Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

Nothing much got done over the weekend as it was bitterly cold in a strong easterly wind. While the plot is fairly well protected from wind from the west or south, and to some degree from the north, there is nothing to the east at all and it was horrible out there. All I did on Saturday was open and shut the covers, water and pick rhubarb and lettuce, while on Sunday I just nipped down between sleet showers to check that everything was still in place.

[Penellype]

Monday was still cold and windy, with the thermometer bearing no resemblance to how it felt out there. As it was showery in the morning and not particularly sunny later I left the covers shut and just went down once to check everything. While I was there I nipped off the dead heads on the daffodils and cut down the bolted mizuna, then I harvested some PSB for tea and went home.

Yesterday was better in that although cloudy and chilly it was nowhere near as windy. I went down after lunch and opened the covers for some ventilation while I was there. Leaves are now showing in all 4 buckets of Lady C potatoes.

The main job I wanted to get done was trimming the long bits of grass that I missed with the mower, particularly along the west hedge, where the daffodil foliage overhangs the grass. I collected about a bucketful of grass from this area alone.

Nothing seemed to need water after yesterday's showers and the lack of sun, so I picked some of the forced rhubarb, shut the covers and went home.

[Penellype]

There doesn't seem to be a great deal to do at the allotment at the moment, compared with at home, where I am busy sorting out buckets and compost for potatoes and carrots. I have 40 buckets, of which 10 are earmarked for potatoes and 7 for carrots (at present). A few still contain carrots from last year, calabrese, spring cabbage and newly sown spinach, and the challenge is to work out how to get the right compost into the right bucket (carrot buckets have copper tape on, potato ones generally don't). Its a case of putting compost that isn't wanted at the moment from a bucket that I want to use into an empty bucket that isn't going to be used, then filling with suitable compost (preferably from another bucket that I want to use) and sowing or planting in it, then finding suitable compost for the next empty bucket and so on, all the time being careful that I don't fill too many buckets with compost from the storage bin so that there isn't an empty one left.... Its one way of keeping me occupied at home, anyway!

So, with all this going on, most days I've just been going down to the allotment to open and shut the covers and water. Yesterday I spent a bit more time there, going round the whole plot removing weeds. I found and removed 2 pieces of horsetail in the tunnel and some bindweed from under the hedge - the first of the year, reminding me that it won't stay as easy as this for long.

I did take some photos on Wednesday:



The rhubarb I planted near the shed is growing well. I probably won't pull any of it this year as I have plenty to go at elsewhere, but I am impressed with the amount of growth here.



A view of all the raised beds. On the left the nearest one has some sickly cauliflowers in that I tried to grow from seed - only 4 have survived and they look touch and go. Potatoes in buckets under the cover (4 buckets of Lady C and 4 of Desiree), onions in the bed behind are starting to grow. Nearest the road is the hotbed. On the right, the nearest bed is empty, waiting for summer leeks and parsnips. Behind is a bed of baby veg sown in the autumn - the kohlrabi is bolting but there are some small carrots and baby fennel ready to eat. The next bed is peas and at the moment the growhouse just has some strawberries (hopefully early fruit) and the old winter lettuce and spinach in it. More peas will arrive once they germinate.



Recently planted peas.



Lettuce and spinach growing well in the hotbed. Carrots and beetroot (out of picture) are slower.



The tunnel is looking rather empty, although there are still plenty of leeks and broccoli.

I have more photos, but it is a real pain to screenshot them and sometimes when I try and upload them it crashes my computer, so I'm afraid 5 will have to do. Its a shame as I like sharing my photos

[Penellype]

Very little got done at the plot at the weekend, mainly because I was concentrating on catching up with things in my friend's garden, which has been a bit neglected due to mostly appalling weather most weekends. I did harvest some rhubarb, lettuce and PSB from the allotment.

Yesterday was another lovely day although unfortunately I had to waste an hour of it trying to get through to the bank on the phone. I did manage eventually, but everything seems to take so much longer than usual at the moment.

It had rained over night and when I picked up the bucket that catches the drips from the edge of the shed roof my finger went straight through the plastic. I need to find another bucket to do that job as it catches a significant amount of water.

I'd noticed the nettles in the hedge are growing at an incredible rate, so I spent my allotment time cutting them back and also tidying the grass edge along the hedge side. There are some small horsetail shoots appearing most of which were hidden by the nettles, so I need to get rid of those next.

Other that I harvested some baby lettuce and spinach from the hotbed and 4 nice sticks of forced rhubarb from under the dalek.

[Penellype]

More gorgeous sunshine on Tuesday and yesterday.

On Tuesday I spent quite a bit of the gardening time at home, sorting out buckets of compost and planting the remaining potatoes. It is always a relief to get this done as I am never sure that I have enough suitable compost (that hasn't grown potatoes/tomatoes recently) until all the buckets are full - I need getting on for 450 litres of compost, and that's just at home!

I did go down to the plot before lunch to harvest some of the lettuce and baby spinach from the hotbed. I took 8 of the cauliflower plants down with me and planted 4 in one of the raised beds, replacing the earlier ones I'd planted which had died as I rather expected they would. I planted the rest in the tunnel, then had to find some way of putting a net over them as there was a cabbage white butterfly hanging around. The top net is still off the tunnel and I dare not put it back as there is a slight possibility of snow early next week (and again towards the end of the month). It took me longer to put a piece of butterfly net over a frame than it did to plant the cauliflowers. I'm not convinced that it will keep the butterflies out, but it will have to do. Once I'd done that I spent some time removing horsetail from the hedge bottom. Its easy to forget how fast this stuff grows!

I decided to leave the covers open over night as it was mild and not forecast to be windy. That meant that I didn't need to hurry down in the morning to open them, which was good as I had an early meeting (on the phone) yesterday morning.

The meeting took up most of the morning so I didn't make it to the plot until after lunch. There were a few raspberry suckers poking up away from the main row, so I removed these, then had a good look round for more horsetail. There were a couple of pieces popping up in the pea bed and I found some near the road end grass path. I cut back more of the edges to this path while I was looking.

I then gave everything some water, decided to leave the covers open again and harvested some calabrese shoots and a leek for tea.

[Snadger]

More gorgeous sunshine on Tuesday and yesterday.

On Tuesday I spent quite a bit of the gardening time at home, sorting out buckets of compost and planting the remaining potatoes. It is always a relief to get this done as I am never sure that I have enough suitable compost (that hasn't grown potatoes/tomatoes recently) until all the buckets are full - I need getting on for 450 litres of compost, and that's just at home!

I did go down to the plot before lunch to harvest some of the lettuce and baby spinach from the hotbed. I took 8 of the cauliflower plants down with me and planted 4 in one of the raised beds, replacing the earlier ones I'd planted which had died as I rather expected they would. I planted the rest in the tunnel, then had to find some way of putting a net over them as there was a cabbage white butterfly hanging around. The top net is still off the tunnel and I dare not put it back as there is a slight possibility of snow early next week (and again towards the end of the month). It took me longer to put a piece of butterfly net over a frame than it did to plant the cauliflowers. I'm not convinced that it will keep the butterflies out, but it will have to do. Once I'd done that I spent some time removing horsetail from the hedge bottom. Its easy to forget how fast this stuff grows!

I decided to leave the covers open over night as it was mild and not forecast to be windy. That meant that I didn't need to hurry down in the morning to open them, which was good as I had an early meeting (on the phone) yesterday morning.

The meeting took up most of the morning so I didn't make it to the plot until after lunch. There were a few raspberry suckers poking up away from the main row, so I removed these, then had a good look round for more horsetail. There were a couple of pieces popping up in the pea bed and I found some near the road end grass path. I cut back more of the edges to this path while I was looking.

I then gave everything some water, decided to leave the covers open again and harvested some calabrese shoots and a leek for tea.

Damm it, that's what I meant to harvest yesterday, some leeks for leek and tattie soup.I did bring home the last of my beetroot though which looks ok and hadn't started to throw up flower heads, along with three Mooli that surprisingly survived the winter.I haven't cut into the mooli yet so don't know whether it will be usable.?

[Penellype]

Damm it, that's what I meant to harvest yesterday, some leeks for leek and tattie soup.I did bring home the last of my beetroot though which looks ok and hadn't started to throw up flower heads, along with three Mooli that surprisingly survived the winter.I haven't cut into the mooli yet so don't know whether it will be usable.?

I've only grown mooli once (I didn't much like it) but certainly the variety I had was winter hardy and definitely ok to eat in spring.

[Penellype]

Thursday was another warm and sunny day. I found a replacement bucket for the one I put my finger through, and took that down with me along with 4 more cauliflower plants and a packet of parsnip seeds. These went in the bed in the wet corner of the allotment, which grew parsnips well last year (at the other end of the bed) and has been built up quite a bit with compost from the old hotbed.

Having planted the cauliflowers and sown the parsnips I then had a tidy up, removing quite a bit of litter that had blown under the hedge over the past couple of weeks and trimming back more of the grass edges. I uncovered a bit more horsetail in the process.

The forecast was a bit cooler for the night so I shut the covers on the way home from the stables.

Yesterday was a bit cloudier but really quite hot. I opened the covers in the morning and went down for a short while before lunch to plant the last of the cauliflower plants and harvest some lettuce and baby spinach for lunch. I pulled out a couple more horsetail shoots and noticed there was some in the tunnel which need digging out properly. I didn't really have time for that yesterday so I left them rather than break them off. I also noticed that the grass is growing fast in the warmth and needs cutting.

[Penellype]

Very warm at the weekend so the covers stayed open all night, which saved me a journey down in the mornings and on Saturday evening. I did shut the covers last night as it was forecast to be much colder.

On Saturday I went down in the afternoon and put the wheelbarrow and some trays out to catch any rain in case of showers (there were none and no rain at all on Sunday either). Having watered everything the blue barrel is now empty and I've used about a foot of the water butt as well.

The main job I wanted to do was get the grass cut in case we had showers and it got too wet. While I was doing that I found and removed some horsetail fruiting bodies growing in the grass next to the neighbouring plot. They grew here last year so it was not a surprise, but I checked for them on Friday and there weren't any, so they had appeared over night. I also harvested some PSB and lettuce.

Yesterday I had a go at digging some of the horsetail out of the tunnel. As always what appears on the surface to be one small shoot usually turns out to be quite a lot of it underground. I dug up several patches with varying success - some of the soil on the paths is very hard and compacted and it was impossible to get it out without breaking it off. No doubt there will be loads more appearing very soon.

I was going to harvest some spinach, but I decided to let it grow a bit more in favour of a leek - the leeks will be starting to bolt soon and need eating and there will be plenty of spinach later on.

Today was completely different - very cold and windy. The sun came out at about mid day and I went down to open the covers a bit. Even though I had 4 thick layers of clothes on I was frozen by the time I got there. I took with me some fleece covers that I have which are useful for covering bushes if it is frosty - one of these will go on one of the strawberry towers as several plants are flowering, the other will (I hope) cover the minarette cherry, which has some blossom just about to open. I resisted the temptation to put them on now as it is rather windy and I could see the bag acting as a sail and causing all sorts of mayhem. The wind is forecast to drop tonight (hence the frost risk) so I will stop off on the way back from the stables to put them on.

As I was there and the sun was doing a reasonable job of warming things up out of the wind, I trimmed off some long grass edges and pulled a few horsetail shoots near the hedge. I'd soon had enough though, and the sun went in so I picked some PSB and retreated home to warm up.

[Penellype]

Much less windy on Tuesday and yesterday although cold to start with and I was glad I had found a way of protecting the blossom. There was ice on the inside of the roof of the growhouse first thing on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I spent a while tidying up - deadheading daffodils, removing the old winter lettuce and spinach plants and bagging up the compost from them for use as a mulch later. I also went round the raised beds removing bits of horsetail. The PSB has grown amazingly over the last few days and I cut quite a bit of it to give to my friends at the stables.

Yesterday I lifted the weed matting cover over the bed near the road, which had quite a bit of horsetail showing, and dug it over thoroughly before putting the matting back. I'm still undecided about what to do with this area, which will be quite big when I have eventually got rid of the rhubarb. I will probably grow tomatoes here this year. By the time I'd done that I was tired so I just harvested a bag of spinach (the first for cooking this year), watered everything and went home.

[Penellype]

Another nice day on Thursday. The main job was to continue digging horsetail, this time in the small area between the road and the tunnel. This area had perennial flowers in it and there were still some sprouting bits of root as well as the horsetail. I am hoping eventually to plant the chilean guava here, but i don't want perennials popping up underneath it, so I think I will have to pot it up and leave it another year.

I noticed that the hawthorn in the hedges was starting to develop some quite long shoots, so I trimmed these off the roadside hedge with secateurs. I'd had enough by the time I'd done that so I cut some broccoli for tea and went home.

Yesterday was much colder, with quite a breeze from the east. The sun came out mid morning and I set off intending to open the covers and then get some jobs done. I trimmed the long bits off the west hedge, by which time I was too cold to consider doing much else. I harvested some lettuce from the hotbed and went home to the relative shelter of my garden. The allotment is very open on the east side, whereas my garden has a 12ft high leylandii hedge to the east, which makes a huge difference.

I went back in the evening to water and shut the covers. With no rain for 3 weeks and nothing forecast for the next 10 days I am using the water fast. The blue barrel is nearly empty as is the dustbin next to it, I have used nearly half the water butt and half of one of the other dustbins. With this in mind, instead of bringing the germinated peas to grow on in the growhouse I have kept them at home where there is more water available.

[Snadger]

Another nice day on Thursday. The main job was to continue digging horsetail, this time in the small area between the road and the tunnel. This area had perennial flowers in it and there were still some sprouting bits of root as well as the horsetail. I am hoping eventually to plant the chilean guava here, but i don't want perennials popping up underneath it, so I think I will have to pot it up and leave it another year.

I noticed that the hawthorn in the hedges was starting to develop some quite long shoots, so I trimmed these off the roadside hedge with secateurs. I'd had enough by the time I'd done that so I cut some broccoli for tea and went home.

Yesterday was much colder, with quite a breeze from the east. The sun came out mid morning and I set off intending to open the covers and then get some jobs done. I trimmed the long bits off the west hedge, by which time I was too cold to consider doing much else. I harvested some lettuce from the hotbed and went home to the relative shelter of my garden. The allotment is very open on the east side, whereas my garden has a 12ft high leylandii hedge to the east, which makes a huge difference.

I went back in the evening to water and shut the covers. With no rain for 3 weeks and nothing forecast for the next 10 days I am using the water fast. The blue barrel is nearly empty as is the dustbin next to it, I have used nearly half the water butt and half of one of the other dustbins. With this in mind, instead of bringing the germinated peas to grow on in the growhouse I have kept them at home where there is more water available.

My allotment neighbour arrived at the plot yesterday, opened her shed door got a few tools out, 3 minutes later, tools replaced and toddled off home. Too cold she said.

[Penellype]

Another very sunny couple of days, although with quite a strong chilly easterly wind.

On Saturday I went round the long grass edges with the shears, then spent some time tidying up the edge of the grass path next to the raised beds. I do this with secateurs as it is full of horsetail and I don't want to have to store all the clippings to take to the tip as I have no idea when it will open again. We are not getting green bin collections at the moment so I can't get rid of it that way either. So its a case of carefully separating horsetail, which I am storing in a trug in the shed, from grass that can go in the compost bin.

As you can imagine that took some time and apart from watering and harvesting some lettuce and spinach, I didn't have time for much else.

Sunday was windier and created a problem with the plastic covers. The one over the hotbed pulled its frame apart and ended up with frame and plastic caught in the tunnel netting. I decided to take the cover off completely and weighed it down with bricks, putting it back on when I could shut it in the evening.

There is quite a bit of horsetail growing in the tunnel, and I will be wanting to plant things in there soon, so I concentrated on the areas where I will be sowing carrots and planting peas, digging as much of it out as I could. The soil is very dry, and even to the depth of my fork it isn't particularly wet - extraordinary after all the rain we had earlier in the year. According to the weather experts not only has it been unusually warm and somewhat windy, but the air is also incredibly dry with very low humidity which dries things out extremely quickly.

I also removed the swede plants from the tunnel as they have bolted. These have been a complete failure - most are no fatter than my finger and the ones that are have been eaten by slugs. Swede is not one of my favourite veg - I grow it to put in soups but I can easily do without it. This is not the first time it has been bitterly disappointing and I probably won't bother growing it this year.

There was of course the inevitable watering and I harvested a leek for tea and some broccoli for one of my friends at the stables.

The minarette cherry is covered in blossom now and I am hoping it will provide me with my first cherries later this year.

[Penellype]

Struggling somewhat with enthusiasm at the moment, which has not been helped this morning, more of which later.

Monday and Tuesday were gorgeous sunny days but with a very chilly and increasingly strong easterly wind. I again had to take the plastic covers off completely during the day to prevent damage.

Most of the time was spent removing horsetail and a few weeds. I decided to remove the bubble wrap from some of the water bins while it is mostly dry, so that I could turn the lids upside down to catch any rain we may eventually get. Some pieces were still a bit wet so I hung them up to dry where I could. There was also the inevitable and relentless watering to do.

I harvested brokali on Monday and spinach and the carrots that were sown in the autumn as baby veg on Tuesday. The carrots weren't much good, being very small, and some were going woody as they were starting to bolt. This was really only done as an experiment to see whether the copper mesh made any difference to slug damage (it did a bit) and I won't be sowing carrots in August again.

When I went back to the plot yesterday evening I found the wind had pulled the zip apart on the potato cover to the point where the bit you pull had come off. I fiddled with it for about 10 minutes before losing my temper and giving up with it.

This morning I went to open the covers and had another go with the zip. it was a bit easier as it wasn't quite so windy and I managed to get the thing back together after a fashion. I put a piece of greenhouse repair tape across the top to try to stop it happening again, but what I really needed was a needle and thread, which was of course at home. Under normal circumstances I would have gone home to get it and taken it straight back, but I want to go back later and there is a limit to the number of times I should be walking up and down the road, so I left it.

One of today's jobs was to sow the melons for the allotment - one each of Alvaro and my favourite, Magenta. I'd brought pots of compost in yesterday to warm up and got the packets out of my box to sow one seed of each. I sowed Alvaro, opened the packet of Magenta and it was empty. I have a system in place when I sow seeds, which is to put the packet on my desk until I have updated my notes. If I have finished a packet, when I add the sowing date to my overall plan I put "finished" in red next to it. I then put the packet in the "waiting to germinate" section of the box, removing it when the seedlings appear. Then, over winter I check each packet has enough seeds for the year and order more of the ones I need. For Magenta, I wrote on my notes that I had used the last seed, but I forgot to put "finished" on the list. Somehow I also managed not to check that there were enough seeds left, yet I remember taking all the packets out of the box and going through them all TWICE!

There is only one place I know of where I can get this variety - Plantsofdistinction. You guessed it - they have sold out. I did manage to order some more Alvaro as I only had 2 seeds left of those, but if I was short of enthusiasm before, it is now rock bottom. How could I have missed it, and how could I have been so stupid as to neglect to check I have enough seeds of something I like so much?

[Penellype]

Not a lot of variety at the moment.

On Wednesday I went back with a needle and thread and sewed the top of the broken zip together so that the fastener couldn't come off again. I left the covers off for a couple of nights, but put them back on last night as there was a possibility of a slight ground frost (which hasn't happened because it is cloudy this morning).

Other than that most of the time at the plot was spent removing horsetail, which is growing fast at the moment, pulling weeds and watering. I have 2 water butts, a blue barrel and 7 dustbins to store water, and I have now emptied the blue barrel, 4 of the dustbins and half of one of the water butts. If next week's rain doesn't arrive or isn't upto much I am going to have to start carrying water down with me as I did in 2018. I hope not, because doing that hurt my left elbow, which has only recently recovered.

In addition to the usual, yesterday I planted out the first batch of Hurst Greenshaft peas in the tunnel and cut the grass. I think I may put the top net back on the tunnel this weekend - we are unlikely to have snow now (although it is not impossible) and it will be a much easier and pleasanter job if the net is not wet!

The spinach is growing well in the hotbed and I have been able to harvest a couple of decent amounts to cook. The broccoli, brokali and calabrese are bolting now and will be coming out soon.