Wednesday, July 29
Monday, July 27
The cycle of allotment life
No sooner have we nearly filled the beds on the allotment and are beginning to wonder where we will plant later crops than we start to empty beds. It seems just a short time that we have a full allotment before things start to look bare again.
Last week we cleared three beds, One had housed our first brassicas which have now been eaten and the bed will now be made ready for some dwarf French beans.
Last week we cleared three beds, One had housed our first brassicas which have now been eaten and the bed will now be made ready for some dwarf French beans.
All the autumn planted onions have been dug from another bed. We had planted two varieties, Radar and Senshyu Yellow, both are rounded onions rather than the flatter types. I prefer the rounder ones for cooking as I seem to have more waste and less usable onion when preparing the flatter ones.
The third bed was cleared of our first batch of peas. The tops have been cut off and the roots left in the ground to release nitrogen into the soil.
Our second and third sowings of peas have been given, twiggy supports. The first lot of were rather disappointing. I can excuse them for their poor performance as they really were up against all that the weather could throw at them this year.
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| 23 July |
The courgette plants are now coming into production. I'm trying to catch the fruits before they become too large before harvesting and so far I am keeping up. The yellow variety hasn't got into its stride yet. I'm pleased to say that so far all the courgettes have passed the lick test.
The blueberry bushes are really confused by the unseasonal weather. Although the later fruiting varieties have berries just beginning to ripen, the same bushes are beginning to show autumnal colours.
At last the runner and climbing French beans have decided to climb up the canes. Some vines already have flowers despite them having quite a lot of growing to do. Hopefully now they seem to have got the idea they will speed up their ascent.
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| 24 July |
We made a concerted effort to pick blackcurrants last week. I wonder is it just us that doesn't top and tail the berries? We make sure the tail - the stems - are removed when we pick them but the tops we leave. We haven't suffered any ill effects from this negligence, in fact once the blackcurrants are cooked you don't notice.
We started harvesting brassicas from the second bed. The Kalibro cabbage haven't solid hearts up but the decision was made to cut one. We're guessing that these cabbages will all heart at the same time so this way we can spread the harvest out a little.
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| 26 July |
The Oullins Gage plums are beginning to ripen so I only just hung the waspinators in time. There was also a very pleasant surprise. Usually many of the first plums to ripen have plum moth maggots hiding inside, but this year so far they have been clear. I wonder if the moths were deterred by the weather. I hope this doesn't mean that we will find them at a later stage.
We're still picking cucumbers from the raised bed in the garden. The time between picking and eating is so short that I rarely get a photo.
The crate in the garden greenhouse is still yielding mini carrots. This time they are all the same shape.
We're not the only ones harvesting. Now that the buddleias have finally flowered - I'm sure that they are later than usual this year - the bees have homed in. So far, as far as butterfly visitors I have only spotted the odd small tortoiseshell and the ubiquitous whites. I'm hoping more species will arrive soon.
The bees quite like verbena bonariensis too.
If you fancy taking a look around half of our allotment with us, we have posted a video here.
I hope that everyone is still keeping 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.
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.
Wednesday, July 22
Monday, July 20
Rooting about
Last week was a landmark in our Covid 19 dominated lifestyle, we all - including Ruby - had our hair cut.
This was our first cut - at least for Martyn, my sister and I - since January and we were heading towards our 1970's style.
As well as doing some work at the allotment we spent some time tidying the garden. I also potted up some lupins grown from seed. There are more than I need but the seed packet contained mixed colours so I'll need to grow them on to find out which colours I'd like to keep.
Martyn potted on some cucumber plants which have been placed outside of the garden greenhouse. These are Burpless Tasty Green.
We also have some Mini Munch plants from which we are harvesting mini cucumbers as we need them.
The beetroot that I sowed in a crate germinated well and so I thinned out the seedlings. As they grow they will probably need more thinning although I am aiming to harvest small roots.
On the allotment we did a bit more tidying which included preparing another couple of beds for planting.
The bed below was prepared for more brassicas which will hopefully provide us with a late crop.
The plants had been waiting in one of our cold frames for the bed to become ready.
On Sunday the bed was planted up with cabbages and cauliflower. The soil in this bed is very rough and lumpy so we are somewhat concerned that the plants may not thrive, however there was nowhere else for them to go so we are just hoping for the best.
I made another couple of waspinators which I hope will deter the wasps from attacking our plums and greengages. Picking the fruits is no fun when you are likely to also inadvertently grasp a wasp.
Our harvests are much the same as in previous weeks. The courgettes were subjected to the lick test before cooking. In case you are wondering I didn't use the bit that I licked!
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| 14 July |
Whilst some of the cane fruit is winding down, other fruits such as the blackcurrants are ripening.
Picking the blackcurrants is tedious and time consuming but worth the effort.
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| 16 July |
The first lot of peas were battered by the winds and I don't think that they produced as many flowers this year so consequently haven't produced as many pods. Many of the pods show evidence of the battering but fortunately the peas inside are fine.
We decided to dig the four roots of one of our trial early potatoes. We chose Pentland Javelin as the tops of these were the most badly affected by the strong winds. The tops were flattened and yellowed so didn't look as though any more growing would take place below ground.
The haul was modest in size, probably the growing had been curtailed due to the haulms being damaged. The tubers that we did harvest however, were clean, disease and pest free. They also passed the taste test. We posted a video here
You may remember that as well as sowing carrots in open ground on the allotment we sowed some in crates in our garden greenhouse. This was more or less as insurance in case the lockdown prevented us going to the allotment. Last week we decided to pull some roots and were please with what we found, although I'm not sure why one carrots is a different shape to its crate mates.
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| 19 July |
The damp weather is definitely suiting some wildlife, The frog below was patrolling the allotment. A smaller specimen was spotted in the garden. This was probably one of the offspring of the frogs that had used our pond as a spawning ground. I'm hoping that as well as eating slugs and snails the frogs have a taste for the ants that seem to be everywhere in the garden and on the allotment.
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 15
Monday, July 13
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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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.
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.
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| 11 July |
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!
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| 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.
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.