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