End of another growing season (well, almost!)

End of another growing season (well, almost!)

An old Australian group called The (New) Seekers has a song called Circles in it there are a couple of lines that say “the seasons go ’round & around, lets go round one more time”. Well that’s how I feel about the growing seasons, one is coming to an end & now we look forward (or back, as the case may be) to another season!

I’m going to take you on a look-back on what has been happening on Gerry’s allotment which, as you all know I help him, with:

Lentils & Pinto beans at the top of the plot:

Beetroot Bolthardy at the top of the plot:

Beetroot Bolthardy in another part of the plot but sown a couple of weeks earlier:

Pink Carnation seedlings at the top of the plot:

These are from seeds my wife brought back from Spain. Having nowhere to sow there on my balcony I sowed them in the GH & now I’ve planted them out to make bigger plants that I will lift & pot up in the spring & take home so she can see them flower during the summer on our balcony.

Godetia Azalea flowered:

Another of my wife’s favourite plants. These are annuals & will die with the first frosts – just as the flowers are beginning to open, I sowed them too late!

Carrots Autumn King

These have really grown a lot during August & now in September they are looking great!

Dwarf Apple tree:

A couple of photos of Gerry’s dwarf dessert apple tree. Last year there were two apples …

… this year we have had a 100% increase – we now have 4!  In this photo all 4 can be seen at the same time, if you look closely!

 

Ipomea or Morning Glory

When we were in Spain, in May 2011, I bought a packet of seeds that my daughter-in-law brought to my attention – these  Ipomea or Morning Glory:

They would seem to be a newer variety as the flowers stay open most of the day, even when it is pretty warm. I grew these in Spain for many years but only a couple of colours & they invariably died by midday – unless the temperature was low, like it is now in the autumn.

Cucumbers Marketmore Harvested:

The smooth skinned one grew in the greenhouse but the other one grew outside. The tomatoes that can be seen alongside are some I harvested the same day:

Peanuts:

I’m afraid after the first flowers, I showed you in a previous blog, no more have appeared! The plants continue alive, as can be seen in this photo, but they aren’t growing any more:

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

The tomatoes are now beginning to ripen & I’ve now started to harvest them:

Here is a view of them growing on the plot. As I’ve stripped off some of the lower leaves the French Marigolds & the Tagetes really jump out at you!

Three Sisters’ bed:

The Three Sisters’ bed, although long since reduced to Two Sisters after the last of the water melons died, is still going strong:

Here is a photo of the runner/green beans I picked from the few runner bean plants that grew up & produced beans:

Lettuce Webbs Wonderful:

My Lettuce Webbs Wonderful are doing quite well. Gerry will be able to start cutting them for his rabbit & birds while I’m away for a couple of weeks.

 

Potatoes Maincrop Maris Piper:

Here are the my maincrop potatoes in a wheelbarrow. Almost the last to be lifted:

 

A view of Gerry’s Runner/Green beans. These plants were absolutely loaded down with beans! I picked a lot to take to the Harvest Thanksgiving service we had at our church on Sunday 18th September:

 

Lentils & Garbanzo beans:

These are doing very well. They are growing on the ridges left behind after harvesting the potatoes:

Sunflowers Tall:

In spite of the strong winds we had this month the great majority managed to stay upright:

I have no photo from the shed this month – not even from the outside. I’ll see if I can include one in next month’s blog.

The August plot – Part one

The August plot – Part one

Well here we are already half way through the 8th month of the year! Where did the time go? It has just flown by! It seems it was only a couple of days ago we were planting out the spring plants for our summer crops & now we are in the middle of harvesting them!!!

Cucumbers:

Here are a few photos of the Cucumbers in the greenhouse:

We have had the equivalent of about one a day for the last month or so! Some days there haven’t been any due to low temps probably, other days we have had 4 – 6 which I’ve picked to take home. The ones grown in the greenhouse have produced more & better quality fruit than those outside. The plants in the GH have been covered in Powdery Mildew for several months (as have the outdoor plants) but they keep on growing & producing more fruit. I give them 5lt of water a day or more! They are growing in 3 growbags, a tomato shares one of the bags!

Tomatoes:

The Tomato bed has grown a lot during this month. Now the plants are head high & the very first few fruits are starting to turn orange.

You can see the progress in just 2 weeks!

Now the tomatoes are beginning to ripen & here is just one photo – so as not to bore you too much!

I thought I’d introduce a new feature in this blog – I call it:

Find the veg!

Let’s start with an easy photo – just compare the following two photos to see if you can spot the Beetroot, among our “native flora”:

There, that wasn’t hard, was it? Well now that you have “warmed up” try this next one – you may have more difficulty this time:

Ready for another? Here we go then:

Did you enjoy that?

Our “native flora” grows incredibly fast after a drop of rain! It wasn’t through negligence the beds got in that state I only put the seedling out into the beds about 10 days before!

Here is a photo of a miniature Lettuce called “Tom Thumb”. It’s extremely hardy as it coped with all the worst that our last winter could throw at it with no protection whatsoever! I think I will grow some over winter in the greenhouse! I picked a load of them today & we will eat some tomorrow. I also sowed some more seed in the GH.

Here is a photo of Lettuce “Ruboneo” gone to seed:

This was one of the Lettuces I grew from the seeds my wife brought me back from Spain last year. The main head had been eaten but we cut them back to within an inch of the soil & they sprout again. Gerry has been taking the new sproutings for his birds & rabbit but there are many in flower now as each original plant produces 6 or more new shoots.

Peanuts:

Though the plants themselves are not getting very big they are producing flowers!

As you can see they have very bright yellow pea-like flowers, now I hope I get some Peanuts from them:

Potatoes:

Here is a photo of Gerry’s King Edward main crop potatoes which I dug up as the foliage had gone yellow/brown. Some of the soil was being eroded away from around the tubers thus exposing them to the light:

There must have been well over 10kg there!

Legumes or Pulses: aka: Pinto beans, Garbanzo (Chick peas) beans & Lentils:

As I got such a good crop from the Pinto beans I sowed last year I’m sowing many more this year in different beds, mainly where potatoes were grown earlier. Although I didn’t get any return from the Garbanzo beans or the Lentils I’m sowing them as green manure. When I pick the beans I shall dig the rest in.

The photo above shows them a couple of weeks after I made a sowing where we had 4 rows of potatoes earlier.

The next photo was taken on 15th August (somehow it escaped from having a caption printed on it!) & shows the Pinto beans that were sown between Gerry’s onions grown from sets. These were harvested a couple of weeks ago. They didn’t germinate very well but now they have made quite a bit of progress & are even flowering now, you may not be able to see the small white pea-like flowers on this photo.

The following picture is of all three legumes which I sowed after taking out Gerry’s Shallots. As the self-sown Sunflowers had made such enormous leaves & are coming to an end now I removed many of the leaves on each plant so as not to have too much shade when the legumes germinate:

Three Sisters’ bed:

August has seen this bed come on by leaps & bounds! The photos don’t make this as clear as I would like though:

You can see the runner beans climbing up the canes here. (Note to self, in a future planting use shorter beans!) Unfortunately the Water Melons used as ground cover plants have almost all died off! So there will be no Water Melons from the plot:

The Sweetcorn used as support for the climbing beans have taken off & produced plenty of flowers & it seems the cobs are developing well. I did wonder if the leaves of the beans would hinder the fertilization process but this does not seem to be the case.

Below is a picture taken from the opposite angle to all the other pictures I’ve posted up till now of this bed. The Sweetcorn here didn’t get planted with beans – I didn’t have enough!:

I’m going to finish this blog with a couple of photos of flowers plus the shed one – with a difference!

Morning Glory:

Where we have the divide between the two half allotments I put in some canes & tied them to the wire between the two iron posts Gerry put in some years ago. I also put a lot of string to give the Sweetpeas something to grip onto earlier in the year. I also grew some Culinary peas there as well.

They have all died & I planted seeds of Morning Glory (Many colours) that I bought when in Spain back in May. They are now in full flower & look absolutely lovely! Here is a picture of them during the middle of the 2nd week of August

Here is a close up of a few Morning Glory flowers that I took this morning! As you may notice we had a little rain but only a little:

View of the shed:

Here is the picture I promised of the shed with a difference! This time it is from outside as from the inside the view down the allotment is blocked by Dwarf Sunflowers, Gladioli & the Raspberry bed!

I apologise if you found the blog longer than usual but even so I could have gone on as there are many things I haven’t included! (Perhaps I could make up an extra blog in a day or two? Let me know what you think!

Until my next blog,
Happy gardening!

End of July on the plot

End of July on the plot

Well July (October?) has come & gone & now the summer seems to be getting underway – at last! The weather forecaster said a couple of times during the last 2 weeks of July that the weather map corresponded more to one from October than July!

Well now the time for harvest is upon us! Our Onions have now reached the point where we have to lift them so they can dry out.

Onions, Turbo, from sets:

This is what Gerry’s Turbo onions, grown from sets, looked like on the 15th:

Here’s what they looked like 15 days later when I lifted them:

Here’s a close up of the onions which have become very big!:

Onions, Alisa Craig, from seed:

Here are the onions, Alisa Craig, I grew from seed:

Three Sisters planting:

Two views of the Three Sisters planting:

10 days later:

The Sweetcorn isn’t doing too bad nor are the beans but the Water Melon has been a waste of time! I pulled up just this morning 2 plants that had died! Only a very few of the plants I put in are growing, I doubt I will be getting any water melons!

Beetroot, Bolthardy:

I continue to plant more Beetroot in the greenhouse & here is the last batch before planting out:

Here they are planted out! Nothing much to look at! They look lost & forlorn in the patch I’ve put them in:

A Tomato “weed”:

This appears to be a self sown seedling from Gardener’s Delight that we grew in this bed last year! It’s growing amongst Gerry’s onions & has had no more water than the onions yet it is growing quite well & has even set fruit! As the self sown Sunflowers have grown very big they cast a lot of shadow over the bed now. The Tomato doesn’t seem to mind though!

Carrot Autumn King:

The Carrots I sowed quite some time ago are now making much better progress after I dug up my Alisa Craig onions. They were obviously too dry before but now with more water they are doing much better.

On July 18th I planted out the ones I’d been growing in a seedtray in the greenhouse. I put them in front off & to the left of the ones I sowed directly into the soil.

You can see the difference a couple of weeks makes! The Lettuces you can see at the top are Webbs Wonderful that were planted out the same day as the Carrots.

Globe Artichokes:

Gerry’s Globe Artichokes are now in flower & the flowers are very attractive to look at, as you can see in this close up of one!

Lettuce Tom Thumb:

Towards the end of last year’s growing season Gerry gave me a packet of Tom Thumb lettuce seeds. I sowed a few rows & was very impressed indeed by its hardiness as all the small plants overwintered very well out on the plot with no protection at all!

A few weeks ago I sowed some in a seedtray in the greenhouse & planted them out on July 13th:

Here they are a couple of weeks later. In a few more weeks I’ll be able to start picking them.

Peanuts:

The Peanuts I wrote about a couple of weeks ago are all still alive & doing well:

Runner beans:

The Runner beans that Gerry started off in his greenhouse at home, which he later brought down to the plot, are doing very well. On Saturday I picked the first handful of the year.

I forgot to take a photo but here they are in flower & their bright red flowers bring a welcome splash of bright red to our plot. Almost every other plot has some as well!

Sunflowers:

One of the Sunflowers, (light yellow), self sown, from last year now in full flower. It’s the only one of its colour among the self sown!

Some of these self sown Sunflowers are, literally, the size of dinner plates! Most of the self sown Sunflowers are multi-branching ones & the plot has really come alive in the last couple of weeks!

Sunflower Titan grown from seeds Gerry bought a couple of months ago. 1st 3 rows on 15th July:

Titan 1st 3 rows 25th July:

These are Sunflowers from seed saved from last year seen on 15th July:

In just 15 days they have grown enormously!:

First of the mini Sunflowers, from seed I saved last year, now beginning to open:

This one is called “Little Dorrit”. Gerry brought the seeds down a couple of months ago & I sowed them:

Titan 1st 3 rows on 15th July:

Titan 1st 3 rows on 25th July:

Potatoes Maris Piper 2nd Early:

Last week my brother, Steve, & his wife came to spend a few days here. I roped him in the help me on the plot!

Here he is just starting to dig up the potatoes:

Here are some pictures of the potatoes we dug up:

They are in 3 groups/piles because of the configuration of the bed:

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

These Tomatoes are growing away quite strongly now & have a fair number of tomatoes:

The Tagetes & French Marigolds are really thriving in this position!:

*Yellow flowers at bottom of plot (Perennial Sunflowers):

We were unable to identify these flowers last year but they come up every year. They make a nice splash of colour where they are but they are not nearly as bold & brash as the Sunflowers.

View from the top of the plot:

I thought you might like to see more of an overview of our plots so I took 2 photos from the very top of our plots looking down towards the bottom:

The first photo shows more than our plots. Gerry’s half plot begins where you can see the Sunflowers with the dying Sweet peas in front of them. From there to the hedge is the half plot

From the bottom of the picture to the the Sunflowers is the half plot that belongs to another lady & her daughter.

On the left you can see our greenhouse, all the plot from there, both back & forwards, is Gerry’s whole allotment.

View of the plot from inside the shed:

To end this terribly long blog is the “Traditional” view from the shed. Unfortunately there is not much to see! Gerry had cut the Gladiolas that were beginning to open before I took this photo!

There are still more things I could add but I think this blog has now become too long so I’m putting an end to it here. Nevertheless, I hope you have enjoyed this blog of our plots.

Please leave a comment to tell me what you think of it!

Summer (?) on the plot

Summer (?) on the plot

We may be “officially” in the middle of a “Great British Summer” but you would never believe it! A couple of months ago one of the tabloid newspapers had great big headlines on its front page proclaiming we were going to have the hottest summer since records began! At least words along those lines! Temps were expected to be in mid to high 30s C!

I’ll start this month’s summary of the plot Gerry & I share with a look at how the Three Sisters planting has come along:

Three Sisters:

Beginning of July:

As the month got under way here is a shot of what this tripartite planting looked like:

A week later we had some very strong winds for a few days & these blew over the Sweet Corn so I put more canes in & ran some string between them & loosely tied in the Sweet Corn before they ended parallel to the ground instead of perpendicular!

Another week later & the Sweet Corn, as well as the Runner beans, are going “great guns” but the Water Melons aren’t doing at all well!

Cucumbers in greenhouse:

Beginning of July:

Middle of July: (Spot the difference!)

Looking terrible, aren’t they? What can you do about Powdery Mildew? I can’t give them any more ventilation than they now have. The door is never closed nor is the vent in the roof & there’s a pane of glass missing where the Tomato plant is growing, as anyone with sharp eyes would have already noticed!

Outside in the ground they also have Powdery Mildew!

First Cucumbers to be harvested from the greenhouse:

Had quite a few since then though during this last week they seem to have almost stopped growing! Maybe the colder weather?

Same day but only 2 were big enough to harvest from the plot outside:

Onions Alisa Craig:

I grew some Onions, “Alisa Craig“, this year from seed for the first time ever.

Here they are a few days before I lifted them to dry:

These are a few that came out of the ground when I pushed the tops over. Many of the tops had already begun to keel over I just hurried up the natural process! The soil was so dry that it looked, & felt, like grey sand!

Shallots:

Garlic:

The Garlic I planted haven’t grown very big at all! I wonder if it is worth the while planting them in the future?

Purple Sprouting Broccoli:

I was reading about the benefits of Broccoli on the Internet – very good for preventing Prostate Cancer it seems. I commented on it to a guy in the plot next to ours who was planting out some “Greens” (they all look the same to me – I couldn’t distinguish between a Cabbage or Brussels Sprouts or a Cauliflower!) when he said that was was he was planting out! He then offered me the few plants he had left over! I accepted them & planted them & covered them with some netting to protect them from the pigeons as you can see in the photo below:

Beetroot:

The day before we went to Spain (Prince’s Wedding day) for a few days I sowed some Beetroot seeds directly in the soil, the only ones I’ve sown that way this year, so here is the end result a couple of months later:

Just a few days after taking the above photo I decided they were big enough to harvest & this is what I got:

Onion Turbo:

These are Gerry’s onions from sets planted in March I think:

Peanuts!

Yes, Peanuts! I’m growing them outside in the soil! Here are two photos as proof of what I say!

The picture above is of them the day I planted them out & the one below is about 10 days later. Of course I have no idea whether I will get any fruit (peanuts) as I may have planted them out too late, but it’s another of my little EXPERIMENTS! , like the Pinto beans & Garbanzo beans & Lentils I tried growing last year.

Potatoes 1st Early Rocket harvested

I believe I mentioned somewhere before that I had read the praises of this variety sung on the BBC Gardening Forum which decided me to give them a go.
The results can be seen below. But I have no idea of how many kilos I harvested – of these or any of the others below!

Potatoes 1st Early Kestrel harvested:

I harvested Gerry’s potatoes at the beginning of the month & you can see what each plant produced in the 4 rows in the photo below. I also took a photo of each row as I finished digging them up but I also took this one of all 4 rows when I had finished lifting them all:

He has quite a few more rows of Main Crop potatoes still growing as have I! He has King Edward & Maris Piper whereas I only have Maris Piper as my maincrop. I do have a couple of rows of 2nd Earlies Maris Piper that need to be dug up soon!

Potatoes 1st Early Arran Pilot harvested:

These potatoes were the last to be planted (can’t remember the date now!) & I put them at the very top of our plot.

Runner beans:

The Runner beans Gerry sowed at home in his GH & brought down to the plot later are now flowering, as you can see. So far we have had just one pod but there will be plenty more soon! I planted them in 3 rows & on the outside I planted some Pinto beans which are also in flower – though they can’t be seen in this photo.

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

The tomatoes are setting fruit but it doesn’t look like we will be having a glut this year! They are now waist high. The 3 plants on my balcony are now head high!

Sunflowers Little Dorrit:

Here is a photo of some dwarf Sunflowers called Little Dorrit. Gerry bought a packet earlier this year. I shall save some seeds for next year.

Sunflowers Titan:

The first three rows of Sunflowers in this photo are of Titan, again a packet Gerry bought this year. Behind them are more that I just call Tall as I don’t know what they were called last year.

Anyway they are growing faster & taller than Titan! For some strange reason they are also growing taller on one side of the bed than on the other! You might be able to see that in this photo below:

Water Melon,Sweet Corn & Broccoli:

The Water Melon & Sweetcorn are growing together at this end of a bed which also includes Broccoli. The Water Melon is doing better in this bed than in the 3 Sisters planting. The wood chips were put down weeks after the plants were put in.

Sweet Peppers:

The Sweet Peppers are coming along nicely! They are opening their first flowers & I expect to see the first fruits beginning to form over the next couple of weeks, perhaps I will be able to get a close up picture of a plant with its baby peppers!

There is no view of the plot from the shed this time simply because it seems I have forgotten to take any! Anyway it is difficult to see down the plot any longer because the apple tree branches with their fruit are hanging down over the doorway & the Raspberries have almost reached their maximum height, further obscuring the view down the plot!

Well that’s it for this blog. In my next blog, about the beginning of August, I hope to include a “View From The Shed” photo which at least may show the Gladioli beginning to open, as there are now lots of flower stems emerging from amongst the leaves.

Early summer on the plot

Early summer on the plot

Summer put in the very briefest of appearances on Sunday & Monday 26-27th June. We reached around 30ºC on Monday! On the allotment it was so hot that you could see the plants wilting! Especially the Sunflowers but even the Beetroot & other plants, like the Potatoes in front of our shed, were wilting! I may not be a plant but I was wilting as well!

On Tuesday we had thunderstorms on & off for most of the day. After which the next few days saw much lower temps.

Gerry has 2 rows of Gooseberries on his plot. A row of 3 at the beginning of the plot & another half a dozen behind the shed. This year they are so laden with berries that the branches are bending over & touching the ground! I’ve already picked some 3 times for myself. Gerry has taken quite a few & we tell other people they can help themselves!

The 6 bushes behind the shed haven’t been watered in the 2 years I’ve helped Gerry on the plots. The 3 near the beginning got watered several times a couple of weeks ago.

I planted some French Marigolds & Tagetes amongst the Tomatoes as companion plants as they are supposed to repel Whitefly. I’ve since learnt that they attract them – away from the Tomatoes!

My Lettuce is now bolting! This one has flowers that will open any day now! Even so we have had many heads from them & everyone has commented on my giant Lettuces! They’ve been quite impressed! Yet I did nothing more than water them after I transplanted them! They have had no fertilizer nor compost or manure nor was that part of the plot treated in any way beforehand!

Lettuce bolting:

The bed of Tomato Mallorquin after tying in & removing sideshoots:

1st Early Potatoes Arran Pilot

My very first Cucumber in the greenhouse!

Onions from seed Alisa Craig:

Rocket 1st Early Potatoes:

The Potatoes are flowering at the top of the plot & they really look fantastic:

The seeds were sown on 28th May. Sunflower bed with wood chipping mulch. A lorry full of wood chipping came to the allotment field on Wednesday 29th June. I got a few barrow loads & covered this bed in them to a depth of a couple of inches! No more weeds in this bed!

Sunflower bed with wood chipping mulch:

This is how my Sweet Peppers looked before weeding:

This is how my Sweet Peppers looked after weeding:

First Black Currants of the year to be picked:

A week later:

Gooseberries:

2nd sowing of Beetroot Bolthardy harvested:

Onion sets Turbo:

The Onions I am growing from seed Alisa Craig:

Three Sisters planting:

As we come to the end of this update of the allotment I share with Gerry, I’m adding the last couple of photos of the plot as seen from inside our shed, they are taken about 2 weeks apart so as to get a feeling for the speed of developments down on the plot:

View from inside shed on 11th June:

View from inside shed on 27th June:

This last photo of this blog is a photo down the length of our allotment taken from the top & looking down to the bottom:

Our 1/2 plot is on the right from the Sweetpeas to the end. The half plot, up as far as the bin & the Sweetpeas, belongs to another lady & her daughter. On the left is a partial view of the whole plot that Gerry has.

Hope you find this blog interesting & I hope to post the next blog around the middle of July. Several more crops are being harvested & I will include them there.

Happy gardening to all.

Allotment 2011 – My second season! April – May!

Allotment 2011 – My second season! April – May!

I haven’t written a blog on the allotment for several months now so I’ll make up for lost time by making this a double blog. I hope to go back to fortnightly blogs in June.

March was a rather disagreeable month with rain & cold weather but April was, officially, the hottest April on record since they began 130 years ago! The soil on the plot looks & feels like grey sand! Near the end of May now & still we have had no rain! We have had a few very light showers which have made absolutely no difference to the soil & I have to cart cans of water around the plot. Last Saturday, 21st, I spent over 2 hours watering the plot!

I’ll make a start by showing some of the changes that have taken place since my last blog in March:

It wasn’t my intention to include frosted potatoes at the start of this blog! No, what I meant to show was the Buddleia that Gerry cut back so very drastically last autumn! Up to now only one of the 3 stumps he left has sprouted. Just as well because I planted potatoes all around the area it covered when in full growth last year!

Although it doesn’t show up very well on this reduced size photo, two rows of potato tops were badly damaged by the frost we had on the night of 4th May:

Onions Alisa Craig:

Lettuce Cos “Ruboneo”:

This is the Lettuce variety that my wife brought me back from Spain last September.

Lettuce Cos “Ruboneo” seedlings before & after planting out:

Same day:

Here they are – a month later!

Three weeks later, in May!

Garlic:

Beetroot:

Just this week I’ve noticed that one of the plants in this patch is bolting!

Onion sets Turbo:

Gerry brought a couple of bags of Onion sets down to the plot & I planted them for him:

Beginning of April 2011:

3 weeks later:

1 month later (end of May):

Sweet Peppers:

Bed 1:

Bed 2:

Three Sisters:

Have you ever heard of the Three Sisters method of planting? It consists of planting a spreading plant (Water Melon in my case), Sweet Corn & then a climbing bean (which uses the Corn to climb up). I’m trying it out this year for the first time. The beans haven’t germinated yet giving the Corn time to grow tall before the beans start climbing.

Potatoes Earlies ‘Rocket’ in front of shed:

Day of sowing (end of March):

No photos during April!

Now at beginning of May:

10 days later:

2 days afterwards:

View from shed:

Here are some views up the plot from inside the shed:

1st April – still looking rather bleak!

Three weeks later!:

Tomorrow I’ll take one for May. I haven’t got around to doing one this month!

End of May:

There you have, in a nutshell (a rather big one!), the progress made on the plot during April & May 2011.

I hope to go back to fortnightly blog in June. So watch out around the middle of the month for my next instalment!
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