Entries from Anda - 19th to 26th July (Recovered from a slight SNAFU on the blog posting!)

From Anda:
19 July, 2010
We have taken up more of the carpets, put down to keep the weeds down, leaving a section behind by the compost heaps for turning. Every time I go I work on the new bindweed which has come up since I was last there, and it is taking less and less time to clear the cleared places! John dug up the old peas to put them on the compost, an we planted Midgey's cucumber plant and an eggplant plant in the same bed, pretty far apart!

We planted out a a number of chili plants, several different varieties, and I sprinkled marigold seeds in among the peppers. There is a small bed with planks around it, and we planted a 2nd crop of peas. We did considerable weeding during this session.

23rd July, 2010:
We had left a sizeable bed open to the elements for a week or so after the carpet had been removed, and the during the 2nd session John dug the area up, manfully and steadily going down a full forkful and breaking up the large chunks of very tightly packed soil. This summer has been very hot and every time we went up we needed to water the plants. The peas had come up beautifully, no marigolds, and the peppers were fine. We borrow Nick's hose - thank you very much NIck - but it did not reach to the far corner of Andrew's allotment. We found a black hose neatly permed onto a couple of simbis protruding from the edge of the implement box, and John unwound it and spread it out on the grass to melt back straight. It had not cracked or perished, so he took the fitting off the one end so he could match it. We left with potatoes & onions, only digging up a few because we feel it is better to take what is needed and leave the rest to stay fresh in the ground. If we don't eat quickly enough we may have to change this policy! We left the carrots on purpose, as we had more than enough - Maureen was in exactly the same boat.
Courgettes doing terribly well and producing marrows when you turn your back. I trimmed the old stems out of the raspberry plants. The ones with the yellow leaves.


July 26th 2010:
We had left the turned diggings to breathe. WE have the odd spots of drizzle and drops, absolutely nothing penetrating or worthy of being called good rain. On the way to the allotment we bought one bag of manure, one hose fitting, some blood organic fertiliser, and a whole lot of worm juice with us. This time John tackled the compost heaps. THe first one was still far too new to be of use, and he left it. The 2nd one has produced a lot of compost, and still has more in it. We put the manure down on the raspberry plant bed and then covered it all with compost. And watered the whole bed with the extension of Nick's hosepipe. Works a treat. AFter that John put a lot of compost on the newly dug bed and we watered that too.

The peas are growing apace. I put some worm wee on them, also on the peppers and tomatoes (tied up because they were falling about) .

Maureen came up to hopefully pick some blackberries, but there were only a few that were black and they were pretty sharp - you know - turn the mouth into a spot and all the face lines come out of it - but there is a huge crop and when they ripen properly there will be lots of Jam. Maureen picked the beans, watered and Cathy came up and suggested that three workers on Andrew's allotment wasn't fair!!!

When he had finished, John dug up another bed at the top of the allotment along the path which borders with Des. More weeding and general splashing and tidying.