New house update

While I wait for my new greenhouse, my chillies are living in luxury in the conservatory. They are doing pretty well but somewhere along the line I must have got the labels mixed up, because the ones I labelled 'Heatwave' look just like the 'Meek and Mild' poblano ones in the seed catalogue. The fruits are much bigger and fatter. The 'Heatwave' fruits are the same shape as the 'Ring of Fire'. I won't be able to tell which is which until they ripen, because the ring of fire are all red whereas the heatwave are all different colours. Hey ho, all will be revealed eventually. They have been suffering a bit from greenfly - but I have found a way to deal with that particular problem - hoover them up with the vacuum cleaner!


While exploring the garden, I have made an exciting discovery: we have a greengage tree! There is quite a lot of fruit on it too. We also have quite a few fruit on a Japanese quince 'Chaenomales' which is growing over from next door, but I'm not really sure what to do with these. I take it they are edible?

I have dug up all my garlic and autumn sown onions, and my shallots, and this bright utility area turns out to be the perfect place to leave them to dry. I am chuffed with the garlic, less so with the onions and shallots. The spring sown onions look a lot more promising....



It is drizzling today, and there is more rain forecast, which is all good of course, but it does mean I am not so inclined to go to the plot. I got quite a bit of weeding done on Saturday morning, and planted out my second lot of leeks, but there is still quite a bit of weeding to be done. And I still want to sow some more french beans.

I have a cunning plan for growing peas next year... I have done a bit of research and found a couple of dwarf varieties which I could grow under an enviromesh tunnel. They are small enough not to need much (if any) support and as peas are self-pollinating, I can protect them from both pea moths and pigeons right from the start. We'll see. My children don't seem to mind shelling peas, or broad beans, but I'm sure it would make the process quicker and more enjoyable if they didn't have to closely inspect each pod for creepy-crawlies.

I have spoken to the allotment man about my new allotment, and apparently, now that I am living in the area, I have moved up to around number 15 on the waiting list! I don't really know what that means in terms of waiting time - how long is a piece of string?

We're in

We have now been in our new house for nearly five days. Now that we have unpacked most of our things it feels quite like home. There is still an awful lot to be done of course but it's fine for the time being.

Needless to say I have hardly been able to get to the plot for some time, I have just about been able to do some essential watering and a bit of harvesting, but there is a lot to be done there too. This is the first year I have had the plot where I have actually had to water regularly, the last three summers have been so wet, and I have found it difficult to find enough time to water sufficiently. I am having to prioritise - I am now ignoring all the things that are nearly finished, or well underway, like the broad beans and peas, and putting all my efforts into those that are yet to produce anything, like runner beans, french beans, squashes and sweetcorn. It isn't really feasible to water everything. Certainly not potatoes, I'd be there all day and all night. And it still wouldn't soak in much below the surface. I've had a very poor potato yield so far, only about 3 - 4 potatoes per plant, sometimes 5 if I'm lucky. Plenty of courgettes and broad beans, and some peas. I'm definitely not doing peas again. They have been decimated by pigeons and they are so time consuming to get out of the pods. I know they are delicious but I have so little time at the moment.

On our last night in our old house we had a chinese takeaway followed by all the cherries off the cherry tree! It was a whole bowlful, which was amazing compared to last year when we had a grand total of four, only one of which was actually eaten by a human being. This year I covered it in a sort of veil made of white voile, which made it look very bridal, and protected the fruit from the birds.


Sadly I have not been able to keep up with the sweet peas, which is a real shame because they really are beautiful. I managed one vaseful, which you can see above. I am going to try and pick some more, and hope that I am not too late to stop them all from going to seed. I finish work tomorrow so after that I am going to devote a few hours/days to weeding and other plot maintenance, so maybe I'll get a chance then.

The other thing I have not had a chance to harvest is the blackcurrants. They are mostly ripe now so I must get on with it before they shrivel up. There are lots of loganberries coming too. And the blueberries are beginning to ripen. Shame there isn't a pause button....

It's all happening....

Half way through June and the season is well and truly underway now isn't it? Everything looks so lush and promising at the moment.

Not long before we will be eating broad beans by the looks of these pods, and courgettes as well.

I have finally got my runner beans going, one or two of the original direct-sown seeds came up, but most of these are pot grown ones that I have transplanted.

I was baffled to keep turning up and finding that someone or something had untied all the string from my carefully constructed bean and tomato frames, and all the canes were flapping about untethered. The only culprit that seemed likely was birds, and sure enough yesterday I arrived to catch one red-handed (or maybe red-beaked?) I didn't think birds were that daft, you would think that one peck would be enough to make it realise that string is not very palatable, but no, they keep on pecking until it's all gone. I have had to re-tie them all using wire this time.


I am so pleased with this spinach, although it has well and truly bolted, we are still finding the leaves delicious in salads, neither tough nor bitter. I have sown some more though, just in case it does start to deteriorate.

The spring planted onions are beginning to bulk up, and they are doing so much better than the autumn planted ones. Below are the leeks I put in on Saturday. These are the early ones, and I have another box of late ones to go in in a few weeks.

It's now less than three weeks until we move, and I have started clearing out my workshop, where I have been making curtains and blinds for several years now - so there is plenty of clutter. I will be keeping E-bay and Freecycle busy over the next few days. I will not be continuing with this business once we have moved; there's not much point replacing the workshop because once my youngest son is at secondary school in just over a year's time I will be thinking about going back into full time work. Will I still have time for an allotment then I wonder? .... anyway that's still some way off yet. Our boxes are being delivered this evening and then we will have no excuse not to start packing .. or at least to start clearing out cupboards etc.

After the Rain

Finally, we have had a bit of rain. We did have some on Wednesday but by the time I went up to the plot yesterday you wouldn't have known it as it was already dry as dust again. This is how it was looking this afternoon when I went to inspect, but it only goes down about an inch and it's still dry and dusty underneath. We still need a lot more wet stuff. Above (bottom left) are the first two courgettes and two pumpkin plants I planted out yesterday. There are still two more courgettes and lots of squash to come. The sweetcorn is still looking a bit yellow. Onions and garlic look ok but no sign of the onions starting to swell yet. In the background you can see my loganberry bushes, which have plenty of flowers on them. Behind that you can just about make out that my new neighbour hasn't really got to grips with his plot yet. I still haven't set eyes on him, but there are signs of activity so he must be there some of the time.


Above are lettuce, kale and spinach (back) - we have had a few salads with lettuce thinnings and baby spinach leaves. In front the broad beans are looking very promising.

Below is my Heath Robinson brassica cage which will protect my brussels sprouts and purple sprouting brocolli. I wanted to make something a bit taller than the blue pipe tunnels, and also with something for the plants to lean against when they get very tall and top heavy. I hope it doesn't collapse.


We now have a combination padlock on the gate, so I really do feel that my little patch is quite secure now, otherwise I think I might not have gone to the trouble of making this cage, it would have been an open invitation to the vandals.

I think my runner beans have failed. I sowed the beans two weeks ago and still no sign of germination. I have started some more in pots, they will be slightly delayed but will probably catch up. The french beans are mostly up so something has definitely gone wrong with the runners. Either something's eaten them or I put them in too deep. I have dug away some of the soil on top so they might come through eventually.

I have taken out all last year's psb to make room for the tomatoes, which hopefully will get planted out over this weekend, along with the rest of the squashes.

Hardening Off

I have been hardening my tender veg out all week, and I am planning to plant some of them out this weekend. That may seem rather rushed, but my logic is that it has been as warm outside the greenhouse this week as it was inside last week, so the plants won't have noticed much difference. Tonight is the first night out in the open though. The only slight problem is that the psb is still sprouting, and is where the tomatoes are going to go. Normally it would all have been over and pulled out by now. I think the tomatoes can wait another week or two, whereas the sweetcorn....


is getting a bit desperate. See how much healthier the plants grown in pots are, compared with the toilet roll grown ones. I think this has convinced me not to bother with toilet rolls again. I know it's all green and good recycling, but they are more use chucked straight into the compost. It gets worse when you plant them out as well, as the cardboard decomposes, the plants go even yellower. I will be adding lots of well rotted chicken poo to the soil before planting, which I have been saving for just this reason.



This is the Stevia (the sugar substitute herb) which is starting to do quite well. I'm going to try cooking some rhubarb with it at the weekend, see how it really compares to sugar.



And lastly, here are my two blueberry bushes, which I have just repotted into these terracotta pots today. The pots are lined with plastic and filled with ericaceous compost. There are quite a few flowers, but I wonder how many of them will turn into blueberries.

I have had to do a lot of watering at the allotment, we haven't had any rain here for several weeks. The rain everyone else has had has just passed us by. Consequently the soil up there has turned to dust, so fine that it repels water and I have had to go to all sorts of lengths to get the water to penetrate, eg making holes with a fork, scooping little trenches either side of the row, etc etc. It is all very time consuming, and to make matters worse, one of my water butts is now completely empty and the other isn't far off.

Last Saturday I sowed runner beans, french beans and another row of peas, all direct outside. As yet there is no sign of germination. I gave a friend a pot of french bean seeds for her birthday, which I had just sown so she could watch them germinate - that was on 5th May and apparently they have still not come up! This is not very encouraging is it? I have sown some more as I am determined to infect her with the veg-growing bug!

Security at last

We have finally had these new security gates put in, and a little bit of fencing as well, but only a bit each side of each gate. The prickly hawthorn hedges are now well enough established to deter all but the most determined troublemakers. However, as yet the gates are not locked, and we haven't been told whether or when this will happen or if we will all get keys. Apparently some people don't want the gates to be locked, but it seems a rather expensive and pointless exercise to have new gates if they are not secure. We'll wait and see.


Here's my strawberry/fruit/squash patch prior to weeding....

and after. I removed quite a lot of the nasty, unidentified weed with the long stringy roots, but there is still quite a bit left and I will probably have to fork through it again before planting out my squashes here.


Here are my potatoes, (looking as if they're planted on a very steep slope, but it's just the camera angle) before I earthed them up again, as best I could, but some of them are getting too big to be earthed up any more. Which is worrying as we are forecast more frost tonight and tomorrow, and no apparent end in sight to this cold weather. I still haven't got any fleece. When oh when are we going to get some seasonal weather again? Everything (apart from the potatoes) seems to have just stopped growing.

My asparagus is really disappointing, we have had about seven spears so far, and there are only about four of the original ten crowns that are producing anything. The rest seem to have died.

The purple sprouting brocolli has almost run out of steam. The plants look extremely healthy - big, bushy and lush dark green in colour, but they haven't really produced many actual sprouts. They're all leaf and no sprout. If anyone has any explanation for this or tips on how I can encourage more sprouts, I'd be glad to know.

Help! It's May already

I'm not exactly behind, but where did April go? In a couple of weeks I will have to start thinking about sowing my beans, so today I have been clearing the weedy patches where they are to be grown. As usual, I forgot to take the camera, but here are a few pictures of how my young plants are getting on...


chilli


sweetcorn


squash (not sure which ones these are)


tomatoes

leeks.

My butternut squashes are a bit behind, none of the four original sowings came up, so I decided to put the rest of the packet to chit, to see if any of them would. I've sown four more, but as yet there is only one starting to show.

Since my last post, I have planted out summer cabbages, celeriac and sunflowers, cleared the summer veg area and made a start on clearing the bit at the end where the nasty weed infestation is. The potatoes are up and away and I have already had to earth them up twice. The peas are looking brilliant and the lettuce, kale, spinach and parsnips are all trying hard. The carrots are struggling, as are the spring onions. Yesterday I spent about three hours weeding the onions and garlic - all looking good. Photos next time.

Yesterday we went to the woods to see how the bluebells are getting on. It was cold and windy, and cloudy, but the bluebells are just coming into full swing. If it's sunny next weekend I might try and go again, see if I can get some better photos.