yesterday and today (and tomorrow)

Weeding, weeding and more weeding mainly.

You can now actually see between the rows of strawberries, and the rows of onions.



And the Jerusalem artichokes aren't having to fight with the docks.

The squash have got some room round them too now. And they are starting to form fruit, I'm very excited by the yellow ones and the round ones.

And I got the sweetcorn in, a block of 3 by 3 up next to the Kale, garlic, carrots, and turnips.


We got a load of flower seedlings into pots too. Tomorrow I need to get the salad out from the leanhouse, it is too hot for it in there and it will bolt if I'm not careful.

more growing, less typing

I've been neglecting this blog, so my apologies.

However, you will be pleased to know that I haven't been doing quite so badly on the allotment. It is still a running battle between us and the weeds, but we are winning in enough areas to have some decent crops going on.

So, a catch up post. In May things just kept on growing. I was away on Skye for a while, but everything survived my absence. The summer squash and courgettes went into the beds, the salad started filling out the bath and the peas and beans grew like crazy.


In June this first bit of June we have got our scarlet kale in, potted up our peppers and chillis to bigger pots, saw the Jerusalem artichokes shoot up, and loads of fruit and flowers appear.

The tomatoes have started to flower, the vintage wine and red robins are furthest along: the biggest and smallest fruit.


And the sweet peas have been planted to grow up the old metal frame we put in our flower 'meadow'.

tomato farm

I now have a veritable forest of tomatoes and other heat loving things on my kitchen windowsill.

5 types of tomatoes, 1 type of chilli, 1 type of pepper, 1 kind of aubergine. Plus some pansies, busy lizzies, lobelia.


Next will be squashes, gerbera, pinks, and marigolds.

I'm aiming for a bed fiull of flowers and a greenhouse full of tomatoes.

Wash Out

Well it was throwing it down today so the work day and BBQ didn't happen. So we now have a freezer full of burgers ready to go for a couple of weeks time when we will try again.

However, even with the rain, we managed to get something useful done today. Our seed potatoes arrived for our mimi 'christmas' potato crop, so we got them in rubble sacks and an old compost bag.


These are sat in the lean-house for now, I didn't want them to get completely drowned before they had even started going in the bags (although the bags do have drainage holes pierced in them it really is far too wet today).

We also took out the remaining broad bean plants, as they were covered in 'rust'. This is fine in itself at this stage in their lives, but we have just put some dwarf bean plants in nearby and didn't want it to transfer to them too, as they are only small. Some of the beans were quite young so I've left them in their pods and will just slice them up and throw them in a stew, rather than opening them up and being rewarded only with a couple of beans the size of dried lentils.


And today I also brought home a courgette and courgette flower. I keep reading about deep fried courgette flowers, so that is what I'm going to do with this one, I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Tomatoes on my Potatoes

I thought I was imagining things the other day, and then remembered that tomatoes and potatoes are both of the Solanaceae family. My potatoes had little berries that looked like tomatoes!

They are inedible, in fact somewhat poisonous. I've been told the berry production is unusual, but about 6 of our plants seem to have fruit. I think I'll remove them so that the plants concentrate on the tubers rather than trying to produce a new generation.

Although we grew potatoes as a child I never remember the flowers setting and producing fruit.

Somewhat more worryingly I thought we may have blight, but having looked at the plants it looks like early blight, which isn't too damaging, rather than late blight. Early blight is also supposedly unusual, so we obviously have odd potatoes. The difference is explained here but one of the main differences seems to be early blight being shaped on the leaves by the position of the veins.

I cut the leaves with signs of it off and burnt them, just in case, and will keep a close eye on them to see of anything further develops. I also signed up for the blight forecast here from the British Potato Council, this uses temperature and weather forecasting, and local sightings of blight in your area to alert you to the risk.

All our tomatoes are unaffected, both indoor and outdoor ones.

Flowers

Rainy Days and Bank Holidays

Generally the same thing it seems. We hopefully took the tools along and started on the cold frame today but the rain soon got the better of us. So we retreated into the greenhouse. Consequently the aquilegia got potted on into bigger pots; my Mum has warned me about aquilegia, she says hers self seed everywhere, so I'll have to keep an eye on them when they get planted out and maybe try and pick them as cut flowers before they seed. I don't want to annoy our neighbours.

Next week we should meet a few more plot holders, we are having a work day to cut the hedge that overhangs the public footpath and to tidy some of the main paths in the allotment site itself. And then a BBQ - we have volunteered/been asked to do the BBQ, must look out some kebab recipes to supplement the burgers and sausages.

I wonder if you can BBQ rhubarb?

Tomatoes and stuff

Flowers! Only on the bought tomato plants but at least it would seem we will get tomatoes this year.

When I went today there were open flowers on 3 of the 4 plants - the plum looks like it has quite a few trusses forming, the others 1 or 2 so far.

Looking at the plants from the seeds we planted it looks like it will be ages until they get to this stage, but then I remember these plants were tiny 80p ones only a few weeks ago.

The greenhouse had got to a ridiculous 39.9˚C today, which I think is a bit much even for tomatoes, so I put up some more shade fabric. It is already over the windows, but I draped a bit more from the ceiling. Whoever built the greenhouse didn't really include much in the way of ventilation, there are 2 small vents in one corner but everything else is sealed tight. I guess we will need to add vents in the roof at some point but for now I'm just trying to shade it all as much as possible.

at one with the land

MrUrban said yesterday "thanks for making us get the allotment" and I realised how much we have both been enjoying it.

In a way it doesn't matter if we even get any vegetables out of it (although we have already had salad and, of course, the rhubarb) - we are feeling fit and healthy; it is an excuse to be outside, and have barbeques; and it is just hugely pleasant to sit there noticing small things growing and watching our resident robin noseying at what we are doing (I'm going to try and get a pic of him but he flys off every time I reach for my camera).

It is also great to have people to say hello to, and somewhere to go. I work at home and have made a decision to try and get to the allotment every day. I really think it has helped me on a day to day basis, I feel a lot happier having that little patch of outdoors that I can go and visit.

Here's to cups of tea and plant watching.

sunflowers!

The blackberry is now in and while I was there I potted the rapidly growing sunflower seeds into medium-ish pots from the propagator.

We have 3 kinds Evening Sun, Teddy Bear (lovely fuzzy ones) and Sun Spot. I'm looking forward to them.

Seeds at home and seeds afar

I bought a tiny little 79p propagator from Pound Saver yesterday to try some chilli, tomato and huckleberry seeds at home, see if they do any better with a bit more of a constant temperature.

I also got a blackberry bush so that is another one for the fruit cage. I am off now to try and fit it in somewhere. This allotment seems to be turning into mostly fruit.

I did buy purple sprouting broccoli to get going for next spring as the stuff on the plot has been so good, and cos lettuce as I realised we didn't have any actual lettuce. They are in another small propogator in the greenhouse.

The normal broccoli, and the sprouts are germinating, and so are the squash and sunflowers.