Monday, June 14

A very busy week - part two at the allotment

We made the most of the good weather last week, and spent four afternoons on the allotment, so we managed to get a lot of planting done and seeds that were sown directly are now making an effort.

Parsnip germination has, in the end, turned out quite well. As I sowed two seeds to every station, I will soon need to carry out the heart-breaking task of removing one seedling where both seeds have germinated. It's such a shame that we can't transplant the thinned seedlings elsewhere.

The carrots are also starting to grow away.
The peas that were resown, after the first sowing failed to show, have grown really well which means, at least, the seeds were fine. We covered the second sowing with enviromesh so did that protect the seeds or did the drier conditions mean that the seeds didn't rot? Who knows? At least now we have peas that will soon need to be given twiggy supports.
The runner and climbing French bean supports were already in place so we just needed to plant the beans which is done. 

One planting that didn't go so well was the sweet corn. Every time we plant out our sweet corn there seems to be a fairly strong wind blowing, and last week was no exception. To try to thwart the wind, I popped up a temporary barrier of enviromesh. Unfortunately this didn't prevent the wind from flattening the young plants. Time will tell whether or not any plants recover.
Whilst I did some planting and general tidying, Martyn set to with the rotovator and prepared all the remaining beds so that they were ready to plant up.
In some of the beds were planted the curcurbits. We planted three varieties of squash - Crown Prince, Autumn Crown and Pink Banana and three varieties of courgette - Ambassador, Boldenice, a round fruiting variety, and Black Forest, a climbing courgette. We've never grown a climbing courgette before so it should be interesting.
I crawled into the makeshift, open topped tent to plant the left over tomato plants. We don't expect too much from them, but hate to throw plants away, so they are given a chance to grow. As well as working in a rather cramped position, I also had to keep a wary eye out for my nemeses - the ants!

This year our annual flower seeds were sown in the greenhouse, so some of these were planted alongside our new dahlia plants, and some extra dahlias given to us by a fellow plotter.
A bed has been prepared, and covered with an enviromesh tunnel  in readiness to plant more brassicas - hopefully next week.
Alongside the tunnel, another climbing bean frame has been erected, ready for our left over bean plants. 

Where flowering plants self seed, unless they choose an inconvenient position, they are left to just get on with life. Foxgloves growing, in the fruit beds, and sweet rocket growing in various random positions, are now flowering and putting on a display. The sweet rocket is providing some attractive perfume too.
As we have been doing for some weeks now, we harvested a few sticks of rhubarb. The variety was Raspberry Red which when stewed is a deep pink colour.

As well as harvesting rhubarb we had a couple of firsts. We picked a couple of small helpings of strawberries from our fading strawberry bed.
I also cut our first bunch of cut flowers. The sweet Williams are from our plot and the sweet peas were cut from a neighbour's plot. He did tell me to pick some as he had too many for himself. Our sweet peas won't be flowering for a few weeks. The scent is perfuming the house as I type.

One meal that used some of our frozen French beans was a vegetable rice dish based on this recipe.
In another I used some of our frozen squash to make a Thai style curry based on this recipe.

All in all it was a very busy week, after all you never know when all that wet weather is going to descend on us again. Now at least we don't have lots of empty beds to look at and the plot looks lived in!

I nearly forgot - I said that I would put the link to the video showing how we planted our leeks the week before last. If you are interested it is posted here. The leeks, by the way, are now starting to perk up nicely.

As well as working on the allotment we managed to get out and about. I posted about this in my last post.

As always wherever you are keep safe and well.
This week, once again,  I'm going to join in with Dave’s Harvest Monday collection of posts over at Our Happy Acres.

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

22 comments:

  1. Beautiful flowers, and everything is looking very neat and orderly at the plots. My tomatoes did very badly when I first put them out because of the cold winds, but they are rallying now. Not so the runner beans, which have not recovered. I will probably end up buying plants to go in, which is disappointing. I grew foxgloves this year. They were supposed to be some apricot and some white, but at least half are the bright pink ones. Still good though, and the bees are happy.

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    1. It is disappointing when seeds don't produce the type of plants expected CJ.

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  2. We have to make the most of the fine weather while it's here. I hear that storms are forecast towards the back end of this week so you'll be glad that you got so much done last week.

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    1. We do, Jo, hopefully we have missed the storms but I suppose there's time yet.

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  3. This is the first year EVER that I managed to not plant any extra tomato plants. Ever. After giveaways I still had more than half a dozen nice back-up plants. They finally got to the pot bound point where they didn't look as attractive as they once had and I was able to set them free. Not to the compost pile though. LOL I set them on a south facing edge of our natural area so if they REALLY want to grow they may.

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    1. I hope they grow, Alex. They deserved their chance.

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  4. I gave a few tomato plants away this year but resisted planting extras. I am trying to shrink the garden as much as possible. The Black Forest courgette sounds interesting. I've grown summer squashes that ramble a bit but never really climbed as such.

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    1. I'm looking forward to seeing how the courgettes grow, Dave

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  5. So glad you had a good week. Nice to see all the flowers. Sweet peas come just as we really need them. I can imagine the rhubarb compote is beautiful.

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    1. We really felt that we had got somewhere, Sue. The compote is a lovely colour.

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  6. Glad to see you getting back into the allotment. Unfortunately, I am reduced to hobbling on a stick again, so my garden is again off limits. Still, it is what it is, and at least it looks okay for now.

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    1. I hope that you are back on form soon Deborah

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  7. My tomatoes have grown well too Sue. The weather is not too hot so I keep the greenhouse doors half-closed. I see your veggie beds are neat and prepared to more seedlings. Sure you are happy with firsts harvest.

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    1. We did enjoy the first strawberries Nadezda.

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  8. Good to hear you managed to plant out and sow seeds. Lovely seeing your plot more lived in! I hate thinning seedlings too, I do hope the sweetcorn recover, poor things. Looking forward to hearing more about your climbing courgette. your strawberries are way ahead of mine. Lovely meals.xxx

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    1. I don't hold out much hope for the sweet corn, Dina

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  9. Your allotment is looking good. I love to see our allotment gradually filling up with plants. My parsnips didn't germinate this year, perhaps I sowed them too early when it was cold. I hope your sweetcorn recovers, its so annoying when you spend time nurturing plants and then they don't survive.

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    1. It was so disappointing when the sweet corn was battered down, Margaret but there are always disappointments every year, Hopefully not too man.

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  10. I so enjoy a busy and productive week, especially when there are more hands doing the work than my own!

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    1. It is always better to garden together, Margaret

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  11. As always it's lovely to see what is going on at your allotment Sue. All seems to be slowly filling out and making growth. Hope that the sweet corn plants straighten themselves out. I can smell those sweet william and sweet rocket plants from here 😄

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    1. It always surprises me how suddenly the scene changes, Anna.

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