The Summer Allotments (June 2012)

The Summer Allotments (June 2012)

This blog I hope will make up a little for my absence from GoY (Growsonyou.com) during the last couple of months! As many of you will know it has been because I found myself a new job – as a carer – of our 5 year old granddaughter! An 8 to 5 job 5 days a week! Monday, 3rd September, was the last day I had my job – till the end of October!

During the summer I’ve only been able to spend a few hours a week on our allotments! The bad weather has also impeded me on occasions as well. Nevertheless I’ve been able to get lots of photos.

As I’ve so much to talk about (!) & so many photos I thought I’d divide this blog in 3 parts! So each part will be dedicated to one summer month – starting with June.

Broad Beans:

We had two varieties of these beans; an unknown one Gerry brought down (He’d lost the packet!) as established plants from his greenhouse at home, I had also grown some in the greenhouse on the allotment called Aquadulce Claudia. I received my bean seeds in a swap organised on another gardening forum where I also post.

Here are both varieties, now with pods:

Aquadulce Claudia:

Unknown variety:

Here is a picture of both varieties showing the difference in colour between them:

Here is a picture of both varieties after I finished shucking them:

Cucumbers & Water Melons in the greenhouse border:

At the end of May I decided to plant out a few Cucumber & Water Melon plants in the greenhouse border:

Here is a photo of the very first Cucumber fruit:

Garlic:

My Garlic was looking ever so good at the beginning of June:

By the end of the month they were looking very sad for themselves & were covered in Allium Rust. After a bit of “detective work” on the internet I discovered that they were alright as long as it hadn’t entered the bulbs:

Gerry’s Brassicas:

One day around the middle of June Gerry came down to the allotment with lots of Brassica plants – only he didn’t know WHAT TYPE OF BRASSICA they were!

I can’t tell the difference, at this stage, either!

Here they are again a couple of weeks later – with Pinto beans germinating amongst them as well! This view is taken from the opposite end of the bed from the picture above, you can already see the difference in the Brassicas!:

Pinto beans:

I’ve found that these beans give a very good crop so I’ve sown them in several beds at different times:

Pulses:

Pinto, Garbanzo beans & Lentils:

Why are the 3 types all planted together you ask? Well our granddaughter likes to prepare Real Food for her dolls’ picnic & my wife gives her a couple of handfuls of these pulses & some white rice. She insists on mixing them altogether with water! When she goes home I gather them all up & the next day take them down to the allotment & sow them!

These are not for harvesting really, except perhaps the beans, but for green manure which I’ll dig in later.

Lettuce ‘Paris Island Cos‘:

I sowed some Lettuce seeds in the greenhouse in February but this photo is included here so that you can see the name of this variety & also realise I haven’t made a mistake with its name:

Here they are just before I planted them out in the plot (These seedlings may not be the result of the sowing in the photo above. I made a number of sowings & I may not have taken photos of each one, but they are the same variety):

After planting them out they were critically inspected by Mr Robin! I think they met with his approval as he didn’t scold me while I was taking his photo:

Onion from sets ‘Sturon’

During March my brother, Ken, spent a few weeks with us & he helped me on the allotments. He really was a Godsend as without his help during that month I would have fallen so far behind that little of what I grew would have been planted in time! He helped me plant these Onions, which came as sets:

A month later & you can see the progress they have made in 4 weeks!:

Early Potatoes

I planted 2 varieties of potatoes of early potatoes in a bed close to the greenhouse. Gerry, as is frequent with him, wasn’t sure of the name of the variety he bought at a garden centre. There was an offer in which you could fill a plastic flowerpot with as many seed potatoes as you could get in it – twice – as the offer was 2 pots for the price of one! Gerry thinks they may have been ‘Picasa’ but he wasn’t sure:

The two varieties in the same bed at beginning of June:

The two varieties in the same bed at the end of the month:

‘Arran Pilot’ is in the rows on the left of the picture:

Potatoes King Edward:

Potatoes Rocket:

Potatoes Arran Pilot flowering:

Potatoes can also be very pretty when flowering:

Pumpkins at top of plot:

A guy from across the central path in the allotments field gave me a couple of Pumpkin plants as he had more than enough. As I didn’t really have space elsewhere at that time I decided I’d put them at the top of Gerry’s allotment being the only space free as the rest of the allotment had been planted up by that time:

Sweetcorn ‘Swift F1’:

At the beginning of the month Gerry brought down, & planted out, a lot of Sweetcorn, ‘Swift F1’, plants that he had been growing in his greenhouse at home:

Here they are at the end of the month &, in spite of the cold, wet month we had, they have grown tremendously!:

Sunflowers behind shed:

Gerry brought down a half bucket of Sunflower seeds saved from the plants on the allotment last year. His birds didn’t eat as much as he expected & it seems that even the wild birds didn’t eat as many as other years. So he had lots of seed left! I planted a few rows of them behind our shed & a few rows in another part of the allotment:

Sunflowers in another part of the allotment:

Sweetpeas ‘Royal Family’:

The Sweetpeas my brother planted out for me in March are now flowering:

Tomatoes & Marigolds:

I planted out these Tomato plants for Gerry at the end of May. As the year before we had lots of Marigolds & Tagetes growing amongst our tomatoes, to attract the White Fly, I repeated the idea this year using saved seed from last year only they turned out to be Tagetes when they flowered & not Marigolds!

Lavenders, Calendulas, Cosmos, China Pinks & Verbena bonariensis at top of Gerry’s plot:

View along plot from shed:

I’ll finish here this L-O-N-G blog of Gerry’s allotment during June with my traditional photo along the plot from the shed:

Thank you for bearing with me & I hope you found this blog interesting.

Lotties in winter

Lotties in winter

At long last I found time to do the promised blog of our allotments at the end of the year. Today is Boxing Day & it’s a very quiet day, in spite of the strong winds forecast! We began the day with a fair amount of sunshine though this only lasted a few hours before the clouds came over. No rain though. In the late afternoon we had a little sunshine once again before the night time pulled its veil over the evening sky.

Beetroot Bolthardy harvested:

This first photo is of the last of the Beetroots that I had been growing at the top of the plot. They’re in the bag because I forgot I wanted a photo with them just taken out of the ground.

All in all I’m pretty pleased with the way they have gone this year & will again sow them at intervals in coming years.

Broccoli Purple sprouting:

The Broccoli was given to me by a guy on the conjoining plot. I happened to read about their anti-cancerous properties just before going down to the plot. This guy was planting something, I didn’t know what, when I asked him if he knew about the anti-cancerous properties of Broccoli. He said he did & that he was planting his Broccoli at that very moment! He offered me the last half a dozen he had left over & so I planted them here. Mine have done better than his!

Godetias flowering:

The Godetias I sowed originally in the greenhouse to later take home & put on the balcony but which I put in the plot have been flowering for some time. I must say this has surprised me as I expected them to die at the first whiff of frost! They have survived at least 3 frosts – one of which was forecast to be 3 degrees C below freezing!

Lettuce Tom Thumb:

These miniature Lettuce, Tom Thumb, are still going strong after several frosts.

Lentils & Calendulas at top of plot:

This is the top of the plot where I sowed Lentils & Pinto beans. I had potatoes growing here a few months earlier. After lifting them & raking out the soil level I sowed some rows of Legumes. The Pinto beans didn’t survive more than one very, very light frost but the Lentils are not fazed by a few degrees of frost! The Calendulas have been there all year! They came up with the spuds & I left them after lifting the spuds.

French Marigolds in flower:

I sowed these French Marigolds in a seedtray with the intention of pricking them out into bigger flowerpots hoping, with the protection of the greenhouse, to get some flowers from them during the winter. I was so occupied with the digging of the allotments that I never got around to doing it! So, here they are flowering, still in the seedtray!

Annual Chrysanthemums:

A guy from Spain sent me some seeds of these Annual Chrysanthemums last year. I grew them on the allotment & some seeds fell into the ground & survived the winter/spring/summer to come up amongst the Carrots I sowed there. As they still hadn’t flowered when I lifted the Carrots I decided to try & save the plants. I put them in the greenhouse, in the growbag where Tomato Mallorquin had been growing all summer. They are flowering at the time of writing this blog!

Garlic sprouting:

During November I put in a few Garlic cloves from a head of Garlic one of our sons brought over from Spain when he came to spent a couple of weeks holiday with us. He said they were probably the best Garlic you could buy in Spain! I told him at the time it was far too early to plant them but I would do it when the time was right. So here they are just poking through the ground right in front of the greenhouse.

Peanuts at an end:

Many of you following my allotment blogs during the year will remember my experiment with growing Peanuts on the allotment, well I can report that the experiment has been unsuccessful! Not surprising to anyone I suppose, but I did get at least ONE (1) peanut!!!

You must realize that I also started them very, very late. I’m determined to have another go next year & will start the seeds off much earlier, I may even give them some protection from the elements as well.

Pinto beans harvested:

Here are some of my Pinto beans as I was removing them from their seed pods in the greenhouse. I left them to dry for a couple of months before I removed them from their seed pods. Really I was too busy, & lazy!, to do it earlier! They had been picked more than a month before.

Pinto beans bagged:

Here is a bag with some of the beans once I took them home & put them in a bag. We have had a meal with some & there are still some waiting for me to remove the beans from their seed pods!

Tomatoes Mallorquin in Greenhouse:

This is the last photo of the tomatoes Mallorquin. I sowed them in January 2011 in the greenhouse. They were from the packet of seeds my wife brought me back from Spain in September 2010.

Tomatoes Mallorquin harvested in Greenhouse:

A few days later I decided it was no use keeping them on the plant any longer so I picked them & here they are laid out on the bench in the greenhouse.

Runner beans

These were the last of the runner beans for this year. I collected the last few seedpods to save for next year & I’ve now cleared the ground of them. We had a huge crop from them!

Fig trees with frost protection:

These “wigwams” are the winter protection for the two Fig trees we have. After two year of losing the fruit in the very late spring frosts I thought I would protect them this year & see if we can get something to eat from them. I shan’t take the fleeces off them until the middle of May next year. The two previous years we have had frost as late as the first week of May!

Tomatoes Mallorquin in greenhouse just harvested:

These are the very, very last of the tomatoes Mallorquin. I harvested them on 5th December. I then removed the plant from the growbag & threw it away.

Godetias at top of plot:

I showed you a photo of these Godetias at the top of the plot further up but this photo was taken several weeks, & several frosts later! Even on Christmas Eve they were still flowering!

French Marigolds & Cosmos on Christmas Eve:

The French Marigolds I showed you a few photos earlier were still flowering on Christmas Eve & there were a few Cosmos amongst them! They had been affected a little by the frosts lately but, as you can see, continued to flower!

Sweetpeas Royal Family just sown:

I finally sowed my Sweetpeas. I had tubes & compost all waiting in the greenhouse but I had no seeds till the 15th December! On the 20th I sowed about a 1/3rd of the seeds. The tubes are placed in a standard seedtray in which over 20 tubes fit.

Onion Alisa Craig sown on Christmas Eve:

When I spent an hour or so on the plots on Christmas Eve I sowed a few of my Onion Alisa Craig seeds in a seedtray. This is a little later than last year I think when I believe I sowed them a week or two earlier. I was quite pleased with the results of the sowing when I lifted the bulbs in July. I want to sow more this year as our stock ran out about a month ago!

Well that’s the last from the plots I share with Gerry for this year. I have to make up one last one with what I’ve been doing on my very own plot (12A) which I got from the Town Council on 1st September.

Wishing you all a happy end to the year 2011 & a fantastic New Year 2012.