garlic but I'm not expecting any better results.

21 June

Keep safe - let's hope that this dreadful virus is on the wane and that people continue to observe the advice. I am concerned about the large groups gathering together for various protests and get togethers. Maybe then we can get back to something approaching normality.

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

Greenfly munching machine - Harlequin ladybird larva

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

Busy, busy, busy

Have you ever really looked forward to a visit from a friend. They arrive and you are really happy to see them. The trouble is they brought a friend along with them that you don't really like. Then they seem to be intent on staying for far longer than you would like so you can't get all the jobs that you had planned to so after they had left.

That's something like we felt last week. The much needed rain arrived but with it came a drop in temperatures and a return to extra layers of clothing. The rain overstayed its welcome. We had lots of plants that needed planting out. This had been delayed in the hope that the rain would come and make the earth a more hospitable place for young plants. The problem was that the plants needed to get into their final home quickly before they became drawn and spoiled. The result was that last week we dodged showers to get as much planting done before the more persistent rain forecast for the end of the week descended on us.

The first batch to be planted were the brassicas that  went in the two beds that were prepared for them the previous week. We planted one bed with later varieties, red cabbage - Red Lodero, and cabbage - Kilaton and Cabbice. The second bed was planted up with earlier varieties, calabrese - Montclano, cabbage - Kilaton and cauliflower - Clapton. Garden lime and 6X fertiliser were added to the planting holes. Brassicas don't like soil to be too acidic and the lime reduces acidity. Although many of the varieties of brassicas that we grow are club root resistant, the lime also reduces the risk of club root further,

The second lot of plants to go in the ground was the sweet corn. We planted two varieties - Swift and Earlibird. The two varieties were planted well apart to avoid cross pollination. Like most cereals they are wind pollinated and so they are planted in blocks to aid pollination. I don't like to rely too much on the wind, as it tends to blow when it isn't wanted and not when it is, so I brush the plants with my hand or a cane when I notice that the pollen on the male flowers at the top of the plant stem is ripe. This creates a pollen shower, some grains of which will hopefully come to rest of the female flowers lower down then stems.

In a race to beat the rain that was threatening as we worked, the next crop to be planted were our climbing beans. Martyn, had erected one support structure the previous day whilst I was planting the sweet corn and erected the second whilst I started planting the first lot of beans. In all we planted four varieties, two lots of runner beans - Enorma and Moonlight and two lots of climbing French beans - Cobra and Sunshine.

We had bean plants left over so we planted a mixture up a cane teepee.

In the space between the two lots of beans we planted our first four courgettes, two yellow fruiting ones - Orelia and two that have green fruits - Defender. The rest were planted in another bed. Some are further advanced than other to hopefully extend the fruiting period.

Two types of squash - Crown Prince and Musquee de Provence were planted.  They were planted in separate beds as they can be quite promiscuous and cross pollinate.

The first two rows of peas that we sowed should shortly begin to flower so we sowed another two rows of Onward peas.

In the allotment greenhouse tomatoes have been planted in the sunken air pots which were filled with potting compost. The varieties are Apricot Dream, San Marzano, Shirley and Sungold. We have cut down on the number of varieties this year

This year, in the garden greenhouse we are growing our tomatoes in large tubs also using potting compost as we are avoiding tomato growing bags due to the problems we experienced last year. The added bonus is that the tomatoes could be potted up earlier and moved into position when space becomes available.

Also in the garden greenhouse we are growing mini tomatoes - Sweet and Neat (red). These are supposed to grow  cherry type tomatoes in bunches like grapes

As well as all the planting we managed a bit of tidying. The parsnips were weeded and the remaining empty beds prepared for cultivating and planting. Hopefully the beds that had been too dry previously should now be workable although believe it or not one may be too wet.

A surprise find when weeding one bed was that self seeded beetroots were growing amongst the weeds. As we know that beetroot haven't been planted in that bed for at least four or five years, we are guessing that the seeds came from the compost spread there earlier in the year

I decided to rescue some of the seedling and transplant them.

Towards the end of the week the weather warmed up which was on the one hand good news but on the other hand the warm, damp conditions heralded the warning of an unwelcome potential visit as our first blightwatch warning popped up. There's always some problem threatening to thwart us gardeners isn't there?

Our harvests are increasing now, We are still pulling rhubarb.

8 June

9 June

Strawberries are becoming a feature as they steadily ripen.

11 June

The  flower seeds that I sowed last autumn mainly failed to germinate but I did manage to cut a small posy of sweet Williams.

13 June

The race was on to use the calabrese before it ran to seed. This week as well as using it as a side vegetable it went into a chicken and broccoli risotto, a ginger and vegetable stir fry and a vegetable biryani.

14 June

As we are now joining together in a bubble, we were able to visit my sister and share some of our goodies too.

Hoping that you are all keeping well and staying 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. 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