New Pickings

Black Red and White currants

Finally decided that I should pick the currents at the weekend.  Not sure about the weight but must be a couple of pounds of blackcurrants.

The Redcurrants were lost at the start of the season. I think the wind got to them or possibly birds right at the beginning. I netted the three bushes quite early and lost very few. I look forward to eating them later.

 

Eschallot Grise

The shallots have dried out nicely so I trimmed them to about 3 ins and will hang them in the string bag. About 1.5 Kg (189 bulbs)  from 12 surviving plants. I lost four to rot and then another before I decided to cut my losses and lift them several weeks ago.

The broad beans plants were all lifted and some left over runner and french beans put in their place as a second crop.

Lollo Rosso and Winter Density lettuces doing well in their nursery between the leeks. Also just sown Webbs Wonderful, Ice King, Mixed Shades and Salad Bowl to give me some later lettuces.

 

Overview

Just to show that there are other things going on – a shot from the North East corner looking up and across the allotment.

In the foreground are Cabbages – Savoy Endeavour, Ruby Perfection and Candice.

Runner and French beans – Aintree and Empress

Onions – Red Baron and New Fen Globe,

Potatoes – Desiree

Out of Shot – Parsnips and Celery,

Middle beds from the bottom:

Peas – Hurst green Shaft ( almost ready to pick)

Onions,

Potatoes – Kestrel

Cucumbers – Marketmore and Burpless

Pumpkins - Crown Prince

Decorative gourds ( some of last years still going strong)

Broccoli, Spinach, Swiss Chard

Far beds:

Leeks – Musselburgh

Lettuces – various

Potatoes – Pentland Javelin

Carrots – Early Nantes and Parmex

Beetroot – Chioggia and Wodan,

Sprouts – Berwick and Cromwell

Lettuces

Sweetcorn

At the top is Sweetpeas, Lettuces, Rhubarb, Sunflowers, Courgettes – Gold Rush, Pomodoro and unknown green, Squashes

I can’t remember all the specifics so I’ll update this later!

Sweet Pea Haven

Sweet Peas

Too many other events in life so just a little later than planned. 

At the end of March and just before leaving for a holiday my sweetpeas arrived from Simply Sweet Peas. I could not expect them to survive in the packaging so though it best to get them in the ground.

The hazel sticks came from next door and I spent Monday and Tuesday night before the holiday carting most of the tree onto the plot.  The left group are the “heirloom” so should be very fragrant next to the bench. The others are “blue skies” and are more modern blue ones for cutting.

The lettuces in the front are Webbs Wonderful that lasted through the winter under a cloche and still tasted good last week.

A “Corn”ucopia on its way – with luck and hard work

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. 

A busy weekend

A beautiful weekend here saw the Maris Peer early potatoes in on Thursday evening followed by the Charlottes on Saturday. All of the Swift that went in a couple of weeks ago are showing through so they were covered up again.

The sweetpea plants were suffering in the garage so they went in on the end of the runner bean poles put up on Thursday evening. A little close together but hey – who’s counting.

I spotted some Little Gem plants in the diy supermarket at half price and so in they went along with the salad bowl lettuce mix that has been thinking of sprouting for some time.

In also went about 80 sugar snap peas to get some started.

The onions are going very well but I do think I need to give them more space next year.

I’m also pleased that the plot alongside was seen last Sunday and taken up by Shaun and Cecilia. A few nights of hard digging by them got rid of enough dandelions and grass and, thanks to some left over seed potatoes from Bryn, they already have some crops to look forward to later.

All-in-all quite a satisfying week with the plot coming together nicely.