Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

Wednesday
The empty cauliflower bed was annoying me. Onions won't be planted in it until February and I don't like leaving beds empty for 6 or 7 months. I decided to grow some salad greens in it, something I would not normally do outside at this time of year because of pests and lack of space. I chose green and red veined spinach, Lollo Rossa and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Pak Choi and pea shoots. Some of the seeds (particularly the green spinach) are old and may not germinate, but nothing lost if they don't. I will continue to water the bed with onion water, and if the salads taste vaguely of onion it doesn't matter! The bed has a nice, fine mesh net and I put some copper mesh around the edge to deter slugs.

That done I spent some time removing horsetail and various weeds and tying up secondary shoots from the runner beans which were trailing on the ground. The first flowers have opened on the beans.

I went back in the afternoon and harvested a couple of courgettes, a bag of peas, all the ripe strawberries (most were damaged) and 2 tubs of raspberries (after throwing away about half which had beetle grubs in). Quite a few of the blueberries are now blue, but they weren't quite ready as they didn't come off easily. I watered the melons under cover, but left everything else as it was clear from the radar that rain was about to arrive. The melons have lots of male flowers and Alvaro has some female buds.

Thursday
An absolute deluge over night. The bin lids were full, as were the bucket that catches drips off the roof and the water butt (which had had a good 8 inches space when I checked on Wednesday) and the trays each contained a good inch. The bottom corner of the plot was also under about an inch of water. I tipped everything into the dustbins and bucketed about half a dustbin full from the water butt into the last dustbin so that all the bins were full but there was space to collect rain in the water butt and blue barrel (which catches rain from the east facing roof, therefore wasn't full). It felt strange leaving all that water lying on the floor, but I saw little point in spending time and energy scooping up muddy water when more rain is forecast.

A quick check showed that 3 of the ripening cherries were splitting (they seem to hate this weather) so I took them home in the hope that they will ripen a bit more without rotting. No time to do anything else, and it rained/drizzled all day anyway.

[Penellype]

Friday
A nice morning but showers forecast for the afternoon. I went down early and picked a tub of raspberries and spent a while assessing what needs doing. One of the things that irritates me is that the green dalek has no lid. For the first couple of years I used an old plastic tablecloth tied on with string, which worked well until it started to disintegrate, and I attempted to replace it with a split open beet pulp sack. This really didn't work as it couldn't support the weight of rain water and for the last few months the sack has been inside the bin, covering the leylandii clippings I store in there (for use as a mulch). However it was collecting water and I noticed mosquito larvae in there, which is bad news as I have been known to have an allergic reaction to mosquito bites. I certainly don't want to be breeding the things.

I took the sack out and considered options. I could leave the bin open (which would continue to annoy me), I could get rid of the bin (how?), I could attempt to get a replacement lid (already tried), or I could make something. My preferred option would be to replace it with something better, but as I doubt very much that it would fit in my car, I don't see an easy way of disposing of it.

I had another beet pulp sack, bigger than the compost sacks I use and big enough to cover the opening with a bit to spare. I got a couple of pieces of 2x2 inch stakes (there are plenty of these) and put them inside the sack, one at either side. There is a stake at the back of the bin which the string was tied to when I used the tablecloth, and I wedged one of the pieces of wood between this and the bin . The other rested on the front edge of the bin. However I wasn't happy that this would cope with heavy rain, so I put a piece of plank inside the bag in the middle, resting on both ends of the bin opening, then I folded the open end of the bag over so that it doesn't fill with water. Hopefully this will be strong enough to withstand water and heavy enough not to blow away. Time will tell.

I went back after an early lunch, having checked the radar as some heavy showers were bubbling up in the area. I reckoned I had about an hour before I would get wet. I dug a bit of horsetail out of the tunnel and removed the last cauliflower which wasn't edible. I picked some peas for tea then removed the meteor peas and their supports, leaving the nasturtiums where they were as much as possible. I'd about finished this when something made me look up at the sky. Although the sun was out, to the north it was inky black and looking very threatening indeed. I quickly put everything away, grabbed the bag of peas and legged it home just in time to beat the rain and a crack of thunder. I really, really don't like being out in a thunderstorm and was very glad I'd noticed it when I did.

[burnie]

Could you re-purpose the lidless dalek and use it to grow spuds in or something similar?

[Penellype]

Could you re-purpose the lidless dalek and use it to grow spuds in or something similar?

Not easily - Its very big, so there are limited positions for it. The opening at the top is really quite narrow so you wouldn't get many potato plants in - probably no more than in one of my 30 litre buckets. Its ok as a compost bin where it is, but because it is narrower at the top than the bottom, it would not be my choice of bin as it seems like a waste of space. I prefer straight sided bins which give more volume per footprint. Anyway the DIY cover I made yesterday has survived the night (including heavy rain from yesterday's thunderstorm) so hopefully it will do the job for a while.

[Penellype]

Is it really that long since I updated this thread? Where did the time go?

Saturday and Sunday
Very little time and most of it was spent pulling and dealing with the rest of the onions, which were keeling over after the rain and clearly about to get white rot. Out of a total of 100 sets planted I have 38 bulbs that look like they may not have been infected. These are drying in the garage. The remainder have been chopped and frozen or turned into soup etc, with a few remaining (with all suspect parts removed) that I intend to use soon.

Harvested baby turnips, a bag of peas, loads of raspberries and the first few blueberries.

Monday
Considering we are supposed to be in a drier spell, there was a remarkable amount of water in the bin lids on Monday morning. I'd intended to cut the grass edges and possibly trim the leylandii in the hedge, but everything was much too wet. I picked yet more raspberries (loads have beetle grubs in now) and some more peas and spent most of the rest of the gardening time at home.

Tuesday
A better day and I managed a couple of productive visits. I'd noticed yesterday that one of the houses opposite the allotment had a skip at the front which appeared to be filling with building rubble. One of the things I always need more of at the allotment is bricks for holding down weed matting, nets, covers etc. I don't like just taking things so I summoned up the courage to walk up the drive and ask. "Take what you like" was the answer, so I got my barrow and collected a couple of (small) loads of whole and half bricks .

One of the calabrese plants on the shelf in the tunnel was doing a cauliflower impression (leaves going brown and floppy) probably because it has got too wet. I decided it was time to plant out the calabrese and PSB, but went round the tunnel weeding first. I had a couple of bags of 2 year old leaf mould so I used it to mulch a couple of the PSB plants - there wasn't enough for more.

I also trimmed some of the long bits of grass along the sides of the area near the fence. I've noticed recently that the people the other side have put some board along the bottom so there isn't such a big gap under it, which is good.

The seeds I sowed in the empty raised bed have mostly germinated, although there is no sign of the green spinach (very old seed).

Harvested the inevitable raspberries, but for the first time for ages there wasn't quite enough to fill a butter tub. These have been absolutely superb, and there are still plenty left, beetle grubs permitting. Also harvested the last bucket of Lady C potatoes (0.75kg after quite a few had been removed for very early potatoes in May), the last beetroot from the hotbed (lots of ants in the hotbed) and the first of the cucumbers (about 3 inches long) from the tunnel.

Wednesday
Not much time or enthusiasm today, partly due to rain/drizzle a lot of the time and partly due to having my credit card stopped because someone had used it for a fraudulent transaction (which had been declined, so nothing lost). It is very unsettling and I found it hard to get anything done today. I did go down after lunch when the rain stopped for a while and collected a small amount of water. I took the packet of red veined spinach down with me and sowed another row alongside the green which is unlikely to appear. Other than that I harvested a couple of courgettes, decided that the raspberries and peas would wait another day, and went home.

[rary]

Hello Penellype, I remember reading your that you had used strulch on your strawberries? and wondered if you would recommend it and if it was your strawberries did it help keep them clean, also when I am using a spray for my veg I add a some liquid soap to the water as I think it helps hold the spray to the plant and just to say your photos are very good but I would be better not to look at them as you put me to shame with how tidy your plot is and as said before a great read many thanks.

[Penellype]

Hello Penellype, I remember reading your that you had used strulch on your strawberries? and wondered if you would recommend it and if it was your strawberries did it help keep them clean, also when I am using a spray for my veg I add a some liquid soap to the water as I think it helps hold the spray to the plant and just to say your photos are very good but I would be better not to look at them as you put me to shame with how tidy your plot is and as said before a great read many thanks.

Yes, I use Strulch a lot as a mulch. I used to use cocoa shell, which was absolutely fabulous and miles better than anything else I have found, but unfortunately it is no longer available, probably because being made from chocolate it is poisonous to dogs. I don't have a dog...

Anyway, Strulch. I use this primarily as a weed suppressant as strawberries are devilish things to weed. I also use it on my ornamentals and pots as I get a lot of liverwort, moss and another weed that I have never been able to identify, which between them take over if I don't mulch. It is reasonably good at the job, but less so than cocoa shell. Strulch also claims to deter slugs. Its better than nothing, but in very wet weather its not great. As far as the strawberries go, it does protect them from getting gritty soil on them, although instead you get bits of straw sticking to them if it is wet. I also found that after the wet weather started the strawberries in the ground were almost all eaten by slugs. Ordinary straw will be much cheaper, and may well do the job just as well (I haven't tried it), although it will probably blow about more than Strulch, which is finely chopped.

I may try adding a little soap to the potato water, although to be fair it seems to be doing a reasonable job without. I will probably be applying more today.

Thanks for the kind comments. My plot is small as allotments go, and I usually have a fair amount of time so keeping it tidy isn't too difficult.

[Mark_Riga]

Hello Penellype, I met my daughter and grandson at the London Wetlands Centre a couple of days ago, first time since January. Walking round, a lot of your posts came to mind. The place has a lot of waterfowl but the main thing I noticed was how healthy the horsetail looked. The whole place seemed just full of weeds and horsetail in particular (and July apparently is the best time to see them), a bit like most neglected allotments that people display here.

[Penellype]

Hello Penellype, I met my daughter and grandson at the London Wetlands Centre a couple of days ago, first time since January. Walking round, a lot of your posts came to mind. The place has a lot of waterfowl but the main thing I noticed was how healthy the horsetail looked. The whole place seemed just full of weeds and horsetail in particular (and July apparently is the best time to see them), a bit like most neglected allotments that people display here.

Yes, the horsetail seems to have a massive growth spurt in July and then thankfully slows down a bit after that.

[Penellype]

Very pushed for time at the moment - let's see if I can remember what I did over the last week!

Thursday
Busy as usual and nothing got done except collecting water after a wet night and harvesting peas, raspberries and one ripe cherry.

Friday
Planted out some beetroot in the onion bed. Pulled weeds and horsetail from the raised beds. Harvested a cucumber, a few raspberries and another cherry - these seem to be splitting, probably due to the rain.

Saturday
Rain or drizzle just about all day. Collected water, harvested some baby turnips and decided everything else could wait.

Sunday
A better day. Had a good go at trimming dead leaves and fruiting stalks off the strawberries and got more than half done. I still need to decide what I am going to do with the increasing number of runners. I also weeded and dug some horsetail in the tunnel and trimmed the long bits off the hedges. Harvested raspberries, blueberries and a few redcurrants from the hedge.

Monday
As a lot of the raspberries have now finished I spent a good hour going over them cutting off any branches with no more fruit on. This revealed a reasonable amount of fruit that had been hard to see, so I picked nearly a butter tub full. I also removed yet more horsetail from along the roadside hedge. The other job I needed to get done was cut the grass, which had grown quite long. I got this done and some of the long edges before I ran out of energy. Harvested a cucumber.

Tuesday
Busy all day. Harvested a courgette and a bag of peas.

Wednesday
Seemed to get caught up in a load of stuff that presented itself to be done immediately, and nothing at all got done except watering and harvesting peas, a cucumber, a few raspberries and (probably) the last cherry. There is one more cherry but it is small and may not ripen.

[Penellype]

Thursday
Another day when nothing got done, partly because I was busy and partly because it rained most of the day. I did go down in the evening to collect the water when the rain finally stopped.

Friday
A better day weather-wise, but work remains an issue. I work part time, and there are stretches of weeks or months when very little happens, then suddenly there is loads to do. Unfortunately you can't choose when these are, and today was one of the busy times.

I escaped for nearly an hour at lunchtime and walked down to the plot, and the first thing I saw was a dead hedgehog by the hedge just a couple of feet from the pile of sticks I've put under the hedge for hedgehogs to hide in. The poor thing had probably been hit by a car

The first job was to find a home for a sack of sheep's wool which my sister gave me to compost. She has a small flock of sheep but is finding it impossible to sell the fleeces this year and has run out of storage space. I put some of it in the compost bin in small pieces as I can imagine that a big lump of it will take forever to rot down. The rest went in the black dalek in its sack, displacing the bucket of rhubarb which I put in there to force - this has now died.

I spent some time trimming long grass edges - the grass contains a lot of creeping bent which grows extremely fast and will completely take over if not kept in check. Hopefully the grass will help keep the compost bin nice and hot. I harvested a cucumber and went home for lunch and more work.

Mid afternoon there was a lull in the work and I went back and cut down some of the finished peas - there are plenty more to do. then I tidied up the tomato plants a bit and tied them in, and watered the blueberries, cherry and melons. I found that the Alvaro in the growhouse has 2 developing fruit, which was a nice surprise. I got some nets and string to support them with and tied them to the shelf rods. Harvested a baby courgette and some blueberries for tea.

[Penellype]

Saturday
Showery and damp, and with plenty of other things to do I only went to the allotment briefly to harvest cucumbers, peas and turnips.

Sunday
Less wet but rather windy. I spent a good hour cutting down finished pea plants, trimming finished fruiting stems off raspberries and pulling a few weeds. Harvested a decent tub of raspberries, some blueberries, a few redcurrants and the first few gooseberries.

Monday
It rained almost all day. All I managed to do was collect the rain water (1/2 a dustbin full) in a short dry interval early evening.

Tuesday
A better day weather-wise although rather windy again. Managed to "steal" about an hour at lunchtime from a very busy day. Collected some more rain water. Pulled out quite a few weeds from various places and plugged a gap under the fence - the people the other side have put a board across, but in one small section there was a couple of inches gap and some animal (probably cat) was clearly digging to squeeze under.

I'd brought some canes with me and put up an extra tripod for the beans among the rhubarb with a pole connecting it to the original support and tied a long bean shoot to it that was thrashing about in the wind. There are other branches growing in that direction too so hopefully I can train them to grow along the pole and the beans will hang down for me to pick. I was not amused to see that (as well as shredding my geraniums at home) the wind was blowing the flowers off the beans complete with their stalks and breaking the potato stems.The weather this year seems determined to disrupt everything.

I ran out of time and had to hurry home after giving the melons some water.

Wednesday
The best laid plans... The best description of today is probably AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

The forecast was for fine weather, and although I had an appointment this afternoon I had planned to spend a good chunk of the morning at the allotment. that plan lasted until approximately 5.45am when I logged into the work email having got up early to get a few jobs out of the way. The normal overnight email usually consists of a couple of queries from Australian customers at most, so I was alarmed to see 24 emails in the inbox. Without going into details this effectively meant that our software was broken by a relied-on 3rd party for the 3rd time in about 6 weeks and the 2nd time in 5 days. Customers were understandably not happy, and I spent the morning replying to emails and alerting people who could actually get the thing fixed. My schedule originally involved fitting about 5 hours work into 8 hours, and this rapidly became 5 hours into 3, and the gardening time was gone.I didn't even have time to notice the weather, but I did see that the sun was out while grabbing a quick bite of lunch. I ditched any ideas of a coffee and dashed outside to mow the lawns instead. I then sat down to prepare notes for my appointment at 2pm.

He was 20 minutes early, I was not properly prepared and my head was all over the place when I needed to be thinking straight. I managed with difficulty to remember that I had to keep 2m apart - not easy when you are trying to look at plans etc. Some important questions didn't get asked, but I will have to trust that all will be ok.

While squeezing the lawn mower past the rack of drying onions in the garage, I noticed that a couple looked a bit strange. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on them for white rot, but this was at the top of the onion and was a sort of brown, sandy deposit. After the man had gone I went to have another look. The onions were full of maggots. There had been no sign of this when I harvested them, and the few that I cut bits of white rot off, peeled and kept n the kitchen didn't have them. I didn't have time to inspect all of them, but put the worst affected ones in the hotbin. Later, when the havoc had finally died down a little, I went back and inspected the onions. Every single one had either maggots in or on, or holes in. This looks like onion fly, I think. The question is, where has it come from? The onions were grown under enviromesh and transferred straight to the garage. I've never had onion fly at home or at the allotment before, although I have had leek moth (I think). This does not look the same - the leek moth ate the leaves, these have gone straight for the necks of the bulbs and the bulbs themselves. I decided to have another look when I had been to the stables and see if I could cut off and salvage anything.

This evening, with a recycling bin of leylandii clippings to go out, I couldn't face maggoty onions. I decided to chuck the whole lot in the bin and have done with it. As I cleared them up I found pupae and cases all over the floor in the garage. No doubt there will be plenty of survivors for future infestations.

I have had just about enough of maggots. Various different ones are in the raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, apples, turnips and peas so far, and now its the onions. Right now I feel like giving up.

[Ms-T]

Sorry to hear about work ...more sorry about the onions..a little ((hug))) no more talk about giving up..your more then a few maggots...x

[Penellype]

Thanks Ms-T. I won't give up - what would I eat if I did? I just didn't need that after the day I'd had. I also don't really know what more I can do to prevent onion fly - the bed was covered with insect mesh from the point when I planted the onions until I harvested them, firstly to keep birds and cats off and then to prevent allium leaf miner or leek moth which ate some of the leaves last year (when I covered the onions with bird netting). I'm completely stumped.

[Nicos]

Sorry to hear about your day...I suppose we need days like that to really appreciate when things go well?

My father used to say something like that....and in retrospect I think he was right.

Can't advise re the maggots though...sorry.

Hopefully things will improve soon -you are such a successful gardener (normally!!!) I'm sure they will