Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

Just 2 quick trips to the allotment yesterday to collect water - 11mm overnight again had the bottom corner under water in the morning. There were a few showers through the day as well. I didn't have time to do anything else other than capture a large slug that was crawling over the grass.

[Penellype]

Yesterday started very wet, but the rain soon stopped and I went down to collect the water. The weather improved into a reasonable morning and I found myself wandering around a soggy allotment looking for something sensible to do, so I decided to tidy out the shed. Although I did this not long ago, there were various nets and poles that had got shoved in there, and some of the plastic bags that I store string and nets in had disintegrated. I replaced these and spent some time sorting out and untangling string and putting away various hooks and clips in sensible places where they wouldn't get lost.

By the time I'd done that I was running out of time so I picked a cucumber, some tomatoes, a few strawberries and some beans, gave the remaining melon plant a drink of water and went home.

The afternoon was very wet, so I didn't get back to the plot at all.

Today again started very wet but things had dried up by about 10am. However I had to go to the stables and then I wanted to take some stuff including some strawberry runners I'd potted up to a recycling morning in a nearby village. By the time I'd done that it was lunchtime and the sun had come out. I had a quick bite of lunch then went down to the allotment, collected the rain water and went round picking up fallen leaves, pulling out a few weeds and removing dying rhubarb leaves. The melon plant was looking quite sad and some of the stems were starting to rot, so I spent a while cutting off anything that had no fruit on to let more air in around the fruit. One fruit came off while I was doing this so I took it home to ripen. I'd also stopped on the way home from the stables to pick a cucumber, a beetroot and probably the last of the peas for lunch.

Having cleared half of the growhouse I decided to put some of the strawberry plants in there as they are still flowering and have some unripe fruit which will be damaged if it is frosty. The MFBs were too tall to go on the growhouse shelf, which can't be lowered as the other shelf is in the way and still supporting melons. I therefore collapsed the shelf and put one of the trays I use to catch water on the bed. the trouble with this was that it really only comfortably held one of the MFBs. I have bigger trays at home so I decided to bring one of those, which is 2ft square, fits nicely in the growhouse and will take 2 MFBs of strawberries. I will remove the melons before the frost comes, and I will probably use the other shelf for the spinach and lettuces which are currently in the tunnel.

As it was sunny and breezy all afternoon I went back after tea and cut the grass, which did not get done before the rain arrived at the beginning of this week. I was glad to have an opportunity to do this - most of it was dry. I also picked half a dozen fairly large tomatoes. The Oh Happy Day are absolutely laden with decent sized tomatoes, but whether they will get a chance to ripen with the weather forecast to get colder remains to be seen.

I do not expect to be able to do anything at all at the plot tomorrow as the forecast is for rain all day.

[Snadger]

Yesterday started very wet, but the rain soon stopped and I went down to collect the water. The weather improved into a reasonable morning and I found myself wandering around a soggy allotment looking for something sensible to do, so I decided to tidy out the shed. Although I did this not long ago, there were various nets and poles that had got shoved in there, and some of the plastic bags that I store string and nets in had disintegrated. I replaced these and spent some time sorting out and untangling string and putting away various hooks and clips in sensible places where they wouldn't get lost.

By the time I'd done that I was running out of time so I picked a cucumber, some tomatoes, a few strawberries and some beans, gave the remaining melon plant a drink of water and went home.

The afternoon was very wet, so I didn't get back to the plot at all.

Today again started very wet but things had dried up by about 10am. However I had to go to the stables and then I wanted to take some stuff including some strawberry runners I'd potted up to a recycling morning in a nearby village. By the time I'd done that it was lunchtime and the sun had come out. I had a quick bite of lunch then went down to the allotment, collected the rain water and went round picking up fallen leaves, pulling out a few weeds and removing dying rhubarb leaves. The melon plant was looking quite sad and some of the stems were starting to rot, so I spent a while cutting off anything that had no fruit on to let more air in around the fruit. One fruit came off while I was doing this so I took it home to ripen. I'd also stopped on the way home from the stables to pick a cucumber, a beetroot and probably the last of the peas for lunch.

Having cleared half of the growhouse I decided to put some of the strawberry plants in there as they are still flowering and have some unripe fruit which will be damaged if it is frosty. The MFBs were too tall to go on the growhouse shelf, which can't be lowered as the other shelf is in the way and still supporting melons. I therefore collapsed the shelf and put one of the trays I use to catch water on the bed. the trouble with this was that it really only comfortably held one of the MFBs. I have bigger trays at home so I decided to bring one of those, which is 2ft square, fits nicely in the growhouse and will take 2 MFBs of strawberries. I will remove the melons before the frost comes, and I will probably use the other shelf for the spinach and lettuces which are currently in the tunnel.

As it was sunny and breezy all afternoon I went back after tea and cut the grass, which did not get done before the rain arrived at the beginning of this week. I was glad to have an opportunity to do this - most of it was dry. I also picked half a dozen fairly large tomatoes. The Oh Happy Day are absolutely laden with decent sized tomatoes, but whether they will get a chance to ripen with the weather forecast to get colder remains to be seen.

I do not expect to be able to do anything at all at the plot tomorrow as the forecast is for rain all day.

Strangely, like you,I have some huge Ailsa Craig tomatoes which will hopefully ripen 'on the vine'

[Penellype]

As expected, yesterday was very wet. I managed to find a slightly less wet interval (still raining but not too bad) to go down and empty the bin lids, which were nearly full. The dustbins are all full now so I turned the lids over and stacked the trays under cover - they will go in the shed if/when I can manage to dry them out at some point! There are still some buckets out because I haven't anywhere to put them while they are wet. Unsurprisingly the bottom corner of the plot was again under water.

I picked the remaining runner beans (a small handful) before I went back home as the rain got heavier again. According to the local weather station we had nearly 25mm of rain yesterday on top of last week's deluges, with plenty more to come tomorrow.

Whether I can get anything useful done today remains to be seen - the weather should be ok, its the water and mud that will stop me.

[Penellype]

A much, much better day today. It was a lovely sunny morning and I spent a couple of hours at the plot cutting down the runner beans, which had finished. I wanted to get these down while they were still green as they are much easier to cut up and rot down better that way. I picked a couple of cucumbers and some salad leaves for lunch and a bag of half ripe tomatoes.

I was back after lunch and removed the mildewed and now dead peas from the tunnel. There were several small pods which still contained edible peas, much to my surprise. Having done that I planted out the last broccoli plant where the peas had been. This plant looked dead a few weeks ago and really got left because I forgot about it, but it has survived although it is still very small. Nothing to lose by planting it.

The next job was to remove the summer leeks, which have been devastated by leek moth, but would die anyway if we got a frost. There were 2 reasonable sized ones and 3 smaller ones, giving me a couple of meals worth of leek. While I was in the tunnel I had noticed that the leeks in there also have leek moth. So much for my plan to grow leeks in there next year! More thinking required.

I was going to remove the melon plant and bring the melons home, but I couldn't bear to as it is still clearly alive. I harvested one of the melons anyway, and left the rest for now. I very much doubt it will freeze in the growhouse over a hotbed that still seems to have a soil temperature around 18C. I just have to remember to go and shut it tomorrow.

I'd been meaning to take my camera down as it maybe too wet for photos tomorrow, but the battery was flat so I had to leave it on charge. I went back to get it and took loads of photos. By this time it had clouded over, which makes better pictures.



Runner beans have now gone.



Melons and strawberries in the growhouse. The romanesco under the white net is determined to get too big.



The Oh Happy Day tomatoes are loving the old hotbed.



One of the towers of strawberries, the minarette cherry and the blueberries, now without their net.



The courgettes are still flowering and producing fruit, but the mildew is winning the battle now.

[Penellype]

More photos:



The fence line is filling up with various types of fruit, mainly strawberries. The gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes are not happy.



Parsnips under the nearer net, baby veg behind.



A close up of the baby veg. The gaps are because I used old seed - there has actually been very little slug damage, although a couple of the kohlrabi plants outside the copper are a bit chewed.



A close up of the tomatoes in the old hotbed. This is one plant.



A close up of the melons.

[Penellype]

Not forgetting the tunnel:



Lettuce, mizuna/namenia mix and spinach all growing well, although the oriental greens have flea beetle which are eating holes in the leaves. The strawberries are still producing a few fruit - no idea what variety these are as they came with the plot. Swedes, brokali and calabrese beyond.



Cucumbers, carrots, winter leeks and romanesco.



From the other end, showing the tiny broccoli plant (behind the bigger one) planted where the peas were.



More broccoli at the end of the tunnel.



Cucumbers are still producing loads of fruit.

[burnie]

You leave a lot of leaves on your tommies, my plants are just about bare stems now to maximise the light onto the ripening fruit, I guess you being a good bit further south lets you do that.

[Penellype]

I break off leaves that go yellow or brown, if they will come away cleanly. My experience of cutting them off is that it tends to introduce disease, which then works its way into the main stem, killing the plant.

[Penellype]

As expected, yesterday was pretty much a write-off as it rained on and off throughout the daylight hours. I did manage a quick visit around lunchtime to pick a couple of courgettes and a few barely red tomatoes. The bottom corner of the plot was under about an inch of water and the water butts were overflowing.

I'd been hoping to get back to protect the tomato plants from frost somehow, but there was no chance and I had to leave it.

Today was lovely and sunny, but I'd arranged to have my boiler serviced in the morning so I had to wait in. At midday the phone rang - they weren't coming as the engineer had gone home with a migraine. Could they come this afternoon? NO! or tomorrow? Not really. I explained that it was exceptionally inconvenient to have a 5 hour time slot (I'd already worked out that since I moved into this house I have probably spent nearly 100 hours waiting in to have my boiler serviced) and couldn't they give me a specific time since I had wasted a whole morning on them already? They reluctantly agreed to giving me the first slot on Friday morning.

At least I could get out to the plot now. I'd already been down quickly and collected a cucumber for lunch and opened the growhouse a bit, and having eaten an early lunch while waiting in, I was ready to get out and do something useful. However, the first job I wanted to get done was splitting my hosta plant, which was too big and heavy for me to move easily as I had planted it in soil and mulched with gravel. I managed to get it out of its pot with difficulty, cut it in half and planted it in compost, with a mulch of strulch. The 2 pots are still very heavy but I can at least lift them without hurting my back.

I went down to the plot and was relieved to find that the water had retreated below ground level although the grass was still very soggy. I picked up some raspberry leaves and pulled out a few weeds from the raised beds, then decided to have a go at covering my Ferline tomatoes, which appear to have survived last night (2.9 at the local weather station). Tonight is forecast to be colder for longer.

I got out the 6 long and 3 shorter poles that I used to support the net over the raspberries and pushed the long ones into the raised bed until the tops were just above the tomatoes, each pair connected by a shorter pole. I then got out the plastic cover that was over the potatoes - this has one non-functional zip, so it is not a disaster if it gets trashed. I draped the cover over the frame and tied the ties to each of the 4 corner poles. There was about a foot gap between the plastic cover and the top of the raised bed, but I don't mind this as it will give plenty of ventilation. The idea is to trap rising warm air during the day and prevent cold air sinking onto the plants at night. A couple of clips to hold the plastic to the central poles and some reinforcing strips of mending tape where the pole joints touched the plastic improve things, but I was still not happy. I went home and found some poles from old blowaways that might fit, and miraculously they did, so I had a much better supporting frame at the top. How it will cope with wind and rain is another matter - Thursday night is likely to be both wet and windy so I will probably remove the cover tomorrow, its just tonight I am worried about. As I don't have any more long poles, the Oh Happy Day will have to cope uncovered. The Ferline are the nicer tomatoes, hence the choice to cover those.

Before I went home I closed the growhouse again, and I will just have to hope that the tunnel net is enough to stop the cucumbers and strawberries getting frosted.

[Penellype]

Another decent day and unusually for a Thursday it wasn't full of meetings. However it was rather cold so I waited until late morning before going down to have a look. The temperature in the nearest weather station dropped to 0.1C last night and there was a little white frost on some of the roofs first thing.

I was going to take the cover off the tomatoes but it was so much warmer under there than outside that I decided to leave it until the afternoon. The Oh Happy Day that had been outside all night were looking a bit cold. I harvested a couple of cucumbers and some salad - spinach, lettuce, mizuna and baby fennel for lunch. The mizuna and namenia have grown really well but are being attacked by black beetles, which I think are a large sort of flea beetle as they jump if disturbed. They have eaten small holes in every single leaf, and some of the leaves are starting to resemble lace. Still, I suppose if I had to choose between something eating the mizuna or the spinach or lettuce I would prefer it to eat mizuna. I checked the strawberries, but apart from 2 very under-ripe ones, everything that was red was also rotting. I removed those. The leeks were showing more signs of leek moth damage and the undersides of the brassica leaves were covered in whitefly, although the romanesco plant that I sprayed with potato water the other day (I don't remember if I mentioned that) did seem to have rather fewer of them.

I returned home feeling frustrated and unenthusiastic. It was easy to feel down - the nice summer veg are struggling now and the winter ones seem to be being demolished by pests at an alarming rate. My tomato cover was very temporary, as with a flat top and no drainage it would collapse under the weight of water as soon as it rains, which will be tonight. I thought about this over lunch and became increasingly grumpy. I didn't want to cut drainage holes in the plastic cover and I didn't want to take it off.

I went back to the plot and looked at it. The square corners were the problem - the cover was designed to have a rounded top, but the rounded poles weren't big enough for the tomatoes and the way I had put the poles in the rounded tops were too wide to fit on top... or were they? They are designed to fit together to make a tunnel a metre wide but only 80cm high. What if I kept the square corners at the front of my cover, but replaced the poles at the back with shorter poles and the curved tunnel tops upside down? I spent a little while rearranging poles and constructed a cover that had a rounded back so that at least some of the water should drain off. The cover is not as tight as it would be over the tunnel, so I may find that water still pools on it, but I decided to give it a go. No doubt I will find out fairly quickly as Lorenzo is due to dump about 10mm of rain on it tonight.

I felt a bit better after that, and wandered round the allotment picking up leaves and pulling out a few weeds. Then I cut a head of calabrese and picked a ripening tomato from under my cover and went home.

[Penellype]

A very wet night Thursday into Friday with another 14mm rain falling, continuing to drizzle on and off most of the morning. I was interested to see how my tomato cover had coped with the deluge so as soon as it was light I nipped down to look. I was surprised to find that there was virtually no water sitting on the cover, it had all drained off. The gusty wind hadn't shifted it at all, so I was really pleased with this.

As the man was coming to service the boiler from 8am I grabbed a cucumber for lunch and went straight home. The bottom corner of the plot was again under about an inch of water.

Boiler dealt with I decided to get on with a few jobs at home in the morning and didn't go back to the plot until about 2pm. The weather had improved but there was still a lot of water on the ground, notably between the 2 raised beds that have the green netting over. The weed matting was partly floating so the water didn't look too deep until I stood on it, when I discovered one of my boots was leaking. I retreated to the dry end of the plot and spent about an hour trimming back nettles and brambles in the roadside hedge and corner. There was still a little horsetail sprouting under the nettles, but most of it seems to have nearly stopped growing now.

I checked round everything and found an undamaged ripe strawberry, which I ate. The spinach is growing really well and I should be able to harvest enough to cook a portion over the weekend. I gave the melon plant some water as it is under cover, and noticed that one of the melons was developing a couple of small cracks, so I cut it and took it home to ripen along with 2 ripening tomatoes, one of which was slug damaged.

[weegie]

Why are the parsnips under netting? Is this to keep carrot fly off? I didn't net my carrots and parsnips and the carrots have been badly attacked by fly. It's too early to pull the parsnips so I don't know yet how much they've been affected.

[Penellype]

Parsnips don't normally get affected as badly as carrots by carrot fly but I have heard that the maggots can damage the surface of the roots and let in canker, which parsnips are susceptible to. I also have a problem with cats using the raised beds as litter trays, so the netting also keeps them off.

[Penellype]

Saturday was a slightly better day weather wise and I managed to find an hour or so to spend at the plot. I went round searching for slugs under the bricks and removed quite a few.

The bottom corner of the plot was still very wet so I spent most of the time at the road end, removing any horsetail I could find from under the hedge and amongst the rhubarb and pulling any weeds. I harvested a cucumber, a beetroot and some salad leaves for lunch and a decent bagful of spinach leaves for tea and went home.

It started raining about midnight and rained hard during the night, then drizzled all day on Sunday. I called in on my way back from the stables to get a cucumber for lunch and found the water half way up the grass path as well as between all the raised beds that side. The tunnel side was drier but all the pathways in the tunnel had large puddles on them. I emptied the drip trays under the blueberry bushes as they were full and I didn't want the bushes to drown. Apart from that I left it to drain as there was nothing else I could do.