Photo's are from about 10 days ago, the pumpkins are doing well, about 6 fruits in total with the largest being huge!! the circumference about the size of a space hopper!

Elsewhere in the plot the runner beans are over, struggled on through the masses of blackfly, whereas the Isobel climbing french beans are brilliant, very heavy cropping and good straight flavored beans. The dwarf french where a little tough very quickly and i dont think i'll do them again. The sweet corn has benefited from being started early and done well, some good size cobs there, beetroot and swiss chard also doing well. The strawberries were great this year with lots for the kids to enjoy, i should get some later season variety though as they all came in together.
The onions were pretty rubbish, the red ones terrible, they hardly grew any larger than the sets i put in originally. The others were generally small, and my garlic which i started off on pots and then transplanted all grew but are very small, i think i'll go back to autumn planting next year (this year!). Swede and broccoli grew very well although the broccoli flowered very quickly and we only had a few heads off them. I put in a few weeks ago some purple sprouting for next spring. Below on the left you can also see the rhubarb i split and replanted which has taken well, i have not taken anything from it this year, just let it establish itself. Back left by the blue box is the comfy which has just been severely cropped and the leaves are in the box with water to make a liquid feed. Already when i went to the plot today the comfy has sprung back into life with huge growth. I need to look into how i can split or transplant the comfy to create more plants.
What else? well the potatoes have been hit and miss, the first two rows i put in, i forget now what types, where very poor, not worth the effort of planting, the last row has been very good. The butternuts grew poorly but i have one, yes one fruit on them! Carrots have been okay, i still have a row of the rainbow coloured ones insitu. The lettuce has been good, although all at once, i still have some coming on now, the oriental varieties did go to seed quickly though. I need this autumn to properly tie in the raspberries which are falling all over the place but still cropping.
The peas were also sporadic this year, and the mange tout were not great, i think i'll stick to heavily sowing peas next year as i had better result last year with that. The parsnips are looking okay, as do the small square of leeks i put in.

Big Max pumpkins going mad!!!!

early july

Well a long overdue post, but hopefully a full one. After such good weather we've had some rain over the last few weeks which has helped everything come on alot, weeds too!
This shot shows the poor performing potatoes, either they were hit by a frost early on, or it was bad seed potatoes, my other row the other side of the beans is coming on fine. I'm going to probably dig these up soon and use the space for other things.





The strawberries have been great this year, glad i put so many in now, we have had about 7-8 ice tubs full, and the kids have loved going and picking them, stright into the mouth! On the left is the remains of the pea's, which i removed afterwards. At the top of the pea row had been the mange tout which had grown well and lots of flowers but very little crop, so i removed them and have sown a late heavy crop of 'lincoln' peas.






The sweetcorn i put in much earlier this year and they are looking much bigger and healthier this year, we have been enjoying sweetcorn on the BBQ this year so hopefully we'll have a good crop to put on later this year.






Here the courgettes are doing well, i have two plants in there, with another at the end of the plot next to the rhubarb.
At the back are the raspberries which are now producing a good amount , and the dwarf french beans which have given there first crop today.





The french beans, with the garlic behind them which has failed to bulb up, so i am going to remove it soon so create some space. We have had great lettuce, little gem, both from the greenhouse and the plot. At the front is the leeks i put in, although some have failed already, i think i failed to water them enough in the first few days.















The onions are a bit hit and miss, about 50% have come on okay, not huge bulbs by any means, but the other half are poor, the red onions 'hyred' have very poorly performed, many have barelt grown since being put in as sets. Again i am removing these to create more space.








The broccoli and swede nicely growing, with a row of carrots on the left which i weeded well after the shot was taken





















Goosegogs!!!








The first crop of runner beans. This year i seem to have bad blackfly on my beans, not a problem i have had before, they're everywhere, although not yet crossed over to the climbing french beans 'isabel'.

first strawberries

quick photo update, loads of growth over last week but that means weeds too! try to tackle that today, but look at my first strawberry, and very good it was too!!!!!

Sorry for delay in updating but i was having trouble uploading photos for a while. Anyway, quick note to show you the dwarf french beans, the strawberries which are doing really well, the climbing french bean 'isabel' , and rows of swede and brocolli 'marathon'. Elsewhere the pumpkins Big Max are in, potatoes are coming through, the runner bean 'celebration' are climbing fast, and chard beetroot and pea's look healthy. Overall quite pleased with the plot this year.

the update.

I managed to get some good and long overdue work done today, i had been picking up bits of wood for a while now but never got round to making a compost bin. Well today i rectified that, starting with some left over fence posts from when my neighbour replaced them, the boards are from someones attic which were left in a lane on the way o the allotment last year. The last post was part of an old wooden double bed of ours which we had thrown away, i doubled two struts together, then set about fitting the boards. The 'door' is a thin piece of wood i picked up which i fitted between another part of the bed that i used as batons. Next time i will add a few more boards to increase the height of the bin and empty my black plastic bin into the new one, as i haven't turned it in ages, the bottom half should be good compost ready to spread.



I have also over the last 2 weeks put in the garlic i started in pots, planted some lettuce, and got in the other 2nd early potatoes 'catriona' (i think thats what they were called). I weeded, sowed carrots, and at the greenhouse the beans runner and french dwarf are all coming up well. The kale germinated then died, but the swede, swiss chard and beetroot have all come on well.

update soon

9/4/10

Following my night shifts and a couple hours sleep i got down to the allotment and started by putting in the rest of the onions in, so in total there is 2 rows each of Sturon, Hytech F1 and Hyred F1.
I then put in half a row of Mange Tout pea 'Carouby de Mussance' and the other half with pea 'Kelvedon wonder' saved from last years crop. Alongside the first row of onions i put a short row of carrots 'Autumn King'.
The second row of potatoes went in a few days ago also, 'charlottle' the salad crop. I still have second earlies 'Catrion' and main crop Desiree to go in.

In the shed i sowed three trays, one with beetroot 'Bolthardy', swede 'Marion', and dwarf french beans, same variety as it is saved seed from last year (i forget the name!). I also sowed a few chilli 'scotch bonnet yellow'.

2/4/10

Saturday morning at the plot, and we got in the first row of potatoes 'Home guard' and 2 rows of Sturon onions.

starting.........now!

I finally got round to getting my seeds and started today with some sowing. I hadn't been to the plot for 2 weeks due to weather and stuff, last time i managed alot of tidying and digging with my son, and i need to soon plant the spuds. They are nicely chitting in the shed, along with the onions waiting to go in.
So today i sowed in pots some swiss chard 'galaxy' , kale 'dwarf green curled' and put in 20 cloves of garlic 'white' which i have never started in pots before but was reading is possible for those times when your unable to get out into the ground straight away.
I'm also going to use the rotovator that been sitting in my shed for a few years, as i am happy i have removed enough weed for it not to be a huge shredding and spreading fest! You'll never get rid of every weed, but i'm going to risk it for some areas this year to aid the potato planting and other root veg.

sun 28th feb

The kids and myself went to see the allotment just to see what state it was in, just to remind myself of the work i need to do over the next month to get it up to speed. In the end it was quite mild with the sun shinning and the kids seemed happy digging for worms so i managed to start digging in the green manure at the top of the plot.
At the bottom end of the plot it looks a little untidy but i dont think it will be too much work. The swiss chard, celery and parsnips roots still in the ground need removing, a little weeding.
I also went with my son to the garden center and picked up my seed potatoes and onions, i'll list varieties soon.

first dig of the year

On tuesday i managed to get my first dig of the year in, did about 2 hours in the cold, soil a but sticky and still with some ice crystals on top from the frost! But i removed the few beetroot that were left in the ground, and the spinach beet all into the bean trench.
I then dug over the area which had had the green manure mustard seed in. The strip in the middle of the photo is the strawberry plants which needs a bit of weeding at some point.

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Originally uploaded by oubykh30