A busy weekend but not all on the allotment. (Ikea trip and helping youngest son David to move house).
Not one of my best photos of the plot but it does show the sweetcorn is doing very well – I’m sure it is because it is where I stored the manure originally. I transplanted a dozen lettuce from the cold frame into the gaps where they will like the partial shade. There is also two rows of French Breakfast radish between the remaining rows and columns, the first of which should be ready by next week. I moved the frame towards the path slightly to make it more usable and put the manure there. Also showing are the cucumbers just starting to climb, the beetroot coming on and the adjoining allotment that could do with a weedkiller! One plot further away is how the plot should look.
The Sugar Lord snap peas have reached a good height and are showing their first pods.
The sweet peas have been beautiful bringing colour and a lovely smell to the rather more usual greens and browns on the allotment.
A wonderful bowl of raspberries on Saturday evening was the reward for removing the last of the leeks to leave some space for the early purple broccoli plants to be planted out. It also gave motivation to dig the last patch by the compost bins where the manure has been stored, ready for next years leeks to go in.
At last enough French beans grew to about 5″ in the root trainers to go out to join the one that survived the earlier attempts at germination. I might try a further planting of runner beans since Joan found last years seed.
The third set of parsnips (Panache and Hollow Crown) are germinating at last in the seed tray although the ones sown direct have done nothing.
Sprayed all the potatoes, the garlic and the onions with Bordeaux Mixture to try to lessen the effects of blight and other nasties that hit so badly last year. I did dig a good collection of Swift spuds first.
The garlic continues to disappoint after a really good start. I suspect I planted them too deep and they just have not felt the heat. Dug a few of the earlier ones up and cleared the soil off some of the others. One or two had rotted but it does not look like white rot. Lets hope they have not all gone.
The onions on the other hand seem to be thriving. I pulled two White Prince each around 4-5 cms diameter from the close spaced bed in the middle to give the neighbours room to grow. Reading about cucumber troubles on another blog, I decided to dig a small trench around the four I have planted to reduce the chances of rot at the stem.
And finally, the cauliflowers were attacked by pigeons so on went the netting. I must find the best technique for supporting it. It always seems to take a disproportionate amount of time to fit.
