Mid July - Up at the allotment

Success with Cucumbers

I have never tried to grow cucumbers, but these year I bought a couple of plants from the allotment plant sale and guess what we have had 8 cucumbers - just enough considering we are not salad people.

The allotment plant sale

Green Beans & Courgette bed

14th June - can you see my spuds???

No neither could I - so here is a before & after picture

It is coming together

Since March I have planted all of my potatos, the main crop is made up of Golden Wonder, Desiree & Maris Piper along with my Duke of York earlies. Oddly enough the main crop are growing quicker than the earlies.

You can see below that the top half of the allotment is made up of potatoes, one of the main reasons is that I have never grown anything on this part of the allotment so I expect to be battling lots of weeds!

One success this month is that I have had my first ever crop of Purple Sprouting Broccoli - to get this beauty you have to see the crop nearly 12 months before you pick it. So whilst I am picking it I am now seeding next years.

Onions & Shallots are in

....it took a while - I had 300 red barron sets to plant and it took a good hour to get them all in.

I have also prepared the potatoe bed and ready to plant my earlies - Last week the weather was quite mild and it was really tempting to plant some of them. But I still thought it was 3 weeks too early. gues what i was right this week there have been three ground frosts. Just goes to show you do have to have some patience.

still I am all ready to go. It is a good time to be at the allotment - It is like the start of the football season - all the fun is about to start!

This week i am putting in the following.

Carrotts - nantes earlies - 1 row
Beetroot - boltardy - 1 row

I am also seeeds some summer cabbages:
Savoy
Greyhoud

A few more snow pics

Snow, Broadbeans, Garlic, Onions & Shallots...

The snow seems to have slowed things down and has meant that I have delayed putting in the Onions and Shallots. I have over 330 red onion sets to plant - which is slightly more than I was planning but the more you got the cheaper they are!

The snow may have killed my Broadbeans, I had seeded some in the greenhouse and planted them out but I think they much prefer to be planted direct. I have replaced these with some Sutton seeds.

The garlic I planted in Novemeber is doing really well and is about 3-4inches.

I have also finished preparing by fruit bed, all i need is a cage to protect the gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, raspberrys and blackberrys!

Last week's snow

I know it is not really related to the blog but here are some picture of last weeks snow. We (me & the wife) love the snow.

Look at my Cabbages

Never turn down help

Well he didn't actually volunteer I pretty much told him he was coming and doing some digging. But I suppose that's how you treat children. We are talking about 'Boy' as he is know to me and the wife. He is infact twenty odd and nearly a city lawyer - but we see him as a surrogate son. So after a night of beers, curry and him telling us about his love life (never simple) we set him lose on digging a few beds and planting some garlic. As with most things Boy does he does with non stop yabbering and oodles of energy. Still he did a good job!

Allotment Fees and seed catalouge

I have just had seed catalogue through for this year. I have to say it is one of those times of the year when you don't feel guilty about sitting at home on s Sunday watching the football on SKY when you should be down on the plot.

It is a time to plan what you are going to do next year and decided whether you should grow sweetcorn for the wife as she didn't eat it when you grew it last year...

We have also had our rent through for this year. It has gone up by eight pounds a year to thirty pounds - still not bad value. Next week it is the AGM - the excitement is unbearable!

We are back in Business

As some of you know we have spent the last 7 months travelling. Fortunately I did take a few measures to prevent the allotment getting completely over grown. Despite that, the poor weather and the council trying to allocate the allotment to someone else it looks like we are back in business.

The person who was given my allotment started to redesign my plot i.e. rip up some of the raised beds, big up rhubarb crowns and raspberry canes! So I have had a bit of work to do.
Still from the pictures it is amazing what you can do with a few hours.