Wrapping up the summer!

The children and I managed a good few hours on the plot today. Possibly their last visit before school starts up again. Despite the muggy weather, there is definitely  an air of 'wrapping up the summer' on the plot. Some plants are beginning to yellow, bean pods are really fat and the pile of spent plants, is too big to fit into the compost bins!

After far to much chit chat with our lovely neighbours, an exchange of plants and a nice bowl of raspberries to keep the children happy, we got down to some work.The main focus today was all about planting (albeit a little late) the remainder of the winter/spring brassica plants. They are all tucked up safetly in their new beds and thankfully we had enough netting for them all, now other crops are finished. 

I made a small dent in the weeding but as the plot is still not up to our usual standards I will declare the war on weeds lost for now!!

I need to start thinking about mulching, a few beds are empty now and will remain thag way until spring. At least with the no-dig I am not faced with the grueling task of digging them over.

The list of jobs for autumn are now looming, I just hope we have enough time and funds to get them sorted. But, as it is a marathon, and not a sprint and all that..........

A plot visit!

I finally felt well enough to have some time at the plot!
I knew the sweetcorn must be ready to harvest, so after clearing a feezer draw and getting the children excited about hotdogs and sweetcorn for dinner, we all headed off together, knowing we had a big battle with the weeds ahead of us.

Unfortunately this is what we arrived to..........

It seems thst badgers paid a visit and wiped out almost everybodys corn this year. After a brilliant harvest last season it was quite a shock and I have to be honest I felt completely gutted at the sight if this!

Not really sure if this will now be a problem every year, the thought of not growing corn is rubbish, it is one if my favourites.  Maybe I can squeeze some into the fruit cage.....

The plot is also in a bit of a sorry state. But it could be worse. It really made me evaluate how I am using the plot though. I really need to plan the amount of plants to sow as I am not filling it up as much as I can. I also need to be doing more to combat the slimmies, beer traps at least. There are lots of jobs that really need getting on with, it is going to be a busy autumn/winter that is for sure!

Sorry for the lack of bloggin!

So, I seem to be a bit rubbish at keeping this updated-sorry! I will try harder! I will try and give you a sweeping update for July and August!
Firstly, I have not been on the plot for most of August. A dose of Glandular Fever has kept me in bed for weeks and a visit to the allotment is not achievable at the moment. Basic harvesting and grass maintenance is being done by the husband and children but they are unsure about what is weeds etc, so unfortunately that will have to wait until I am up on my feet again! 

So to update:

The Wizard beans gave a great crop over all. Enough for fresh eating,  some for the feezer and seed for next season. I am really pleased with them, although I will not be doing as many plants next season as I would rather use the space for more peas, so I will just do half the amount as this year.

The early carrots and beetroot did fantasticly. Covering the beetroot seems to do the trick, last season I couldn't grow any at all!

The spring cauliflowers we okish. Nothing to shout about but will do them again next season. The calabrese just bolted after one very small head. It may have been weather related, I am tempted to try a different variety next season.

Runners/climbing beans. Dwarf french beans &Young leeks

The runners and climbing beans seem to be doing well.  The french beans are doing ok but really suffering slug and snail damage. I will plant lots more next season as so far we have only had enough to eat fresh rather than freeze!

Cucumber arch, squshes and pumpkins.

The pumkins and squashes are doing great.  Especially the cucumbers, although nobody seems to like the green ones (Wautoma) so next season I will look into something different. The Bothby Blonde's are perfect though, they will definitely be on next seasons seed list!

We had a month of really great mixed salad leaves and grew some fantastic Windermere lettuce. (like iceberg) I just need to define the art of sowing at the right time for a constant supply.

The peas are done, I have saved lots of seed and have written out a detailed sowing and growing plan for next season in the hope of bumper crops.

Potatoes were really dissappointing. Next season I need to be earthing them up, or in no-dig fashion, putting lots of mulch on top of them as they grow!  I will also just do two rows of earlies rather than squeezing in three, I just won't bother with maincrop.

Parsnips are looking fab, can't wait to see what we get.

Strawberry patch

Maincrop carrots and beetroot are doing great, although the carrots only germinated at about 70% so there are a few gaps, despite re-sowing several times! If I were feeling better I would be looking at pickling the beetroot and making chutney, but I can look forward to that when I am back on my feet.

Sweetcorn

The garlic did ok, despite suffering from rust, I am going to try and buy a variety called Wight Cristo, which is supposed to do well in clay soils, and plant double the amount.

Both the onion sets and the onions I grew from seed are really rubbish. I possibly didn't water them enough. The foliage just dissappeared, I did find slugs on them a few times, maybe that was the problem. I will give them another go next season but if they still don't do well, with some extra tlc I will put the space to better use!

The tomatoes got blight before they ripened, just like last season, even though I had bought an earlier ripening variety (Aurara from real seeds). I won't bother with them again on the plot. Only one of my children like raw tomatoes out of all of us, so I will just do a couple of plants in the garden instead and use the space for other crops. Maybe peppers and fennel.

What a mess!

I gave the strawberry patch a real good tidy up and the apple tree is full fruit. I bought a red gooseberry bush and an autumn raspberry plant from Aldi, they are sat in the garden for now.  The fruit cage and tree area will really be the jobs I will be focused on from autumn, so I have been spending the time in my sick bed planning away ready. My birthday is in October, so the wooden posts I need are the top of my birthday list.

Apples

I can't wait to get back to the plot, I have missed it so much,  let's hope I can update the blog a little more regularly too!

First two weeks of June 2017

Cucumber arch

They survived! This week saw the cucumbers graduate from the kitchen, to the plot, and they are still alive 3 days later hehe. It was definitely worth bringing them inside to recover. I am unsure how behind they are now but time will tell. They have been planted at the foot of the arch we used for the pumpkins last year. Although there were some cucumbers on the arch last year too, they just got shaded out and couldn't compete with the pumpkins. The squashes and pumpkins are growing on the ground this year instead, eek! Two melon plants were in amongst the ITC plants so they also graduated to a spot on the plot. I have popped them in on plot A near the composting area. They will (hopefully) trail over the tarpaulin that is still covering the back half of the plot. It will remain there until we are ready to plant the fruit trees in the winter. Hopefully the heat from the tarp will benefit the plant. They are both really tiny though so I am not expecting miracles! 

Leeks

I popped the leeks in today too, earlier than I had written in my planning but there was a gap so I popped them in anyway. I knew my plans would change as I learned true timings and spacing rather than relying on info from books. But I think I am going to have to do some really big rethinks next season. I had originally planned to pop the leeks in when the peas started to come out, but the peas are a huge mass/jungle so there is no way that would be doable. It will make more sense for the leeks to follow the broad beans but that means re jigging lots of other crops. It is the same with covering with netting, I have ended up covering crops like onions because they are planted beetween the brassicas and it was easier to cover the lot. Trouble is I don't have enough netting to cover unnessacarily.......it looks like I will be starting the plan from scratch really but hey, this is half the fun right? The planning.......... 

On a positive note the sweetcorn is looking really great, I was very worried when we had really strong winds for days after planting out, but it seems to have survived with no scars.

I am very excited about the harvesting that is now happening, the Bijou mange tout are amazing, so tasty and a heavy cropper, infact I return home with a bowl full of sugar snaps, mange tout and peas on every visit. I have also harvested  masses of Wizard beans. I was so wrong about them and I will 100% sow this variety next year, I have decides to only do over winter ones though,  it will be plenty for the amount we eat and it will free up 4ft that I plan to use to grow peas just for seed saving.

We also have PARSNIPS, phew, I was really unsure if we would ended up with any, but after resowing every week or so, we have plenty, a long way off harvest but I can already taste them!

Parsnip

We had our first ever beetroot harvest, something I was very much looking forward to as I failed miserably last year. I thought they kept getting munched by slugs but after a little research it turns out they are a favourite target for sparrows! This years crop was undercover and hey presto, we have beets. They taste divine and the boys (who hate beetroot) can't get enough of it grated raw with carrot! Speaking of which, a small bunch of baby carrots came home today too. They were probably too small to harvest really but we each had one with dinner. I felt like a real kitchen gardener harvesting my carrots. I enjoyed pulling them and seeing what was hiding underground, some woohoo-ing may have happened and these were just small Chantenay, so goodness knows what I will be like with the big old maincrops haha! I will be doubling the space for both of these crops if I can next season. I think they are my favourite early summer harvest actually!  Two cauliflower heads came home with me too and most is now in the freezer, I am chuffed as cauliflower is known to be tricky so I wasn't expecting it to actually produce heads! It shows we should always give it a go. There is only one crop that is rubbish actually and that is the radish. I could not grow it last year and this year seems no better. I have no idea what is going wrong, they just don't bulk up. Maybe it is the amount of flea beetle damage but as it is one of my favourite veg it is getting rather frustrating. Maybe I ought to try  growing them in a planter and see if that helps........
We are now finally starting to properly look at the fruit area of the plot. Spurred on by the Mr putting up netting to protect our blackcurrants, the next step will be putting cardboard and compost down in the fruit cage before errecting support structures for fruit canes inside and the fruit trees behind. Now to decide what we actually want to plant there hehe.

Bijou 

Planting out sweetcorn, it must be summer!

It feels very summery to be planting out the sweetcorn, which was mine and my 7yr old sons main job this evening (alongside weeding of course!) Sweetcorn was one of our favourite crops last year, we could have eaten double what we grew and still have wanted more, so we have about 30 this year. It will feel like a very long wait 'til harvest now haha... we popped some in the childrens beds too, they will love harvesting their very own cobs, especially if they can eat it there and then!

Sweetcorn 

We also planted out some dill and checked on all the seedling popping up at the plot.
Lots of the carrots, parsnip and beetroot are showing, although there are definately gaps, mainly the beetroot so I may have to resow in places.
The beans all seem to be sprouting nicely and I popped a few more seeds in where there were gaps, so we should have lovely full teepees very soon.  The module sown ones here should be ready to plant out by the end of the week, it will be interesting to see if the end up behind the direct sowing or not.
The squashes are having a bit of a sulk after being planted out. Hopefully they cheer up soon, we want lots of lovely squashes to see us through winter! I do wish I had sowed cucumbers in the kitchen much earlier, I don't want them to be unsuccessful as it is one of the only things we grow that the children love! I will make a note and do my best to remember next year.
The best part of our visit of course was the harvesting. As the garlic is suffering with rust we pulled up the handful that had dropped over, and we have cloves, yay. I cannot tell you how exciting this seem. We popped them in the shed to dry out and I am sure the rest of the crop won't be far behind. We picked a few more strawberries, although it seems the birds and slugs are nibbling (we really must sort out proper covers and lay straw to help) a huge bunch of sweet peas, they are so plentiful, we get a bunch every few days! Some more curly kale, probably to go straight in the freezer and our first harvest of mange tout peas. The Golden Sweet are ready to start picking.

Golden Sweet.

We may have also picked a pod of the Havel early peas,  and eaten them straight from the pod. They were heavenly but shhhhhhh don't tell any one..........

Pretty flowers on Giant Bijou.

Charity Seeds.

Back in January a fantastic blogger Beryl from https://mudandgluts.com did a charity fund raiser for the Samaritans. She offered packs of rare or interesting varieties of seed, many of which she saved herself, for  £1.75 a pack. We were able to purchase 4 packets each. I really hope she does the same again next year, it was great and she raised a whooping £320.50!

So, what did I choose? I went for 2 peas and 2 beans. I can not wait to see them grow, have a taste and save more seed for the future! Here is the splurge....... (info from mudandgluts.com and realseeds.)

Magnolia Blossom Tendril Pea – a new hyper-tendril tall sugarsnap with beautiful pink flowers. Not available for sale in the UK. (15 seeds)

An innovative hypertendril snap pea bred by Dr. Alan Kapular PhD. Hypertendril plants make enlarged tendrils in place of some leaves. The tendrils make for a more open habit, allowing better air flow and reducing diseases. And they are also great to eat! They are wonderful in salads or as a garnish, and they taste just like peas! Sturdy 5-6’ plants are very productive. The plants yield deliciously sweet snap peas for weeks. Vigorous vines produce bi-color flowers. Flavor peaks just before the string turn red.

Kent Blue Pea – a heritage mangetout with pink flowers changing to pale blue and navy. Only available from the Heritage Seed Library in the UK. (15 seeds)

Donor Mr J Hadow’s grandfather of Sevenoaks, Kent was given this pea in the 1940s and the family have grown it ever since. Its attractive bicoloured flowers start off maroon/pink, turning blue on maturing, followed by small, crisp, sweet pods, perfect for eating as mangetout, or allowing to develop a little more and using as sweet fresh peas. Garden Organic's Pauline Pears says, “The best pea I have ever grown.” Guardian Jean Goldberry adds, “Divine in bloom and the bees love it. Non-stop production, no plant could do more.”

The exact origins of this pea are unknown, but it has apparently been saved as a family heirloom since the 1940s in Sevenoaks, Kent.

Cherokee Trail of Tears beans - climbing French beans which can be eaten as green beans or when maturevas dried black beans. This bean was originally from the native North American Cherokee people. In 1838 they were driven out of their homelands in the state of Georgia by the US government to make room for more European, a forced march known as the 'trail of Tears' . This bean is one of the heirlooms thet managed to keep with them and has been passed on from generation to generation ever since.

Cara la Virgen de la Banera Leon climbing bean-  Gorgeous round beans with a brown pattern round the hilum. Needs a long season but climbs to 10-12ft and gives masses of dried beans. Not available in the UK. )

What a sorry looking lot!

These are the sorry looking bunch that didn't fare to well against the slimmies residing in the back garden. Rumour has it that a handful may have met a rather gruesome end once discovered, but who am I to gossip......

Anyway I have moved these to intensive care aka: the kitchen window ledge. We have here 4 cucumber plants and 2 melons. I have re-sowed a melon and 2 cucumbers as I am sure they are done for, but the other 3 seem to have new growth so fingers crossed. They will stay here during the night until they reach the 2 leaf stage and I will just pop them outside during they day to avoid having to do to much hardening off when the time comes to plant out. I wasn't very successful with cucumbers last year so I hope I can turn these around for a great harvest this time!