Dealing with George

Of course one of the benefits of Daylight Saving is that I can now pop down to the allotment after work. I work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On the other days I face a 2 hour, each way commute. That's 4 hours out of my day eaten away sitting on trains and underground. So now there is an extra hour after I finish work, I can pop down the allotment to water (if needed) and do a few odd jobs.

Today's odd-job was Giant George. George was the big courgette from last year's excellent crop. It was deliberately left as a seed courgette so that I could try and re-produce last year's bounty. During the depths of winter it spent the while in my kitchen. For the past two months it's been sitting in my shed. Now is the time to actually deal with it as it seems that a bit of rot has set in at one end.

I sliced the marrow up into thirds. Inside the rot seemed to have spread but the far end was in perfect condition. There were loads of seeds in there. Now I am not a great expert in these matters, but the seeds looked large, and unblemished. Just like the seeds I planted in April last year. So I scooped a whole load out and spread them on the table in the greenhouse.

I'll let these dry out for a week and then I'll plant them the week after and see what happens to them.

Now I know that cucurbits can get pretty mixed up. But the courgette (marrow) I chose was specifically handled for doing this. So hopefully I'll get something similar this year. Failing that, I always have loads of other alternatives to try. Meanwhile the seedlings for the rest of the plants are coming on in leaps and bounds.

Going to have to do some potting on soon. Flowers are showing all over the place on the allotment site and it seems that my Rhubarb wants to join in. I noticed this flower stem growing from my big rhubarb.

I didn't really know what to do with it, but a quick web search suggests that I need to remove it. Guess it'll have to wait until Thursday now.