Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

Better today as it was cloudy much of the day, although still muggy.

The first job, which I noticed yesterday but didn't have the energy to deal with, was to tie up the tomato plants. This was urgent so I made sure I got it done by going down to the plot at 7.30am in case it got too hot later. There are 4 plants spaced about 2ft apart in a square, which I thought was plenty of space for cordon tomatoes. Not these. 2 are Crimson Crush, and 2 are Oh Happy Day. They are huge, and the damn things keep forking, which they seem to do over night as I do keep removing sideshoots. They have formed what can only be described as a thicket of tomato foliage and stems, and the soil between them is completely invisible. There are plenty of tomatoes forming, and the various branches desperately needed supporting. I did this partly by tying branches to the nearby stakes, and partly using the same method as I have used for the Red Alert bush tomatoes, with a clip on the end of a string, tied to the stake higher up. It will be interesting to see how this works, and whether these supposedly blight resistant varieties cope with this situation when blight appears.

Having come home for the weekly work Skype meeting at 8.30, I was back shortly after 9 to tackle the horsetail. I hadn't much enthusiasm for this - the more I pull it out the worse it seems to get, there was loads of it and the nets get in the way. I did some of the raised beds before i got sick of it and went to tackle a job where I could see light at the end of the tunnel - the pile of leylandii.

Apart from sheer cussedness on my behalf, there was a reason for wanting to get this done today - it cuts much better when it is dry than damp. There was, however, a rather ridiculous amount of it, some of which was big branches and some strangely shaped knobbly bits.I sorted it into 3 piles as I went, one of large and oddly shaped pieces, one of bits with a woody part in the middle that was too big for secateurs, and a pile in the middle of smaller bits that could be completely shredded. I then set about the pile of big and knobbly bits, cutting off all the smaller branches to leave straight sticks which went on the wood pile, or smallish knobbly pieces of wood which went in the trugs with the horsetail, to go to the tip later. By the time I had finished I had reduced the piles from 3 to 2 and the volume looked considerably smaller. My hand was starting to get sore and the black dalek was nearly full. I went home for a bit, taking a beetroot for lunch.

It was still not too sunny after lunch so I went back to the plot, intending to do something different. I cut down the Hurst Greenshaft peas that have finished and removed some horsetail from among them. But I really wanted to get that leylandii finished and I'd convinced myself over lunch that it wouldn't take long. I'd underestimated the amount left. 2 hours and 4 trugs of chopped leylandii later, and I had finally cleared the lot. I somehow managed to cram it all into the black dalek where it will stay until it has rotted down enough to be used as a mulch.

I picked some runner beans and a courgette and went home for tea.

At around 5.30 we had a sharp shower, but it didn't last long, so I watered everything as usual. A total of about a watering can full of water had collected in my various dustbin lids and trays. I've been keeping an eye on the radar all evening and there has been loads of heavy rain and thunderstorms to the north and west, and loads of heavy showers to the south and east of us. York has remained resolutely dry, although we are currently having a very light shower. There may be more to come, but it looks like we have missed the heaviest of the rain as showers tend to die away after dark.

[Penellype]

Another usefully cooler day. First job - collect any water from over night rain. Except there wasn't any. Despite quite a noisy, thundery evening (and videos on Twitter of torrential rain in Easingwold, just north of here), that 5 minute shower we had around 5.30 was all the rain we got.

I decided to tackle the horsetail in the tunnel again, particularly as I had some brassicas ready to plant in there. I went round and pulled out/broke off all the bits that were in amongst growing crops, and then dug over the bed in the middle, removing all the horsetail I could find. While I was doing this I found 3 caterpillars on one of the big calabrese plants. These looked like some sort of moth caterpillars (probably angle shades moth, which I have had trouble with before) - they definitely weren't offspring of the butterfly I found in there the other day.

Having done that, I set about cutting down 2 large geranium plants that were near the compost area. This was easier said than done as it was full of horsetail and I had to keep stopping to remove snails that were hiding among the foliage. After a break for lunch I got it finished, but I will need to dig out the roots soon before it all grows back again.

I went back down late afternoon to plant the calabrese and brokali that I had put on the shelf in the tunnel this morning. Before I did so I decided to have a poke at the bed that I dug the horsetail out of this morning, to see what I could find. I'd been fairly thorough with this, and it has been dug several times previously. I thought to myself that I'd probably find about a dozen bits of horsetail root in an area probably 6ft by 2ft. I didn't. I lost count somewhere around 100. Most of the pieces were small (less than 2 inches long), some very small, and most fairly near the surface, but there were a few that were long and deep or fairly chunky and branched. I dug the area over twice more, so hopefully I have made some progress with it. I then planted the brokali and calabrese, making sure I watered it well as I have probably removed most of the moisture from the soil by digging so much. Each plant was given a copper ring and surrounded with a sprinkling of slug gone, a combination that seems to be doing a reasonable job of keeping the slugs and snails off things.

By the time I'd done this it was time to water everything and go home, although I did find time to eat some raspberries on the way out.

[Penellype]

Yesterday's job was to dig out the roots of the geraniums before they grew back and while they were dry and would come away from the soil easily. These were not as easy to dig out as the ones near the tunnel had been because the soil was more compacted from being walked on over winter.

I went down early, determined to finish this before it got too hot to dig. It took a fair while, but I removed 2 large trugs of roots with associated horsetail. This gives me better access to the grass path behind the compost bins and allows me to extend the compost area for more storage. I may eventually plant something like a fruit bush here, although the space may not be wide enough unless it is a cordon, and the ground will be hard to clear of horsetail because of the roots from the hedge.

After a break I went down in the car with some cans of water and the new compost bin (which is currently being stored flat while I sort things out a bit more). I collected the step ladder, which I needed as the next job was to cut the front hedge at home. I also collected a white beetroot for lunch. This is effectively sugar beet so it is sweeter than the coloured varieties. Of the 3 sorts I am growing (Boltardy, Boldor and Albina Vereduna) I like Boldor (yellow) best. It has also been slower to bolt than Boltardy in the hotbed, although the last plant is starting to bolt now. I have a later planting in one of the raised beds which is ready to harvest and some seedlings ready to plant now .

After lunch I went back and tried to methodically remove horsetail from the raised beds. This is more awkward now that I have nets over most of the beds to stop the birds pulling the compost out, but I got it done. All my trugs are now full, but unfortunately the local tip is closed on Wednesdays, so I couldn't empty them. I'm hoping to have time to nip down today (about a half hour job) before the usual Thursday meeting starts.

I was back in the evening to water everything. I'm filling some of the dustbins with tap water at the moment because there is a notice up on the road that they are going to replace the water main, starting on Monday. It doesn't say how long for, and hopefully they won't be too long near the bus stop, but if they have single file traffic and lights I am not going to be able to park my car anywhere near the allotment. So I am building up stores of water while I can as there is no significant rain in the forecast for at least a week. I also have 3 buckets of Nicola potatoes that are about ready, so I will be harvesting those over the weekend, which should reduce the water required a little.

[Penellype]

Very little time today but I did manage to take the trugs of horsetail and geranium roots to the tip and harvest some raspberries, runner beans and the first Nectargold french bean.

And of course the watering. It was supposed to rain a little this afternoon, but nobody told the clouds.

[Penellype]

Today was one of those days when you start something and it evolves into something else.

The first thing I wanted to do was dig up the horsetail under one of the empty dustbins in the tunnel so I could fill it with water over the weekend. The ground was very hard and there wasn't actually much I could do with it as it was also full of tree roots. I did the best I could and put the bin back ready, having removed the weed matting that was underneath it as this was harbouring plenty of slugs.

I'd noticed the other day that the hawthorn in the west side hedge had grown some long bits, so today I wanted to nip them off before they got hard and spiky. That didn't take me long, but I ended up at the wood pile, which had various bits of hedge (ash, elder, leylandii and red currant) growing into it. The whole thing was a complete mess and I quickly decided to tidy it up. 2 hours later I had cleared the area and divided the woody bits into piles: short pieces for marking rows of seeds etc, middle sized pieces for deterring cats and tying black cotton to as a bird deterrent, longer bits for pea sticks and long pieces which might be useful. There was another large pile of thin, bent, branched and generally not useful pieces. At this point it was time to go home so I took a beetroot with me for lunch.

Having done some work over lunch time I was having a break when I glanced at the radar picture and saw a huge mass of rain apparently heading my way. I decided to go back to the plot straight away, check that all my water catching things were out and ready and finish sorting the pile of wood. I didn't think I had a hope in hell of finishing it before it rained, but it gave me a target to aim at.

I chopped up all the useless bits, putting the shreddings on the floor to act as a mulch and hopefully keep the weeds down. Any knobbly bits got thrown under the hedge where they should be a home for wildlife. Eventually I got it done and all the useful pieces put back in sensible piles so I can find what I want easily. It still wasn't raining.

I'd intended to harvest all of the Nicola potatoes (3 x 30 litre buckets and 1 MFB, 10 seed potatoes in all), to save myself a bit of watering. I started with the first bucket and found a lot of little ones near the top. These were the potatoes that got nipped by frost so I wasn't particularly surprised, and expected just a small crop when I turned out the bucket. However, it soon became apparent that if I harvested more than 1 bucket I was going to be struggling to carry the crop home with me. I was concerned that the carrier bag I'd brought with me wouldn't be strong enough, but I managed by putting a hand underneath it all the way home. There were 2.65kg of potatoes from 3 seed potatoes in that bucket.



These have easily outperformed the Lady C at home, which have produced just over 1kg in each bucket (again 3 seed potatoes each).

I also harvested some runner and french beans and a tub of raspberries. Some of the raspberries have caterpillars in which don't look like raspberry beetle. I suspect my old foe tortrix moth might be to blame as these are similarly green and wriggly. However there are plenty of undamaged fruit.

As usual I was back to water everything this evening, the rain having made a determined effort to completely avoid York while apparently wetting just about everywhere else.

[Penellype]

Cloudy most of the day so not too scorchingly hot, but warm and quite humid. I went down to the plot early to plant out some beetroot. This should really have been done about a week ago, but I wanted to dig as much horsetail as possible out of the bed in the tunnel before I planted them, hence the early start. I got them planted and well watered.

Next job was to get some water down there. I've been sorting out the dustbins, as I need to keep rain water separate from tap water so I have plenty for the blueberry. The 2 water butts and the blue barrel are rain water as they are linked to the shed roof, and I have a full bin of rain water which is quite hard to get at near the hedge. The bits of rain water from the bottoms of the nearly empty bins made a full bin near the blueberry bush and I have 2 nearly full bins of tap water near the shed. This leaves 3 empty bins (1 in the compost area and 2 in the tunnel) which I intend to fill before Monday morning, requiring 270 litres of water (plus what I need to water the plants in the meantime). Today I managed to fill the bin near the compost area. More is required tomorrow!

In addition to heaving water about until my back and arms ached, I harvested a white beetroot for lunch and another bucket of Nicola potatoes. If I thought yesterday's bucket was good, this one was even better. There were some nice big potatoes, almost baking size, and the bucket yielded a total of 3.25kg. I have never had over 3kg from 3 seed potatoes in 1 bucket before, not even Sarpo Mira. I've noticed from several years of growing potatoes in buckets that the best yields tend to be from buckets that have holes in the bottom (some just have them around the edge), are not moved half way through growing (eg from the greenhouse to outside) and are grown in fresh home made compost and preferably fed. These buckets of Nicola have holes in the bottom, have not been moved and were planted in home made compost that was already at the allotment, with added BFB. They have been watered every day and fed a couple of times with Tomorite, but I think possibly more important is that the bottom couple of inches of the buckets was buried in a layer of fresh horse manure. The idea of this was mainly to give them some bottom heat in the cold weather (when they were also covered with a polythene cloche). Anyway I seem to have hit on a winning combination despite the fact that these plants were damaged by a late frost. I will be very interested to see how the Desiree and Sarpo Axona (both maincrop) have fared in the same conditions. I haven't grown Nicola before - it is a very nice potato and I will certainly grow it again.

[Penellype]

Nicola bucket 3 today. This was the one at the sunny end of the bed, but also the worst affected by frost. When I tipped out the bucket there seemed to be more potato than compost, so I counted them as I collected them into a trug. To me, an edible sized potato has to be almost an inch long at least, otherwise I won't bother with it. So quite a lot got chucked out as too small. There were 86 of edible size, some quite large. Eighty six potatoes - I normally expect about 30 from a bucket. I didn't dare put them in a plastic bag as I had visions of dropping potatoes all over the pavement, so I carried them home in the trug. They weighed 3.65kg that's just over 8lb.

[Penellype]

Apart from harvesting the potatoes the main job today was to fill all of the water bins in case of problems with the road works starting tomorrow. I spent most of the morning taking containers of water to the plot and managed to fill all of them.

This afternoon I went back and before harvesting the potatoes I started digging the horsetail out of the path alongside the tunnel, quite a bit of which has grown back since I dug this a couple of months ago. It was hard work as it was very hot, but I got a bit done. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get a bit more "proper" gardening done instead of using all my time and energy carrying water about.

As always I went back in the evening to water, giving everything a really good soak, and then took another car load of water down to fill up the bins again. I reckon that if it doesn't rain and I can't get the car near the allotment I can probably manage 4 or 5 days before I start to run short of water. The trouble is that I haven't a clue which end of the roughly mile long stretch they are going to start at, which side of the road they will dig up or how long they will be. I asked the bus drivers, but nobody has told them about it, and I asked at the village shop, which is in the middle of the stretch of affected road, but they didn't know either. So I will just have to wait and see.

[Penellype]

Very, very hot today. No roadworks in sight - they must have started at the village end.

I went down fairly early and removed the sugar peas (Sugar Magnolia), which had just about finished. These have not been a great success really - they were ok, but the pods were a bit stringy and the taste was nowhere near as good as the Hurst Greenshaft peas. Given the choice I always went for the "proper" peas, which meant that most of the sugar peas were wasted. Worth a try, but I won't be growing them again. It took some time to disentangle the peas from the rapidly growing runner and climbing french beans either side of the row.

The other thing I wanted to do today was to dig some more of that path by the tunnel. This was probably not the best day to do it, but I did some anyway. After half an hour of digging I had had enough, so I picked some courgettes and a beetroot and went home for a break (and to do some work).

The sun went in after lunch so I decided to walk back down and do a bit more digging. I was managing fine and I'd got quite a bit done, but the sun came out again and the temperature shot up. One minute I was happily digging, the next I felt like someone had put a radiator next to my back. I had to stop and go home.

I was back in the evening to water, by which time it had become even hotter and stickier. We had some rain (showers) forecast today, but nothing happened. Then, at around 9pm, we finally got a few spots of rain. Quite big spots, but 15 minutes later we still haven't had enough to completely wet the path, let alone get into the soil. The radar picture shows the proper rain just skimming to the north of us, AGAIN.

[Jungle Jane]

I let the sugar snap peas grow to full size pea & shell them like a normal pea,the pod I don’t fancy,they’re nice this way though

[Penellype]

I let the sugar snap peas grow to full size pea & shell them like a normal pea,the pod I don’t fancy,they’re nice this way though

I tried that and they were nice enough, but I prefer the flavour of Hurst Greenshaft, and you get more peas to a pod. The Sugar Magnolia are also very tall - about 8ft. I was lucky that we haven't had much wind this year - normally tall peas get doubled over in any strong wind and then they are extremely difficult to harvest. All in all I feel I might as well simply plant an extra row of Hurst Greenshaft next time.

[Penellype]

Family day yesterday so apart from a quick visit to the plot in the morning to pick courgettes, beans and raspberries to join cucumbers and potatoes in a large box for my Mum and brother, all I had time to do was watering.

Today started off reasonably cool, so I made the most of it by getting on with digging horsetail out of the path next to the tunnel. After a break for a coffee and catching up with work, I finished the path before lunch.

By the afternoon the sun had come out but I managed a short session digging horsetail out from part of the strawberry bed which was shaded by the beans. I also removed 2 bolting beetroot and quite a few dead rhubarb leaves, and tied in the tomatoes which are still growing rapidly. I ate some raspberries and took home a bag of beans and 2 courgettes which have appeared from almost nowhere since yesterday. They like the old hotbed.

More watering this evening - I have even more than usual to do for the next couple of weeks as my friend is away, so as well as watering her vegetable garden I have all her flower pots to do as well. Fortunately she has a hosepipe so it doesn't involve lifting lots more cans of water. I MIGHT get a break over the weekend as we are forecast thunderstorms and possibly some "proper" rain. Fingers crossed.

[Penellype]

Yesterday I spent quite a while weeding the tunnel and digging out the horsetail out of most of it, as well as doing a bit more of the strawberry bed. We were due some showers in the evening and we did have one, but it only produced a tiny amount of water.

This is a short post and may be the last for a day or 2 because a house nearby got struck by lightning and its taken out my internet. I have a dongle but not that much data on it, so I have to keep it mostly for work. I'm also not feeling well since the lightning strike, so gardening isn't a great idea.

At least there won't be any watering to do today!

[Penellype]

Friday was horrendous.

The lightning hit at about 8am and I spent most of the the morning waiting for and dealing with an electrician who required me to pull out all the plugs to test the circuit that had blown. This was not easy as all my plug sockets are behind heavy furniture with extension leads, and I felt as though I'd suddenly got a stomach bug. It was still very thundery, and frankly I was very scared. The electrician said there were 3 fire engines outside a house on the main road (the houses opposite me back onto that road). We managed to isolate the problem to the fridge, and the circuit itself is undamaged so the electricity was back on fairly quickly. The internet router was completely dead.

It was then urgent to get a replacement router as soon as possible. I am part way through a contract with BT so I rang them and they said they would send a new one which should arrive on Monday. In fact it arrived yesterday lunchtime, which was a nice surprise.

The next problem was the fridge. It is built into the kitchen units, so I didn't want to just order something online or go to Currys. The kitchen is 5 years old and the original fitters, although good, were the sort that tended to say they would come in the next few days and turn up unannounced, which would be hopeless for being at the allotment. So I went to a local electrical firm and chose a fridge from their showroom the same size as the model I currently have. I loathe this sort of job at the best of times, and feeling as I was I was finding it hard to concentrate and had to prop myself up on the counter from time to time. Typically they had to order it and it won't be here until a week tomorrow, so I am having to use a cold box for essentials and have no way of storing cold food. As I always cook more than one portion and store the remains in the fridge for the next day, its hard to adapt.

I did manage to go to the plot briefly on the way back from choosing the fridge. All I had the energy to do was collect the water from the dustbin lids etc, all of which were full. I couldn't even face eating any raspberries.

The storms were back in the evening, with 2 lightning strikes within a mile of my house, but luckily with no ill effects on the electricity this time. There were some large hailstones, torrential rain and extremely strong gusts of wind. Fortunately we only had the one storm cell - people to the east of us had much, much more. I couldn't get to the stables after the storm had gone as the road was flooded.

Due to feeling ill and frightened most of the day, I ate almost nothing. I lost 5lb in weight during the 24hrs after the lightning strike. This is becoming an issue - I have lost over a stone since I got the allotment, and I was not fat to start with, so I have been trying to maintain or slightly increase my weight recently. Losing 5lb was not on the agenda!

Yesterday was somewhat better, although I still felt rather weak. I went to the plot (in the car) first thing, to assess any damage and collect the water. Most things seem to have survived ok - there was a tomato on the floor and the beans looked a bit battered but were still upright. The neighbour's bean poles had been snapped in the wind and I was glad I had used more substantial pieces of wood rather than some old canes that came with the plot.

I had the horses to muck out, which took me a lot longer than usual, partly because the rain had got in in places so there was a lot of wet bedding to take out. Not what I needed. It rained for a couple of hours during the morning, but at least there was no more lightning or hail.

It had dried up by late morning so I walked down to the plot and collected the water again. The water butts are filling nicely. I did a bit of horsetail pulling - the stuff has grown a lot in the last couple of days and the raised beds are in need of attention again. I did a bit but couldn't manage all of them. I harvested 4 courgettes and some beans, ate some raspberries and went home.

It got quite windy during the afternoon and my fruit cage is starting to look worse for wear. The clips that I use for the insect mesh are supposed to drop off the frame in strong winds, and several had done so, but even so one of the plastic joints has cracked. It has also ripped the velcro zips away from the netting in places, which is repairable, but I didn't see much point in struggling with it as its going to be even windier today.

More rain in the evening (nearby storms missed York this time) and today looks a write off until at least mid afternoon, with constant rain and strong winds forecast.

On the plus side, I now feel rather better, I have my internet back and there shouldn't be any problems with water at the plot for a while.

[Penellype]

Not much got done today but I did get down to the plot in the afternoon to collect the water from last night and this morning's rain. Most of the dustbin lids and trays that I catch water in were almost full again, and the 2 water butts and blue barrel are all now 3/4 full (they were nearly empty before).

I collected up several snails for the chickens before it started to rain again.