Penellype's Allotment

[Snadger]

Hi penellype

I love to follow your gardening exploits. I would say a lot more but the site is coming up as 'Not secure' on my Chromebook so I have to go. Keep up the good work.

TTFN

[Penellype]

Thanks for the kind words Snadger. Yes, its coming up as not secure for me too.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty grotty weather-wise, cold, wet and windy. I did the bare minimum on Saturday, pulled a bit of horsetail out of the raised beds and harvested peas, strawberries and spinach on Sunday, and that was all.

Monday was a bit better, and I spent a while trimming bits off the hedge and cutting back nettles and pulling weeds and horsetail from the hedge bottom. I also harvested more peas and some of the Lady C new potatoes. However, I felt very limited by the threat of a cold and potentially frosty night. Several plants were desperate for planting but they had to spend another night under cover. I was going to get the fleece out and cover everything up, but it was fairly warm and when I checked the dew point in the evening it was steady at around 5 degrees. It is not possible for the temperature to drop below the dew point, although the dew point can go lower, but I decided to chance it and leave the fleece in its box. I was right - the temperature didn't drop below 7 all night.

Today was all about getting things planted out. I started with the runner beans, which were in danger of climbing up each other in the growhouse. I've had dreadful problems with runner beans this year. I grow Stardust (white flowers) at the allotment and a mixture of Stardust and Firestorm at my friend's and I sow them 2 to a pot in the propagator at home. 3 pots for the allotment and 3 of each for my friend. So I sowed 18 beans and 6 germinated, all of them Stardust. I'd finished the packet of Firestorm, so I sowed another 3 pots of Stardust, finishing those. Only 1 germinated. I now had 7 pots with 1 plant in each instead of 9 with 2 plants each. In desperation I went to the garden centre and bought a packet of Galaxy (red flowers) and put 8 seeds to chit on damp kitchen paper. After a few days all that had appeared was some green mould, although later one bean did produce a root. I sowed 4 more seeds in pots, one of which seems to be germinating, so after attempting to grow 36 seeds I have 7 plants and 2 that look as though they might possibly grow! Anyway, I planted the 3 Stardust at the allotment and put copper mesh round the plants and canes and sprinkled slug gone round them, as the last thing I need now is a slug or snail to chop them off at ground level.

Next up were the dwarf french beans - these have done marginally better than the runners in that I have 3 plants from 6 seeds (plus more at home). I planted these in the melon bed, in the gap between the back of the growhouse and the edge of the raised bed. They did well here last year. Then I dug some bits of horsetail that had appeared in the tunnel, and planted a cabbage and a calabrese, but the 3 orange cauliflowers that I was interested to try have pretty much given up the ghost as cauliflowers tend to. One day they look perfectly healthy, the next a leaf is going brown and wilty, and they slowly curl up and die. I have no idea what I am doing wrong - the cauliflower plants that I buy as plugs in the spring look just the same when they arrive, but they grow quite happily when treated exactly the same. finally I planted out the melon Emir in the hotbed where the carrots were. I put a section of small blowaway greenhouse with a wire shelf on over the plant and tied it loosely with string to train it to grow through the shelf, then used the frame of the cover to anchor a piece of plastic to make an open-ended tunnel for a bit of protection. I couldn't use the original cover because the spinach, which is bolting, is too tall.

By this time I was getting rather hot as the sun was out, so I ate a couple of strawberries and the first ripe raspberry and went home for lunch. I did a bit more planting out at home, then went back to the allotment to harvest some of the spinach for tea.

[Snadger]

Hi Penellype, I too have had problems with runner bean germination. I have barely enough planted out along my runner bean canes. I bought two packets online and only one arrived. I complained and had my full payment returned. I planted the one packet I had received but not one of them germinated.....bummer.
Luckily I have had more joy with my climbing French beans and have enough for my bean wigwam, plus some extras to beef up the runner bean rows.

[Penellype]

Hi Penellype, I too have had problems with runner bean germination. I have barely enough planted out along my runner bean canes. I bought two packets online and only one arrived. I complained and had my full payment returned. I planted the one packet I had received but not one of them germinated.....bummer.
Luckily I have had more joy with my climbing French beans and have enough for my bean wigwam, plus some extras to beef up the runner bean rows.

I tried climbing french beans when the first lot of runners did badly, but the seeds were old and none of them germinated.

[Penellype]

As the forum seems to be working today (I couldn't get onto it at all yesterday morning) I thought I'd better update this thread while can still sort of remember what I did.

Wednesday
Water to collect from over night rain and I was down early enough to scoop up an extra half a bucketful from the puddles. Whether I will look back on this as a waste of time as the rain continues to come down and all my storage becomes full anyway remains to be seen. As the forecast amounts of rain seem to be totally unreliable at the moment my policy is to collect water when it is there, for tomorrow may be dry. The water I scoop out of the puddles is muddy so that has a separate dustbin from the rest, and just in case it is on the alkaline side (unlikely) I don't use that bin for the blueberries.

Puzzlingly the strawberry tower in the tunnel had fallen over during the night. I wasn't aware that it was windy on Tuesday night and the base of the tower was weighed down by 2 bricks. It can't have been knocked over by a cat or large wildlife in the tunnel so it remains a complete mystery. I moved it closer to the pole in the centre of the tunnel and tied it on with a piece of string, which should prevent this happening again.

It was a cold and showery day, so apart from watering the melons and tomatoes that are under cover, collecting more water in the evening and harvesting a few ripe strawberries and a bag of spinach I didn't get any gardening done.

Thursday
A lot more water to collect from the bin lids and trays, but the puddles had dried by morning this time. Unfortunately the morning was dry and the afternoon threatening to be showery, and I was busy all morning, so all that got done at the allotment was harvesting peas, spinach and cauliflower plus a couple of ripe raspberries. I did manage to get the lawns cut at home as they had dried in the wind, which was a bonus.

This is the time of year when reality starts to sink in. My little minarette cherry tree had loads of blossom and quite a few fruit developed, but these are not turning into the nice, fat cherries that I imagined they would. Many of them have shrivelled up, and the ones that haven't are small and look likely to be mostly stone, while the tree on the next door plot (a year older than mine) has some nice big fruit that are turning red. I think I need to bite the bullet and plant the tree in the soil (which means deciding exactly where I want it), as it is clearly not happy in its 30 litre bucket despite being fed twice and watered every day.

Similarly, having harvested 2 perfect baby cauliflowers from buckets at home, I expected more of the same from the allotment. But when I cut the biggest cauliflower and removed the leaves it was clear that it had been nibbled extensively by slugs. When I got it home I soaked it upside down in a bowl of water (which I have found makes the slugs come out) and removed 5 largish slugs. This is despite my usual protections of a copper ring and slug gone on the soil at planting time. I think the problem here is that at no point during the spring was the weather suitable for the usual application of nematodes. They need a temperature of 5 degrees plus, so March is too early, and they can't be applied in strong sunshine which ruled out April and May. Even if I had managed to find a cloudy day, the soil has to be kept damp over the whole area for weeks, which is impossible at the allotment in a drought. I didn't even bother ordering any, so the slugs have come out in force as soon as it has rained. I have ordered nematodes now, but it feels very much like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

On the plus side I have a huge crop of Meteor peas, the spinach has been superb (although it is bolting now) and the raspberry canes are bent over with the weight of fruit, which hopefully will not rot before it ripens in all this rain. More of these are starting to turn red now, and another 2 fruits were ripe enough to eat.

[Penellype]

Saturday
It rained hard on Friday night so there was plenty of water to collect, including scooping up 2 full buckets worth off the weed matting. I have now refilled almost all except one of the bins, although there is still space in the water butt and the blue barrel is only about 1/3 full. Unsurprisingly, everything was thoroughly wet, and although it had stopped raining all that got done was some harvesting of spinach, cauliflower, peas and strawberries.

Sunday
No more rain. Showers had been forecast but we didn't get one, and after a cloudy morning it developed into a sunny afternoon, although very warm and humid.

I needed to take down the last of the melon plants - this was the Magenta that I'd run out of seeds for, and had to wait 2 weeks for more to arrive. This wanted to go in the growhouse, so I had to plant out the 4 tomato plants, but first their bed needed preparing, so I set about this first thing in the morning, before I went to the stables. This was the bed nearest the road, which has been covered with weed matting since last autumn which has only been lifted to dig out horsetail from time to time. I was hopeful that there wouldn't be much horsetail, but there was a surprising amount, so I spent quite a while digging it out. By the time I had planted the tomatoes I was rather later than I had planned so I didn't have time to stake them.

After a morning at the stables (weeding and planting runner beans) I came back to finish the job and banged in some sturdy wooden stakes as these tomatoes are Oh Happy Day and Ferline, both of which are capable of producing huge trusses of large tomatoes which bamboo canes are nowhere near strong enough to support. I'd brought the melon plant down with me this time and put it in the growhouse, but as it had come straight out of the house I thought it best not to plant it yet. I decided to remove the plastic sheet I had used to cover the melon plant in the hotbed though - this one is Emir, which is supposed to grow outside.

Other than that, I picked more strawberries and spinach and half a butter tub of raspberries. These were the first to make it back to the house, but I noticed that the birds are helping themselves to some of the ripe fruit. This happened last year and I put up a net, but all that did was make it difficult for me to pick the fruit. The result was that over ripe and damaged fruit was left on the canes and the wasps moved in, which made me even more reluctant to try to pick the fruit. Given a choice between wasps and birds I will have birds any day, so I am going to try to avoid nets this year.

I went back in the evening to take down a tray of beetroot and water the melons.

Monday
Another warm, humid but dry day with a cloudy morning but sunny afternoon. I went down in the morning and removed weeds and horsetail from all the beds and paths outside the tunnel. I was hoping to cut the grass but it was very wet. I picked a large bag of peas (quite a few of which went in the freezer) and a small beetroot for lunch and ate a few raspberries.

I went back mid afternoon and decided the grass would have to be dry enough to cut as it was getting quite long in places - it was really still too wet for my little mower but I managed it. I then harvested another cauliflower (complete with resident slugs) and some Lady C potatoes. The potato foliage is going yellow and the plants have not grown anywhere near as tall as the ones I have at home, but the bucket I am pulling potatoes out of seems to have produced a decent crop. In contrast the plants in the buckets of Desiree (in the same raised bed) are about twice the size and are now in flower, and look dark green and healthy. I don't really mind what they look like as long as they produce something to eat, but the difference s striking. The Lady C were grown in the rotted horse manure that came out of the old hotbed, while the Desiree were grown in home made compost, which might have something to do with it.

[Snadger]

Strange that, my maincrop Elfe grown from supermarket potatoes are romping away, whereas my Charlotte earlies grown from seed potatoes have sickly looking weak foliage.

[Penellype]

I would blame it on the frost, but actually the Desiree were already bigger than the Lady C when the cold nights arrived. The Charlotte I planted out early at home have yellowish, spotty foliage - they have been under a cloche in the sun with only limited ventilation during the day and I am wondering if they actually got too hot. One bucket that I harvested had a very disappointing crop, but the leaves were completely yellow, The Charlottte I have on the raised bed (90% shade) are romping away and showing few signs of spotty foliage (there is usually some by now). The Lady C were at the back of the covered area at the allotment, so still in a half greenhouse during some of the hot weather (I eventually removed the cover altogether) whereas the Desiree were at the front so may have been less hot.

[Penellype]

Tuesday
Royal Ascot this week, which ties up the afternoons as far as the allotment is concerned, partly because it increases my work load and partly because I like to watch the races! This year it starts earlier than usual (1.15 rather than 2.30), presumably because there is no Royal carriage procession to get through first.

Having cut the grass on Monday there were the usual long bits at the edges to cut. Due to the humidity these were very wet in the morning so I concentrated on the bits that were thinnest and therefore dried out quickest, which is mainly along the edges of the path that runs alongside the roadside hedge. While I was at it I pulled/dug out as much horsetail and couch grass (and a little convolvulus) as I could and cut back the nettles and brambles. I then trimmed off all the little bits of new growth that were poking out of both hedges.

I also cut down some more of the spinach, the leaves of which are still very nice, but getting much smaller as it bolts. A cauliflower, more peas, a tub of raspberries and some strawberries completed the harvest.

The thundery showers missed us so I went back to water the plants in pots in the evening.

Wednesday
The nematodes I had ordered arrived on Tuesday. With the soil still damp, a cloudy day forecast (the sun did actually come out in the afternoon) and rain forecast over night it was a perfect morning to apply them. These were slightly different from the nematodes I normally buy - they don't require storing in the fridge and they come in a compostable tea bag type thing which you put in water and stir for a couple of minutes to release the nematodes. The carrier material stays in the tea bag which means it avoids the problem I've had in the past of it blocking the watering can rose. These cover the same area (40 sq m) but helpfully use half the amount of water although they are a bit more expensive. I went down first thing and got on with it, in the process harvesting the last of the 4 cauliflowers from the bed that is also growing parsnips, digging up the stumps and planting out the beetroot there. This was desperate for planting - I had been going to put it in the tunnel, but the earlier lot in there has a bad infestation of beet leaf miner so I wanted to put it somewhere else.

I went back at lunchtime and cut back some more grass edges and also weeded under the fence. I'd put weed matting alongside the fence which keeps most of it down but there was some horsetail, couch grass and creeping thistle coming in from the garden behind. Creeping thistle is bad news - it is a persistent perennial weed with extremely fragile roots and painfully prickly to handle. I haven't seen it at the allotment before (although I spent 2 years removing it from my friend's veg patch) but it is definitely slowly invading from behind the fence.

I harvested more peas, raspberries (already enough to start freezing some) and strawberries, and cut down some more of the spinach. We again avoided the thunderstorms (much to my relief as I hate them), so I went back in the evening to water the thirstiest plants.

Thursday
The forecast overnight rain was late, but was clearly about to arrive when I looked at the radar at about 6.30am. As it was clearly a slow moving mass of very wet weather I decided to go straight to the allotment and harvest peas, new potatoes, raspberries and strawberries before it became unpleasantly wet. The first batch of Meteor peas are almost finished now and are going to be entertaining to remove as the "dwarf" nasturtiums (Tom Thumb) that I planted in front of them to deter pea moth (no pea moth yet) are climbing the supports and in places are as tall as the peas! I think I will have to cut the nasturtiums back, as the plan is to plant late peas (Terrain) here after the Meteor. I also harvested 2 baby cauliflowers that were growing as sideshoots on the bigger plants. I really am inundated with the things (still 11 plants left plus any more baby ones) at the moment and they grow at the most incredible rate.

It rained for the rest of the day and was still drizzling at 7pm when I stopped on the way back from the stables to collect the water. So much for "rain before 7 fine before 11" - which is a well known and fairly accurate weather lore but only applies to frontal rain bands approaching from the west, not slow moving low pressure systems invading from the east! The accumulated water almost replaced what I'd used for the nematodes and this week's watering.

[Penellype]

Urrgh - problems at work arrived on Friday afternoon and annihilated most of the weekend and yesterday.

Friday
What happened on Friday? I think it rained over night and I went and collected a reasonable amount of water. The tunnel was growing large numbers of weeds and horsetail so I spent some time in there weeding it. The afternoon was showery so not a lot else got done apart from harvesting spinach (while cutting down some of the bolting plants), cauliflower, peas, raspberries and strawberries. Collected water again in the evening.

Saturday
A blur, mainly because worrying about what to do regarding the problem at work (small company of very few people, major disaster with software, no obvious way to fix) kept me awake all night. I know I dashed to the allotment first thing to cut a cauliflower and pick some raspberries for my friend, and having delivered them I didn't stay to do her garden. I think much of the rest of the day was spent on Skype. A pity because it was a fine day and I could have done with getting stuff done in the garden.

Sunday
My friend's garden got weeded and the self watering trays filled in the greenhouse. Called in at the allotment to pick raspberries, strawberries, peas and spinach, plus another cauliflower (these have upto 4 baby cauliflowers growing as sideshoots) and cut down some more of the spinach. Spent most of the rest of the day sorting, cooking and freezing what I had picked.

Monday
More havoc at work and another busy day on Skype. Managed to escape to the allotment at lunchtime, taking 3 french bean plants with me. Removed a few rogue weeds from the tunnel and planted the first lot of leeks (Oarsman), which have grown to a decent size, although not quite pencil thickness. Also planted 2 of the 3 romanesco plants (waiting for cauliflowers to be eaten for the 3rd, which is smaller anyway) and some african marigolds nearby in the hope of possibly deterring the whitefly which are already infesting the plants. Time for some potato water when I get a chance.
I'd made a rather stupid mistake when planting the turnips, which I was desperate to get planted. I'd avoided the tunnel because there was some cabbage root fly in there so I'd decided to plant them at either end of the courgette bed, which was covered with a net. The turnips are nowhere near ready and the courgettes are now starting to flower, so I had to find a piece of netting that would cover one end of the bed and use the existing net for the other end.
Most of the rest of the time was spent cutting the grass edge of the path between the allotments and attempting to separate out as much of the abundant horsetail as I could so it didn't go in the compost. Not my favourite job, and more to do.

Harvested beetroot, spinach, peas, yet another cauliflower and more raspberries and strawberries. One of the few reasonably sized cherries is turning red

Tuesday
Again managed to escape at lunchtime for more grass trimming and horsetail sifting (still more to do) - normally all the grass and horsetail mix would go to the tip, but I can't go yet. Cut down about half the remaining spinach and harvested peas, raspberries, strawberries and a few red currants from the roadside hedge. Gave everything a good drink of water as it has got very warm. Still loads to do, but couldn't stay away from work/Skype for too long. The problem is not much nearer being solved, unfortunately, so I am likely to be pushed for time for a while yet.

[Penellype]

Wednesday
A very hot day with wall to wall sunshine. I don't cope well with anything over 25C and it was already nearly that early in the morning. I went down as soon as I could and harvested raspberries, strawberries and a bucket of Lady C potatoes as the foliage had died down. I weighed them when I got home and there were 1.25kg, which is disappointing but probably due to them being nipped by the late frost. I also trimmed a bit more of the grass edges before it got too hot to work in the sun.

I'd noticed that the grass was getting long again, particularly in the shady bits (probably because its less dry) so I went back at lunchtime and mowed it. Cut down some more of the spinach while harvesting it, and harvested some peas and another cauiflower. This one had 4 tennis ball sized sideshoots on it. Unfortunately the remaining heads are starting to open out and are rather sluggy, but one of my friends at the stables likes them so I give the big part to her and eat some of the smaller ones myself. I was going to plant the last melon in the growhouse but decided it was too hot. Loads of water required in the evening and the bins are emptying fast.

Thursday
Another exhaustingly hot day. Busy all morning but nipped down early to harvest more raspberries and strawberries, also some more red currants from the hedge. I was back in the afternoon and finished cutting down the spinach, which I wanted out of the way before it all got wet. As usual this has been fantastic and I am always a bit sad when the last of it has gone. I also harvested a cauliflower for my brother and decided to plant the melon as it was needing watering 3 times a day,

Friday
Hot and humid in the morning but with thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon I wanted to get a few things finished off so I spent a couple of hours at the plot from about 8am. As it wasn't actually sunny I was able to get on with things like finishing trimming the grass edges and trimming long bits off the hedges without ending up with heat stroke. I also pulled out as much horsetail as I could find - it seems to be growing really fast at the moment.
I went back at lunchtime and picked almost all of the remaining meteor peas (which have about finished), some raspberries and a big bag of strawberries, then headed home to be safe from the storms.

This time I was lucky. There were some ferocious storms around, but having looked like heading this way they split into 2 parts and one went ether side. As a result there wasn't a lot of water to collect, and I had to water the trees and bushes that are in pots.

Saturday
One glance at the radar picture when I got up told me that there wouldn't be much gardening today. A line of rain was approaching followed by already numerous showers that would only get worse as the ground heated up. I belted down to the plot while it was still dry at about 6.45 and harvested some of the little cauliflower sideshoots, raspberries, redcurrants and all of the blackcurrants (of which there were hardly any) as they had turned black. The bush probably needs planting in the soil, and I will have a go in the autumn - if I can dig a hole where the roots of the old leylandii hedge were!

I was right about the rain and showers, and having spent some of the morning in my friend's greenhouse I took refuge at home, stopping on the way back to collect the morning's rain water. The showers turned increasingly heavy and thundery with a couple of torrential bursts of rain, but at least the storms were moving through quickly. I managed to nip down between showers to collect the water after the first storm and collected a decent amount more on the way back from the stables. It has just thrown it down again (thankfully without the thunder this time) so there should be more water for the bins, but it will have to wait until morning.

[Penellype]

Sunday
Another very unpleasant day, very windy and showery and more like October than June. Apart from collecting water in the morning and grabbing a tub of raspberries, some rhubarb (which has suddenly sprouted due to the rain) and the ripest strawberries, and pulling out a few obvious bits of horsetail in the process, nothing got done. I spent most of the afternoon watching the wind do its best to demolish my fruit cage frame, which is getting old. (I discovered on Monday morning that one of the metal poles had rusted and broken off in one of the joints and as a consequence another of the joints had split - luckily I had the appropriate pole and joints to replace them all).

Monday
I'd been hopeful of a better day, but it rained pretty much all day - persistent heavy drizzle of the sort that thoroughly wets you in quite a short time. I nipped down to the plot twice - to collect water and pick raspberries in the morning and on the way back from the stables in the evening to pick strawberries and peas, and got wet both times despite choosing "drier" slots according to the radar.

Tuesday
Thankfully a drier day and the possibility of getting something done. I went down as soon as I could and collected the small amount of water from overnight drizzle. I cleaned up the cauliflower bed, removing all the leaves from the harvested plants that had got left because I was in a hurry, and cut down some of the finished pea plants. All of this has to be chopped in order not to over fill the compost bin, so I stopped when my hands had had enough chopping and picked some raspberries, peas and red currants for the freezer, then went home for a break.

I went back after lunch and started on the weeds and horsetail, which are growing really fast. I was thinking that I was making really good progress, having gone round the hedges, tunnel and most of the raised beds, when I got to the onions. I noticed that several had fallen over and it became clear that they had white rot. My experiment with cardboard under clean compost has clearly not worked, although from first observation the worst affected ones appear to be near the edges of the bed. I think the lack of white rot in 2018 must have been due to the very dry summer, which was not the case this year or last.

I harvested 10 of the worst looking onions, one of which appeared to be ok, 2 completely unuseable and the others partly affected. I cut off all the affected parts and the foliage and put it all in a compost sack to go to the tip (ha ha) and took the onions home to freeze. This is clearly going to be a part of every day's jobs until I have dealt with the lot.

Somewhere I read that watering the soil with water that garlic has been soaked in, applied the year before growing onions, causes the white rot to germinate then die because it has no host to infect. I need to decide which bed is growing onions next year and get on with this - but first I need to buy some garlic, as it is something that I don't particularly like to eat. I wonder if soaking bits of onions would have the same effect - I don't see why not.

I forgot - also sprayed the brassicas in the tunnel with potato water (water that potatoes have been boiled in) as they are covered in whitefly. Quite how this is supposed to work I have no idea as the water runs straight off leaving the leaves dry, but I tried it anyway.

[Penellype]

Wednesday

Another reasonable day in which I got a fair amount done. I took some calabrese and broccoli plants to the allotment and put them on the shelf in the tunnel for planting when they get a bit bigger. I also took my camera down and took some photos, then did some more weeding and pulled bits of horsetail I'd missed on Tuesday. I harvested raspberries, strawberries and some peas from the tunnel and pulled some more onions, most of which needed chopping and freezing straight away due to white rot.

Photos:



Runner beans are growing well. Tomato plants behind them are hard to see but also getting bigger fast.



Melons in the two hotbeds. The copper sheets are an experiment to deter slugs and preserve moisture. From left to right, Magenta (sown 2 weeks later than the others), Alvaro and Emir. There are also some french beans planted outside the growhouse at the edge of the hotbed, and more on the shelf in the growhouse, but they are hard to see.



Meteor peas behind the growhouse have about finished and the dwarf (!) nasturtiums are taking over. My poor onions are under the white net.



The last cauliflower in this bed was harvested the following day. Desiree potatoes in buckets behind are doing well. The Lady C behind them are much, much smaller. Courgettes in the open bed are starting to produce fruit, turnips either end under small nets.



Parsnips and beetroot in the final raised bed.

[Penellype]

More photos:



Cherries! The blueberries on the bush behind are also starting to ripen.



The raspberry canes are weighed down with huge amounts of gorgeous fruit, although the beetle grubs are starting to appear now. Gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes in pots on the left.



Strawberries and peas ready for picking in the tunnel. Cauliflowers are going over and I'm not sure there is anything edible left now.



Cucumbers at the shed end of the tunnel. There is a calabrese and a cabbage this side of the cauliflowers.





Leeks, carrots and beetroot, which is rather hidden behind stray rooted strawberry plants that I couldn't bear to pull out. More strawberries on the shelves.

[Penellype]

A few more photos:



Romanesco. The marigolds are meant to deter whitefly. A stray piece of horsetail has escaped my attempts to remove it all (bottom left).





More strawberries. The white net outside the tunnel is covering summer leeks.

Thursday and Friday were almost a complete write-off, with appointments both days and plenty of rain. Nothing got done except collecting rain water (including half a dustbin full off the paths on Thursday morning, sadly all I had time to rescue) and harvesting a cauliflower, the first 4 courgettes, raspberries, strawberries and peas. The ripest cherry was starting to split on Thursday morning so I ate it.

Saturday
Stables in the morning and Derby day so not a great deal of allotment time. Collected water and picked a tub of raspberries first thing. Stopped on the way back from the stables to pick peas and rescue a few more onions - I now have 4 tubs of chopped onion in the freezer and 10 bulbs that may just keep attempting to dry off in the garage. Not even half way through them yet, so I am in danger of running out of freezer space.

I chopped up some of the onion leaves and put them in a bucket of water to soak over night. I will water the empty bed with this tomorrow in the hope that it will wake up any white rot spores which will then die as there are no onions to infect. I'll then grow onions there next year.

Nothing else got done.