Squash, heat and some bees

All this hot weather is really making things happen, the first courgette was picked today (a beautifully small one which I am quite looking forward to eating), the beans need staking and the weeds are making good progress in taking over my plot.


The squash plants are starting to spread out, soon I hope they will be big enough and brave enough to fight it out with the weeds which I have deliberately not bothered weeding because I know squash have excellent smothering tendencies which will hopefully kill even the most persistent of weeds. Most of the squash plants are planted over an upturned bottomless bottle to help funnel the water to the roots, and it seems to be working, the plants with the bottles are definitely more vigorous than the ones without.

It was far to hot to actually attempt anything today so I picked some cabbage and globe artichokes to go with my new potatoes and then took some snaps of the bees enjoying the flowering parsley.

Tomatoes are romping away

The tomato plants which I sowed back in February have now been planted out and the first fruits are forming. Last years tomatoes produced some amazing fruits but then succumbed to blight, so this year I have followed advice about planting distances to hopefully keep air moving between the plants.

I had heard that you shouldn't plant tomatoes out until they have formed their first flowers and it seems this is true; the plants which had flowers have stayed small and focused on producing flowers whereas the plants which didn't have flowers are definitely just growing big and leafy. Someone remind me of this next year! arr

I have 18 plants, mostly "Gardener's Delight" but also a few "Sungold" and "Gartenperle", all of them are cherry tomatoes which should increase the chance of any actually ripening outside.

I love growing tomatoes, mostly because the rewards are great but also because they have so many demands, but unlike some things, if you can keep up with the divas you will get the rewards. At the moment I am frantically tying up, pinching out side shoots and trying to water them consistently which is quite a challenge in this weather. Luckily the plants don't seem to be bothered by pests.



I am already dreaming of home made tomato sauces and fresh salads with basil.

First potatoes

The first potatoes have been harvested and eaten! They were Charlottes, which although not technically an early (they are a salad which I think makes them a second early) still produces enough baby potatoes to be eaten as new potatoes.

I managed to harvest them by rummaging around the roots of the biggest plants rather than actually pulling anything up, hopefully they plants will continue churning out the beauties.

So this is it, the official start to the summer accompanied by a bit of butter and plenty of fresh mint.

Fruitful

The hot weather is certainly doing the soft fruit some good.

The plum tree is in its second year and is covered in baby plums. It will need some serious thinning out in a month or so.


Not quite ready but the blackcurrants are swelling up quickly. I think there will be some eating in just a couple of weeks, this year I might even have enough to take some home rather than just grazing on them as I go.


The new gooseberry bush is doing well and has plenty of berries ripening, hopefully there will be enough to make a crumble.

Sun, Bank holiday and beer

Unbelievebly the bank holiday weekend coincided with one of the hottest weekends of the year. As I hadn't been down to the allotment for 2 weeks I was feeling guilty enough to leave the fun jobs (sowing) and get straight on with some weeding, so the garlic, onions and cabbages are now weed free and thoroughly watered.

I managed to clear 2 of the embarrasingly weedy areas but only with the dutch hoe, it is far too dry to dig over so that will have to go on to the To-do list for a wetter week than this one. Still I am hopeful that if I keep the leaves off the weeds then the roots should weaken enough to make the removal just a little bit easier. Only 2 more embarrasignly weedy areas to go.

Still no sign of the carrots or parsnips but the new carrot seed arrived so I sowed another few rows and gave them some all some water. It should be noted that watering is no small task, each can requires a walk past 4 other plots and then a thorough soaking as you remove the full can from the water trough (no we don't have taps). Next year I intend to have one of those funky hand pump hoses.

As I was weeding away it occurred to me that we haven't seen much of Joe Swift's allotment this year, what do you reckon, has he lost it to weeds?

Anyway after all this exertion, and in the full sun too I had to go home to have a beer or three.

Carrotless!

Several weeks ago I started my successive carrot sowing, a little late but at least there was a good chance of them germinating. Of course there is no sign at all of the little terrors, not even a groan of soil to indicate they are down there.

Picking my dignity up I prepared to sow again, well it is successive sowing so 3 rows every 2 weeks should give me a beautiful, and continuous, carrot crop and than was when the disaster stuck - I have lost the seeds! Thats right not only have I failed to germinate a single seeding but I have somehow failed 2000 others! Surely this is a carrot disaster?

Slow but steady progress

Today I managed to earth up the potatoes, I only covered the leaves with a very thin covering of aoil after reading this on Pumpkin Soup's blog. This year I will be aiming for little and often and hoping for a bumper crop. Strangly the Rooster potatoes (a maincrop) are far more vigourous than the Charlotte (a salad crop). Go figure.

I also got around to sowing 8 more squash plants, the batch sowed 3 weeks ago came through ok but then I lost 3 so hopefully I will have a full set before the month is out. I have also sowed my courgettes inside, two plants this year and also a full list of couregette lovers from work, well you need to have somewhere to ofload the excess.

No sign of the carrots or chitted parsnips on the allotment, hopefully they are just biding their time. Managed to get the dward beans, pak choi and beetroot sowed but sadly no extra carrots because I left the seed at home, doh!

With 2 more days of the bank holiday stretching ahead I am hopefull that more sowing will happen, some weeding might not go a miss and if the weather stays like this there will certainly be more watering.