I made a quick visit to my allotment earlier. The wind was slicing across the very open site and, seeing very little that needed doing urgently, I didn’t stay long. My leeks were a dismal failure; almost all of them produced flower stems. Sown too early seems to be the verdict. Spinach beet is OK,…
vegetables
Allotment update.
During the summer I was up to my plot at least every other day, now it's more like every other week. Such crops as I have still standing seem to include several that have not covered themselves in glory this year, rusty leeks, piddling little parsnips, moth eaten spinach. Cauli's were not bad, but you…
On not digging.
In a few days time I shall be 65. Digging is either good exercise or hard work, depending on your perspective. Mine is that it is hard work and getting harder, so it seems to me that if I can get results as good without digging as with, why would I dig. Like many people,…
Allotment half term report.
Midsummer seems like an appropriate time to take stock. Most things have done well; I think I have the soil management side of things where I want it. My failures and problems are not soil related: cabbage root fly, not enough water and as of today, mice going for my peas. The one thing that…
Not quite successional cropping
My first plantings of cabbages, brussels sprouts and flower sprouts were wiped out by cabbage root fly, in spite of being treated with nematodes. The other brassicas that were sown a little later I potted on from their modules into 9cm pots and grew them a bit bigger before planting them out today. This time…
Allotment update 14/4/2017
I've put in several hours on my plot yesterday and today, strimming, weeding, sowing and planting. It still feels early in the season but I'm well on the way to a full house. I've said before that I have trouble getting seedlings going on my plot and start most things off in pots or cells.…
Allotment update – 3/4/2017
My purple curly kale has had it. Time to go. I chopped round the stems with the spade, leaving most of the roots in the ground and took them away to be shredded and added to the compost heap. I'd wanted to plant spuds in the space nearly a month ago but thought there were…
Allotment note 13/3/2017
There's very much a sense of the season accelerating; that transition from not enough to too much to do. This was my week, as far as veg goes. 5/3/17 Planted potatoes Charlotte and Kestrel. I planted Kestrel 18/3 lst year and they were fine so I should be OK. I've put more Kestrel in pots…
Allotment note 4/3/17
Sowed Onion 'Liria' in seed tray, on prop bench at 25C. Pricked off Leeks 'Musselburgh' sown 5/2 into 4L pot. Will plant out when bigger. This was an early sowing, will do another soonish. Pricked off Tomato 'Sungold' into 9cm pots. In Sylvamix peat free with 2.5g/L CRF added. Back on window ledge. Up…
Allotment note 3/3/17
Today I received a few packets of seed from The Real Seed Catalogue. I picked up on them on Charles Dowding's blog and wanted to try them out. Salads were a success last year in the sense that we ate almost all I grew and could have done with more, especially into autumn and winter.…
garden ruminations 