What I did today 2021

[Bren In Pots]

Cut the grass and mulched beans and raspberries.

[peanut]

Finally got my kale and sprouts in with collars on and under butterfly netting, I want a crop this winter after the Muntjacs last time! I still have all the PSB and various other brassicas, that I can't remember the names of, to get in.
Lifted the last of the Charlottes, still have some in bags though and a full row of Nicolas.
Then rain stopped play and I am knackered

[ameno]

Fed my allotment crops.

Noticed that my watermelons have some sort of leaf blight, which I looked up and identified as Alternaria leaf blight. I picked off all the infected leaves then sprayed the rest with potassium bicarbonate solution, which acts as a fungicide. Hopefully I can keep it at bay long enough for the fruit to swell and ripen (I have at least 4 fruits set now, and two more which look like they might have set).
The same thing seems to be affecting my melons, too, but those already have plenty of almost ripe fruit on them, so I'm not so bothered if they end up dying prematurely.

[peanut]

Watered greenhouses and pots. Washed and picked caterpillars off brassicas ready for planting. Looked around and everything else to do and sighed

[Bren In Pots]

Deadheading, pulling up bolted lettuce and cutting down comfrey to add to tank.

[peanut]

Yesterday I pulled up some horsetail, for what it's worth , tied in the climbing squashes and rearranged some of the scrambling ones which always want to grow in the wrong direction. Deadheaded a rose, watered my baskets and lifted some more charlottes.

[ameno]

Cut down another beefsteak tomato, stripped the leaves off the remaining two and my F3 Mountain Magic plants (not as blight resistant as I had hoped, although they did last longer than the beefsteak, at least).
Cut down all the top growth on my Rooster potatoes. It was really massive this year, for some reason. Most stems were over 4 feet tall. It's only the start of August, and these are maincrop variety, so I hope they'll give a half decent crop.
On the plus side, my peppers now have much more light, as I had rather miscalculated how large the potatoes would grow, and the peppers were on the north side of them.
My compost bin is now stuffed tight with tomato and potato plants and leaves. I really had to stuff them in tight.

Also dug up all of my onions to allow them to dry. They're very large again this year.

[ameno]

Cut down my Charlotte potatoes and one beefsteak tomato as they were infected with blight. Removed a load of leaves from the remaining plants.
Also pruned the grapes again.

[Mr Bones]

Collected a trailer load of bagged horse muck (horse apples picked up out of the paddock so no bedding )

[Bren In Pots]

Staked some of my Sunflowers they'd took a bashing in yesterdays thunderstorm.
Cut Jerusalem artichokes stems down to 5ft.

[Mr Bones]

Hammered a couple of stakes into the ground and roped the Borlotti frame against blustery winds.

[FromYorkshiretoBucks]

Set up some string around cane tripods for the squashes.

Added some chicken manure "pellets" to the old broad bean bed in prep for adding brassicas.

Pulled up the random potato plant that had grown from a random spud in leftover compost that I added to the raised bed when I built it last year.

[ameno]

Did some squash and watermelon polinating.
I now have at least 15 squashes set, with plenty more flowers coming. The plants are really taking over.
The watermelons are finally setting fruit, too. I have three definitely set, and three more which might be. The plants are starting to take over a bit, too.

I also pruned the akebia, quince, plum and pear.

...And then the torrent came. It was an hour straight of torrential rain the like I have never seen before. It was biblical. The path down from the gate was a river, and there was a river running across the plots which occupied the dip across the middle of the site, with everything in those plots under 2-3 inches deep and 30 feet wide of fast-flowing water. Right at the bottom of the site is a communal orchard, which was half underwater. Beyond that is someone's garden, which also seemed to be underwater.
Mercifully, my plot is up the hill slightly, so was pretty much unharmed. The ones in the dip were rather more damage, though, with large sections of soil gouged out, a railway sleeper and a raise bed had been washed away, as had potato plants and carrots. And the plot nearest the entrance had had fairly large stones and half bricks, not to mention masses of gravel, washed into it. Most of the actual plants seemed surprisingly unharmed, however.

[Bren In Pots]

Cut down bolted chard most of it will be going in the freezer.

[annie8]

Pulled up the last of the garlic and sowed some carrots in its place.