Had a problem getting the photo's off the blackberry and a lack of time to fix it meant that I did not post these pictures when they were taken. The early potatoes that I planted out in the first bed got hit by some frost damage - which surprised me because I did not think that we'd had any serious frost - perhaps the allotment is colder than our garden at home? These pictures were taken 10 days ago and thankfully the plants have recovered. At first I thought it might be blight from poor quality seed potatoes but thankfully it isn't.
Seedlings update
Planted out 8 tomato plants into grow-bags under the kitchen window 2 evenings ago. These are now about 3 -4 inches high and have had to be tethered to canes. Last time I grew tomoatoes I did not support the plants and they rambled all over the place. All the other plants have been potted into medium sized pots. Will have to give some of these away and will plant some out on the allotment.
Most things have sprouted well. Butternut seeds harvested from a supermarket bought plant have sprouted, as have the Halloween pumpkin seeds. Not sure where I am going to plant these out. The potato seedlings (planted from seed harvested from fruit 2 seasons back has taken extremely well. I've decided to pot these into small tubs and grow them at home so I can keep an eye on them - the plan is to harvest the first tubers for planting next season. I have also planted out the extra seedlings in a hidden patch in a garden flowerbed. Quite excited about these.
Runner and Black Eyed Beans are also progessing well, although have lost a couple of plants to a blasted snail that got amongst them - ate through a Runner bean stem and stripped the first leaf off a Black Eyed bean plant. The Italian beans from Nick have not sprouted (yet). Some have rotted in the pot, but when clearing these out I found a few that looked like they were about the sprout so I apologetically pressed these back into their soil.
Chilli plants have sprouted at last - these were kept inside on the kitchen windowsill and took over 2 weeks to germinate - thought I have used a poor potting compost or the seeds were old but at last we have the little elf-like sprouts lifting their backs through the soil and lifting their slender arms to the light. Have habenero and cayenne so should not be short of a little HOT to add to dishes.
The tray of purple sprouting MUST be planted out this weekend - otherwise I will lose it in the tray. Only one line of the lettuce seeds that I planted in the window box has sprouted so may replant another type this weekend.
Only work on the allotment last weekend was to weed, weed and weed. The Bindweed has gone crazy around the raspberries as I have not turned that soil for 2 seasons.
Update picture of progress of Broad Beans taken 19/04/2010
From Anda:
ReplyDelete19 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 Kathy 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.