Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

The view from the door of the tunnel, rather tricky to photograph looking into the sun. The cucumbers are looking happy in the middle and the newly planted peas are starting to grow. The strawberries on the left are Marshmello (last year's runners), which usually do well, but have produced a lot of runners and not much fruit this year, and some have got mildew.



The view from the other end, with the leeks and beetroot rather more visible. The Lady C potatoes near the door are about ready to harvest.



These strawberries have done very well - they are an unknown variety that was already at the plot and were grown from runners that had rooted last year. Unfortunately they don't have as good a texture as Marshmello, tending to be a bit soft, but they taste good.



The blueberries in their new fruit cage. I'm rather pleased with the way this had turned out. I may even try to construct something similar over the raspberries if the birds carry on pinching the fruit.



The next door plot. I wish he would dig up his field of horsetail - it really isn't helping my efforts to eradicate the stuff!

[Penellype]

Yesterday was another very pleasant day, although less sunny than forecast.

The first job was to have a look at the raspberries to see if the birds were still eating them. There were the remains of a few fruit on the floor and a couple of damaged ones, so yes, they are eating them. This poses a problem - its all very well trying to net them, but to build a fruit cage over them is expensive, it makes harvesting harder, and later in the year the new canes will very probably grow too tall and get stuck in the netting. I decided to try old fashioned black cotton to see if that makes any difference. I found a couple of long stakes and tied them to the existing uprights (they are not very secure, but hopefully will do) and wound several strands of cotton between them. This covers half the crop and if it seems to be working I will do the same for the other half. I've had some success with protecting pea seedlings this way so it could possibly help.

Next I dug up some horsetail shoots along the path between the raised beds and the tunnel and pulled out a few bits elsewhere. Plenty more where that came from.

By this time it was lunch time so I harvested a small beetroot, a few peas, some ripe strawberries and a 3 inch baby cucumber for lunch. There were 2 quite large courgettes so I harvested those too. I haven't a use for them at the moment, but a lady from one of the houses on the way home puts a table of produce and plants out in front of her house with a collection box for a local charity and I asked her the other day if she would like excess produce from my allotment. She said yes please, so the courgettes went on her table. I suspect she will be getting some runner beans a bit later on.

I was back in the afternoon. One of the buckets of Maris Bard potatoes had completely died down (see photo above) so I decided to harvest it. These had been planted in half rotted compost that had been made on the plot and I was expecting it to contain all sorts of weeds including invasive grass and horsetail, but surprisingly there have been very few annual weeds, and no grass or horsetail in the buckets. There were 1.5kg of new potatoes from 2 seed potatoes I think - one of the buckets at the allotment had 2 and the other had 3.

The last job was to plant out 1 calabrese and 3 brokali seedlings in the tunnel. I dug out a few horsetail shoots then forked in some bfb and spread out the compost from the potatoes I'd just harvested, plus that from one of the buckets of Lady C harvested last week, then planted the brassicas through that. Each plant got a copper ring (from the turnips I'd removed the other day) and I also planted some marigolds in amongst. Then I sprinkled slug gone round the lot. Hopefully that will keep weeds and slugs to a minimum at least until the plants are big enough to cope. I then watered these and all the plants in pots plus the melons. I've already used well over a bin full of the rain from last week.

On the way out I picked a few redcurrants from a bush that grows in the hawthorn hedge. Redcurrants are not my favourite, but I'm happy to have a few if they are going to grow where I can't use the ground for anything else.

[Penellype]

Yesterday I had planned to cut the grass while it was dry, but things didn't go to plan. It was still fairly early when I heard the sound of a hedge trimmer and realized that the neighbour at the back was cutting their side of the hedge. They also do the top (its their hedge) and inevitably this makes a mess on my side. I'd been thinking I could do with cutting the hedge anyway, and clearing up one lot of leylandii trimmings is vastly preferable to doing it twice, so I abandoned grass cutting in favour of hedge trimming.

While I was waiting for the trimmer battery to charge I went to the plot and removed the last 2 cauliflowers which were starting to bolt. There were some edible bits on one of them and I cut these off and took them home. The black cotton seems to be keeping the birds off the raspberries (touch wood!).

After I'd cut the hedge I went back with 3 tomato plants and planted them in the bed where the cauliflowers had been. I can't net them as they will soon be too tall, so I put a piece of netting and some bits of plastic path on the bed to keep the birds and cats off. I then pulled out some horsetail and bindweed from under the roadside hedge, but soon ran out of time. I watered everything and harvested a courgette, some peas and some raspberries and went home.

[Penellype]

Nothing doing on Thursday except a quick trip to water everything and harvest the ripe strawberries and raspberries.

More time yesterday and the most important job was to cut the grass. I went down in the morning and went round the whole grass path pulling out horsetail. I like to do this before I cut the grass so that the minimum amount of horsetail ends up in the compost, but the path between my allotment and the one next to it is now so full of horsetail that it is impossible to make any impression on it. I did my best, but the horsetail is pushing its way into the raised beds and raspberry bed (which I dug so carefully to remove every scrap before planting) and I found it hard not to feel that the whole thing was a hopeless waste of time.

This feeling was not improved by finding that the birds had been at the raspberries again. There was less damage in the section that I had put cotton round so I found another long stake and tied cotton round the remainder. I also tied up the floppy branches so that they were nearer the cotton. Its not very secure and the whole thing will probably come down if ti gets windy, but I don't know what else to do at the moment.

The grass was still too wet to cut after a heavy dew so I decided to take the trugs of horsetail, the cauliflower roots and the large cardboard tube that the fruit cage poles came in to the tip. On my way out I harvested a lettuce and a small cucumber for lunch.

By the afternoon most of the grass was dry enough to cut, so I got that job done having mowed the lawns at home as well. Then I picked some raspberries, peas (the Meteor have now nearly finished) and a handful of french beans for tea as well as a huge beetroot from the hotbed for my friend. I watered all the pots and recent plantings - the water is going down really fast again, but we are due some rain mid week which should take the pressure off a bit so I am not taking any extra down with me yet.

[Atta]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]87766[/ATTACH]

The next door plot. I wish he would dig up his field of horsetail - it really isn't helping my efforts to eradicate the stuff!

I thought I have a problem .Thats so frustraiting there must be a incredible amount of roots undersurface.

I love reading your thread all is so tidy and well organized.

[Penellype]

I think it is getting to the point where I will have to dig up the grass path next to his allotment, but I'd rather wait until he has cleared his field of horsetail first. Hi did dig some more of it up on Thursday, its just a pain that he has started at the other end.

[Penellype]

A busy weekend, as usual.

On Saturday I decided to check the hedges, intending to remove a few long bits of bramble and some nettles, but when I had a good look I found it was a bit more complicated than that. The hawthorn hedge was easy as there were just the brambles and a few long bits, but the west hedge has a lot of leylandii in it and it definitely needed a trim. There were also a lot of nettles at the road end hiding quite a bit of horsetail. I did the hawthorn first, then attacked the nettles and horsetail, and finally started on the leylandii. Anyone who has tried to cut a 20ft long hedge consisting of a mixture of laylndii, hawthorn, blackthorn, ash and elderberry with a pair of blunt secateurs that have a spring that keeps flying out will understand that it took quite a while to get not very far! By 2pm I had had enough for the moment and picked some currants and a few raspberries, noting that quite a few of the raspberries were damaged by birds. I decided I would have to make a net.

The problem was that I didn't have much time. I couldn't get back to the plot until around 5pm and I was going out for dinner and had to collect some friends at 6.45, and there was watering to do. I flung some water about quickly then used 6 long poles that I had brought down with me that I often use to make covers for the potatoes in the spring, and some bits of butterfly net to construct a makeshift net fence about 4ft high. I then pinched the net off the onions (which was only there to stop the birds digging the onions up when they were small) and put it over the top. It is a decent length as it is an old fruit cage net (the same as the one over the blueberries), so most of the raspberry bushes were covered. I had to try to cobble the thing together with bits of string, and there were still gaps, but I had run out of time and had to dash home.

Sunday was a bit less tight for time and I managed to fill in some of the gaps in the net, which does seem to have kept the birds off the fruit (they are now stealing the blackcurrants, but I am less bothered about that). I then attacked the remainder of the leylandii, with the aid of my loppers, which helped with the higher bits.

Hedges done, I started on the grass edges, which had got quite long in places. I got about half of this done, as well as removing some dead rhubarb leaves, weeds and quite a bit of horsetail. Once my knees had had enough I removed the first lot of Meteor peas, harvesting the few that remained. A couple of these had pea moth grubs in - I hope this doesn't mean that the main crop of Hurst Greenshaft will be full of them.

I also harvested a courgette and a few strawberries, watered everything and went home.

Today was much less fraught and I had plenty of time to get on with things. I wanted to get the PSB planted out as they were starting to look miserable in their pots (brassicas do this sometimes, the leaves go brown and wilty and the plants just curl up and die). I cleared the bottom end of the tunnel of various bits of stuff (weed matting, bricks, bucket for catching water, spare shelf, gooseberry bush, weeds and slugs) and dug out the bits of horsetail I could see. I then forked in some bfb and mulched the area with some compost, planted the 2 best plants there and gave each a copper ring, a sprinkling of slug gone and some water. They also have some marigolds for company to hopefully ward off whitefly. If they want to curl up and die I can't stop them, but hopefully they have a good chance of survival.

One of the other 2 plants looked beyond help, but the other might survive so I planted it in the middle of the tunnel. I then weeded all the planted areas of the tunnel, dug out some horsetail and trimmed dead leaves and finished fruiting stems off the strawberries. There are a lot of runners and I am rooting some in the soil so I arranged them where they will not get trodden on.

I'd noticed during my weeding that the cucumbers have about doubled in size since I last looked and there are several that are big enough to eat. I harvested one and went home for lunch.

After lunch I was back, and planted 3 french bean plants that I had taken down yesterday in the hotbed where the lettuces had been. I then set about trimming the rest of the grass edges and long bits, which were now dry enough to cut.

Next job was to harvest the 2 buckets of Lady C potatoes in the tunnel, which had died down. There was a decent bagful of potatoes, which I weighed later - 3.25kg from a total of 4 seed potatoes. I took these home along with some strawberries and a few french beans for tea.

Finally I went back to water and weeded the raised beds. There is still some horsetail to come out of them, but I had run out of time. I picked a few blackcurrants, ate the ripest raspberries and went home.

[geepee]

Great to see your continued commitment , pleased to hear you are taking time out for social events......all work no play etc ...!!!!
Gp

[Penellype]

I was hoping for another dry day yesterday but it was cloudy and damp with drizzly rain at times. I was quite surprised how much water had collected in the trays over night.

The day's job was to remove horsetail from the raised beds and the paths in the tunnel. I got most of this done in the morning, although it is nearly impossible to get the stuff out from amongst the peas. There is also a good deal of it growing in the hawthorn hedge, and I need another session on the road side soon. I do feel that I have nearly caught up with it now though (apart from in the grass). I harvested a cucumber for lunch - these are growing fast now.

In the afternoon I had another go at the strawberries in the tunnel, trimming off dead leaves and excess runners. There is always a lot of this to do. I then harvested a few blackcurrants, some raspberries and about half a bucketful of peas to take home and freeze. I'm having to do things in batches because the fruit needs open freezing on plates, and there are also huge quantities of white currants from the bush at home. This is why I spent ages defrosting the freezers not long ago.

Finally I watered everything in pots and removed some sideshoots from the tomatoes.

[Penellype]

With thundery showers forecast for today, I wanted to get on with things yesterday. I took down some bottles of feed - ericaceous for the blueberries (the new bush looks in need of something) and tomato feed for the tomatoes and melons. The melons have loads of flowers, mostly male but the odd one is female, although I have not yet managed to see one of those open. A couple look to have not been pollinated so I need to try to do it with a paintbrush.

There was a little water from overnight rain in the trays, which I collected. I then decided to set about the horsetail on the road side of the hedge. This has grown a lot since I last pulled it out, but in comparison to next door's hedge there is much less of it - probably less than half. The job was made more difficult by the fact that the council have not yet cut the hedge so I was fighting long hawthorn shoots. Some of the horsetail was simply out of reach and I had to leave it, but I got most of it. I also removed a disgusting amount of litter from the hedge. Littering is something I strongly object to, and there is absolutely no excuse for it outside my allotment when there is a litter bin next to the bus stop.

By the time I had done that my back had had enough of bending down. I harvested a few ripe strawberries and a cucumber and went home to make a start on cleaning out the garage (which I like to do in the summer when it is not full of buckets of compost) - at least that is a job I can do upright!

I went back in the afternoon to harvest some more blackcurrants and raspberries (plenty of ripe fruit now that the birds can only get at the ones poking through the net) and some french beans for tea.

[Penellype]

The forecast yesterday was for heavy showers and thunderstorms, so I'd planned to spend most of the day at home. I went down to the plot early to collect rain water (very little) and picked a load of peas, a few blackcurrants and raspberries and a cucumber for lunch. I pulled out the odd weed as I did so.

There wasn't any rain at all, so I went back in the evening to water everything, and harvested the 2nd bucket of Maris Bard potatoes. Quite a few of the potatoes had slug holes in, which was disappointing as potatoes grown in buckets normally avoid slug attack.

[Penellype]

No time for anything much yesterday but I did harvest some raspberries, peas, a couple of beetroot, a courgette and a few french beans for various members of my family.

I was back in the evening to water, as the forecast showers had yet again just missed the village (although we did get a brief one later on). I also found 2 open female melon flowers and did my best to pollinate them with a paint brush.

[Penellype]

Another busy weekend.

The first thing I noticed when I went to collect the rain water on Saturday morning was that the man next door had dug up the horsetail along the plot boundary .

As always Saturday morning was spent at the stables, but I was back after lunch with weeding on the agenda. When I planted the brassicas in the tunnel I mulched them with compost from the potato buckets. Some of these were planted in rotted horse muck, but some were in home made compost and I thought I had only used the horse muck. However I had clearly mulched the brokali with home made compost, and hundreds of tiny weed seedlings are emerging. As an attempt to keep the weeds down this is much worse than useless, and one of my more stupid ideas! I spent about an hour removing as many weed seedlings as I could, until my back had had enough. I then harvested a bagful of peas, some raspberries, strawberries and blackcurrants and went home to start freezing them.

The weekend was supposed to be dry, so I went back in the evening to water everything. However, on Saturday night we had over 7mm rain, which was welcome from the point of view of watering things and filling up the water bins, but some warning of this would have been helpful! I'd planned to cut the front hedge at home on Sunday but of course it was far too wet.

Sunday gradually turned into a lovely day and I did another session of weeding the brokali. There is still more to do but I am making an impression on it. I also pulled out various bits of horsetail that were appearing in the raised beds and among the raspberries, and rearranged the raspberry net using the piece of butterfly mesh that was covering the courgettes (now big enough not to be dug up by birds). I then spent some time trimming old fruiting stems and dead leaves off the strawberries, which have mostly finished fruiting.

The Nicola potatoes are dying down fast so I harvested a bucket of these (2kg of nice potatoes). I was relieved to find that unlike the Maris Bard, there was no slug damage. I also harvested yet more peas and a couple of small courgettes. The peas are increasingly suffering from pea moth although there are still plenty of undamaged ones. I didn't have a problem with this at all last year, when I grew nasturtiums nearby, but that may just be a coincidence. I'm growing the last lot of peas (Terrain) in the tunnel, so it will be interesting to see if the net keeps the moths off. If it does I will grow more of the peas in the tunnel next year.

[Penellype]

Another lovely sunny day yesterday although it did start to get a bit hot for anything energetic.

I went down in the morning and set about removing more of the weeds from around the brokali. About 2/3 of the area is now done, but because things are growing elsewhere I couldn't get it finished. I went round the rest of the tunnel digging out horsetail and removing annual weeds - again I didn't quite finish this job before my back had had enough. I harvested a lettuce that had somehow grown much later than the others in the hotbed, a beetroot and a cucumber for lunch and went home.

I'd intended to cut the front leylandii hedge at home this afternoon, but it was so hot and sunny that I decided against. I therefore spent the time doing little jobs at home - there were a surprising amount of these and I got the lawns mowed and the white currants harvested - these are really awkward to get at because some are behind the apple tree. I then went back to the plot to water everything and pick some raspberries and a few redcurrants from the hedge. The raspberries are loving the sunshine and I picked a whole 1 litre ice cream tub full. There are plenty more that are nearly ripe. One or two are just beginning to show signs of raspberry beetle damage, which was a problem last year. Nothing I can do about this unfortunately.

[Penellype]

Very warm again yesterday. In the morning I spent well over an hour clearing the remainder of the weeds from the brokali and the rest of the tunnel, which is now as near as I can get it clear of weeds (it won't stay that way for long!). I'd intended to go back after a coffee and do more weeding, but work intervened.

In the afternoon I went round the grass areas pulling out as much horsetail as I could (this is definitely a losing battle) then I cut the grass. I will just have to hope that the bits of horsetail I missed won't start growing in the compost bin.

Having done that I harvested another bucket of Nicola potatoes which yielded an almost identical amount to the previous one (2.05kg). These yields are well down on last year, probably because the plants got nipped by frost in May. This doesn't matter - I still have loads of mashed potato from last year's huge crop in the freezer.

Before I went home I picked some raspberries and a bagful of peas and watered everything. I now have 4 empty dustbins but rain is forecast soon so I am not panicking yet.

Preparation for tea stretched my tolerance to the limit. First I dug slug holes out of potatoes (the Maris Bard I harvested the other day), then I sorted the raspberries removing the ones with raspberry beetle damage. I then shelled the bag of peas, encountering several pea moth caterpillars, and finally having picked some strawberries and framberries from the fruit cage I had to deal with tortrix moth grubs. Across the road a neighbour was having a Tesco delivery and the thought briefly crossed my mind that it would be much pleasanter to simply buy the stuff! Fresh peas and framberries from Tesco? Maybe not.