Spring has finally sprung

Unlike a few weeks back, it looks like spring has finally settled in to stay. It's a nice sunny Bank Holiday - which makes a change for a UK BH. This morning there were no less than 8 cars in the car park. 9 if you count the one that was leaving as I arrived. The Apple Tree is in full bloom.

Which in turn has meant that the Bees are out and about.

And the Rhubarb has finally decided to start growing with renewed vigour.

However, this also means that the weeds are starting to get in on the act as well, which means that garlic is starting to get a little overwhelmed.

I spent most of the morning working on the new shelving unit for the end of the greenhouse. However I was soundly defeated by the weather. The sun was just too much and I decided not to bake and headed for cooler climes and a ice cold drink. Tomorrow I'll go to the allotment a lot earlier in the day so as to avoid cooking.

A poor harvest

Well today is a pretty poor harvest. We pulled the remaining Edamame beans, dug out a third of the potato bed and got 6 courgettes. We also grabbed a dew apples off the tree - those will have to be carefully cut up before being eaten.

Oh, and the very last cucumber.

Seriously though, we seem to be having a very poor time of it at present. Far worse than we've ever had before. Not sure if it's the way we are handling the plot or the weather. I suspect the latter, especially after the blight.

Things have just not been going well. Everything we have left in the greenhouse (Chillies and Aubergines) have flowers but no fruit has set and the plants now seem static in that state. The overcast weather just don't give any impetus to plants to grow.

I've received a whole load more seeds for next year (DT Brown were offering a free postage over the recent Bank Holiday weekend which I took liberal usage of), so hopefully next year will be better.

It remains to be seen though.

The 2021 Courgette Tally:

46

"Winner is weeds"

It was The Wife who mentioned these words. This year the only winner is the weeds. The recent rains and floods has sent the weeds into overdrive. Also the fact that we've had to cull a lot of the beds due to the blight has meant that the weeds have pretty much taken over. We have a very poor harvest this year (apart from courgettes) but if we were growing weeds commercially then we'd be rich.

But the weeds are not what we want. We want food for the table and flowers (to make The Wife happy), so the weeds have to go.

Three of these beds were to tomato beds. I'm going to dump a barrow full of manure into each of them over winter and use them for beans next year.

The Chillies in the greenhouse are also suffering. They have only just started flowering, so they are way behind this year. I don't know if they'll have time to actually set some fruit, let alone actually ripening them.

And then there is the apple tree that is absolutely bursting with loads of luscious red fruit... until you get close enough to actually see the fruit up close and then... meh, not so good.

They have the usual maggots in them, but also this year they appear to have some sort of disease of blemish on the skins of them all. I suspect the rains has also had an impact on the tree. But once you cut that off and cut out the good bits they're pretty tasty. It's a shame that they're so much work to get at the very small edible portions.

The 2021 Courgette Tally:

36

Theft

So it's not like I've really had much stolen at the plot. During my time there I've lost my Fero Rod (used to light my Penny Can Stove) and now I've lost the bag of kindling used in my Ghillie Kettle. It's not so much that the allotments are actually secure. It's just that I can't respect the kind of people who are so petty minded to actually do that.

Anyway, the Pak Choi that I planted last week has responded well to their new surroundings and put on a huge spurt of growth.

Hopefully we'll get some nice crunchy goodness before long.

Also now is the time to get my Snowball Turnips out before they too go the way of the Pak Choi in their cramped germination tray. So now they have a nice home out in the beds.

Anyway, after the grumpiness of finding half my cooking wood has gone. Here's the Apple Tree in full blossom. Maybe I should get some anti-moth traps put up to keep away the grubs from the apples. Wonder if there is an anti-theft trap as well. Ah, I guess there is. I'll have to advance my Electric Allotment plans somewhat. At least now I have a 3D printer to be able to make some housings for the cameras. But I still needs to go places to buy some electric stuff... which I can't yet do. Dammit.

Dealing with weeds

There are three main ways to dealing with weeds.

1. Mulch to stop them growing.
2. Diligently keep pulling them out.
3. Burn them out.

The mulching is really the better choice. Whether you use a weed membrane or a spent mushroom compost, it covers the seeds and stops them germinating. Thats all well and good it you have the spare finances and time to deal with it. But we don't spend a great deal on the allotment. It more for a little bit of veg here and there and a way to escape the house for a short period of time. Something which is well and truly appreciated in these current times.

Pulling them is seriously time consuming and you need to do it regularly. Well we only go to the plot a couple of times a week. It's quite a hike from where we live and a busy schedule doesn't really allow us to spend a lot of time during the weekdays done there.

So I opted for the burning. I have a weed gun which deals quite easily with seeds on the ground.

Last year the plot was seriously neglected due to ill health and the weeds well and truly took over. So now we're kind of fighting back. A lot of our beds have been infested, and although we tried to keep on top of it there was just too much. Our crop of New Zealand Spinach either didn't germinate, or failed to compete with the weeds in the soil, so we pulled it a few weeks back. And the bed has been lying dormant ever since. So it's time to kill the seeds and get something else in there.

So what started as this...

Ended up as this...

These are side-shoots from the many rogue tomatoes that we've had poking their heads up throughout the plot. Technically they're weeds too. "A weed is a plant growing in the wrong place." But they're useful weeds.

The trough you can see there is actually part of the framework built over the Kale bed and holds up the netting. London pigeons are the worst and they have decimated our attempts to grow Kale in the past. This year we're keeping them at bay and having a massive crop of Kale as a result... when the butterfly caterpillars aren't munching them that is.

Elsewhere we're gathering in Courgettes in huge numbers (again).

And we pulled the last of the peas. We've had a good crop this year, enough for several meals. But now the plants are dying so it's time to clear the bed. I'll let it sit for a while before hitting it with the weed gun and getting something else in there. You can see the old pea bed at the back of this shot.

As this is where I've started digging out some of the potatoes from earlier in the year. It was an unexpected find we thought we wouldn't be able to do anything with them, but I stopped digging when we had enough for a meal. The rest are (hopefully) still in there.

The next major crop we're expecting though will have to be the Apples.

The tree is bending under the weight of them. But sadly a lot of them appear to have been hit with the moth again despite putting up a trap. There is only one thing worse than biting into an apple and discovering a maggot...

Weeds, watering and... waiting?

It's going to be a hot "scorcher" today. That means an early trip to the plot. We were onsite by 7.30am. It was cool, calm, and the birds were singing. Just a perfect time to sit down with a cup of coffee and enjoying the silence (apart from the birds that is). I dragged one of our patio chairs out, and The Wife sat in her usual flowerbed seat surrounded by flowers and the gentle buzzing of a rather large number of bumblebees.

We have our first strawberries of the year.

Only two, but there are plenty of others promised for the future.

Our main job today was more weeding and watering. We won't be back until Wednesday night, so we have to make sure that everything has enough water for a couple of days, through some pretty serious temperatures according to the weather forecast.

The apple tree is starting to form loads of little "applelets". We can't really count them as proper apples because at present all the apples are growing upwards, which is the same as the apple blossom. Then there is the "June Drop" where the weight of the growing fruit makes them hang down, and if the apple tree does not have enough sap and strength, then those which can't make it, fall off.

So whether this year will be a good apple harvest remains to be seen. It's certainly promising a good crop, but we'll see. It's all a matter of waiting.

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 18 - Early Morning

Being on the plot early in the morning is very peaceful. Especially these days with no (or at least very little) traffic. The only thing you can hear is the sound of birds and an argument coming from one of the adjacent houses. I guess not everybody is enjoying the lockdown.

But at least I managed to get the last of Deep End 3 dug out. And a little of No. 4 too.

But the most impressive bit down the plot this morning is definitely the Apple Blossom.

Allotment Week: Day 1

Allotment "Week"? Well due to the stupidity of figuring out religious festivals based on changing solar circumstances, this holiday is in close proximity to the May Bank Holiday. So much so that for taking a few days off work, you can get almost 3 weeks of holiday. Works for me.

So today I need to assess exactly what I need to do over the next couple of weeks and there is quite a bit to do.

Firstly, the compost bins are full (well two of them are) and need to sieved and sorted. Thats going to be a long boring task.

Secondly the new portion of the plot is still plagued with couch grass and dock. That needs a good digging out.

Thirdly there is the wild area at the very back of the plot that was previously used as a courgette mound a couple of years back, and last year became a storage space for many, many strawberry plants.

Just what I'm going to do with this section, I don't know at the moment. Other than clearing the couch grass out, and whatever wild flowers seem to have self-sowed themselves.

Meanwhile I need to get a start on dealing with the seeds.

The bushy tray in the middle of the above photo is the Pak Choi which has shot off to a great start. So now I need to prick out the seedlings into something a little more capable of growing on the results.

The other seedlings can wait a couple of weeks.

Elsewhere there are flowers starting to bloom. In the greenhouse, there are strawberries flowering.

And outside the Apple Tree is starting to blossom.

I think there is always the rest of the fortnight to work on the three major issues. But I have no idea what I'm going to build for the back section around the apple tree and artichoke. Maybe it'll come to me in time.

Bucket'o'Toms

Remember the bucket'o'spuds? Its now Tom time. The tomatoes are coming to the end of the season. Time to get picking.

The Tomato Jungle has definitely seen better days. So It's time to start digging through and removing the old plants before the dreaded blight gets hold.

As you can see, the tomato beds have been infested with courgettes from the neighbouring bed. In fact we never actually planted courgettes here. They are rogues from previous sowings which seem to have got themselves established. Not such a bad thing, but it does make clearing up a bit of a challenge.

But we did manage to clear a couple of beds fully.

There are still three other beds to go, but they can wait. This bucket of toms will get turned into juice and sauce tomorrow.

We're kind of lucky with the blight this year. The long hot summer has kept it at bay. But now we're heading into autumn there is the possibility of infections, so it's best to start clearing up before it does so. Blight can hang around in the soil for years and allotments are particularly prone because you have to rely on everybody to manage blight at the same time, which is not always possible.

We also picked a load of apples from the tree.

All this work was being watched over by our Vulpes Overlord, Frankie.

And it's still the seed season. Despite the fact that we have a shed load of seeds already, The Wife just can't help but pick a few more seeds for next year.

Meanwhile, I was shovelling s41t, filling the vacant beds ready for next year.

These will eventually get a cover and left to the worms to devour over winter before being dug in. I've kind of over filled the beds because, although we have a large deliver of manure at the moment, the manure has to be shared by everybody. In previous years, by the time I got my beds ready there was no manure left to fill them with. So this is my share ready. It can be transferred to other beds as needed.

We spent a full day on the plot and it was extremely exhausting. Even Frankie needed a rest.

Collecting seeds

Whichever way you look at it, the season is coming to a premature end.

The long hot summer has put paid to many of the inground crops, such as forcing our turnips into bolting, or shorting us on the strawberries. So now the flowers and beans are coming to an end and we need to start collecting seeds for next year.

The flower department is definitely The Wife's concern. So she has been collecting seed heads from the various flowers.

Don't ask me which is which. I can only spot the Soya Beans and the Petunias in that lot. But she knows what they all are.

Meanwhile I'm tidying up the plot, cutting back the triffid (which does have quite a good selection of grapes on it this year) and harvesting spuds and such.

We have also picked our first melon. Well not so much picked, as it fell off, so it must be ripe. The other one in the greenhouse is slightly larger. These are Honey Dew melons from Sainsbury's. Not so much from a seed packet, but from an actual Honey Dew directly. They were an experiment. And possibly one of our more successful experiments at that.

Apples are from our tree (still no idea what variety it is), but because we don't use any pesticides and this year, I didn't put up any Codling Moth traps, we're rather inundated with grubs in the apples.

Ah well, as the old saying goes, there's only one thing worse than finding a maggot in your apple and that's finding half a maggot in your apple.

Flaming June

It seems we're having a spot of good weather at the moment.

By "good" I mean sunny with no rain. Which means that the plot has to get watered at least every couple of days. The rain barrel is dry so it's time to run the hosepipe. Fortunately our plot is right next to the water point so it's not too much of an issue. The only real sticking point are the plants in the greenhouses. These are in small trays to hold the water. But as the temperatures in there are regularly topping 40C then this water can get used up pretty fast. A few times I've walked in to find the plants wilting in the heat.

The greenhouses are getting full and although we've moved a lot of stuff out into beds, there is so much growth that at times it feels like a jungle.

But watering is a serious issue.

Now for the most part, each plant pot has it's own tray, but there is an issue which I didn't really foresee with the Sweet Million Tomatoes. They now reside in large pots... to which I have no equally sized trays. So either I need to keep them topped up with water or I need to find an alternative solution. I need to put my thinking cap on.

Edit: Inspiration granted!

So I cut open the old compost bags that I squirrelled away and duly sawed up an Estate Agent's sign post to make a raised area and laid the compost cover over it. Now I can fill it up with water. I can keep about 3 pots in these, so I'll have to juggle things carefully.

Meanwhile there is lush green growth in all beds... even the ones we didn't plant. Yes it seem that a few rogue courgettes (or squashes, not sure what exactly), potatoes and even tomatoes have managed to germinate. Whether they thrive is another matter.

The apple tree has had it's June Drop as well. So now we have a pretty reasonable set of apples which are starting to swell and ripen.

But it seems that there are a few areas which aren't so happy. For example the potatoes in the shopping baskets.

As you can see they have quite a few yellowing leaves and they just don't seem to be doing so well. So I decided to empty one of them out and see what's what below the soil. Well for starters there are some small spuds. About a decent portion for myself and The Wife for dinner tonight.

But the biggest takeaway from this discovery is that the soil is extremely dry. Whilst I have been watering them, it seems that the water, for the most part, has been heading for the sides of the baskets and then running away. Not much of the water is actually penetrating the main portion of the soil. So instead of pulling the other two, I decided to give them a long slow watering and see how things progress for next week. If they don't recover then it's not too much of an issue. I still have plenty of other potatoes in bags (and buckets and in the ground) which are showing very healthy green leaves and flowers.

Out at the front we get a lot of people stopping by and commenting on the petunias. They are certainly putting on a dazzling display.

Not bad for a few Estate Agent's signs and a couple of gravel boards.

Trimming the Tree and Building Beds

One normally "trims the tree" for xmas. But in this case it's the Apple Tree that needs a drastic haircut. Especially as it overhangs the new path.

The pictures aren't really clear as to how much has been trimmed, but it's sufficient to say that there are now a lot less branches that cross over each other. Pruning opens up the centre of the tree to more light and more airflow. And as an added benefit, makes harvesting easier too.

I've also built a new bed at the front of the plot which will become a second strawberry bed, right next to the existing one.

Second? Probably third. Possibly fourth. Yeah, the Wife wants a few more strawberry growing areas. What with those in the greenhouse, the stackable trays... Note to self; lay in super large stocks of cream for summer.

We've also re-potted our blueberries into larger pots. They probably need to be pruned as well. But the Wife mentioned something about taking cuttings from them to try and create more blueberry plants. Do I see yet more berries in my future?

And the onions have been planted too.

Onions left, Blueberries right.

Elsewhere on the plot, the old greenhouse has had a mini-clean. It will get a full clean later in the year. As will the new greenhouse. It has a thin green film on the inside of the glass as a remnant of last year's Tomatoes. I also need to build a table inside so we have a raised area better suited to putting seedlings and plants on.

Oh, and I need to make more beds as well. So much work to do... and I haven't even ordered this years seeds yet.

Best crack on...