Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

Fantastic Penellype!!! Must be such hard but rewarding work.

It is hard work, but I don't know what I would do without it

[rootball]

I'm coming late to this post, any updated photos?

EDIT: sorry i missed the other 96 pages to this post

[Penellype]

June



Despite the recent rain everything is looking very dry.



The plastic sheet is there to cover melons in the hotbed if necessary, meanwhile it is being used a a water catcher.



The spinach is bolting and is now too tall for the net, which is still covering the onions to deter onion fly and leek moth.



The peas are bursting out of even the taller net now. These are Meteor - they are supposed to grow to about 2ft! Plenty of developing pods should be ready later this week. The wheelbarrow is helping to collect water when it rains.



Courgettes have been planted in the nearest bed. The net is to keep the cats off and will have to be removed when the plant on the left (Firenze) flowers. The one on the right is Sure Thing which is parthenocarpic so doesn't need pollinating.

[Penellype]

In the tunnel



The oldest peas in the middle are just starting to flower. The west side is still fairly empty - late peas (Terrain) and PSB will be planted here soon. Florence fennel and parsnips at the far end.



A cucumber in the cold frame was planted yesterday. The strawberries are starting to produce some nice fruit, some of which finally made it to the kitchen this evening. The yellow flowers are some self sown pak choi that has bolted. Turnips under the net at the far end are growing well.



The west side from the shed end gives a better view of the fennel.



The east side, showing 2 trays of strawberries on the shelf (these are insurance in case the slugs eat the ones in the ground) and the apricot tree at the far end.



The final lot of main crop peas at the shed end of the tunnel. The new door at this end is proving really useful and is worth losing a couple of feet of very shady bed.

[Penellype]

More in the tunnel



Some of the turnips are nearly ready to eat. I am hoping that the net has kept off the cabbage root fly, but I won't know until I harvest them.



A close up of the strawberries. These are Marshmello and have some nice big fruit.



The parsnips have finally decided to germinate.



The first lot of peas (at the road end of the tunnel) are not looking happy. These are Hurst Greenshaft and should grow to the top of the mesh, but I think they must have got too dry despite my best attempts at watering everything. The later sowings are looking better.



A cucumber at the road end of the centre bed. I am hoping this will grow up the tripod, if not it can grow along the pea mesh. The pot on the left will soon house a tomato Garden Pearl.

[Penellype]

More photos



Courgette Defender recently planted in the compost bin. The white is a piece of sheep's wool put under the leaves on the day after planting as slugs were nibbling them. It seems to be doing its job.



The potatoes are growing well and the Desiree are flowering.



The cauliflower leaves are beginning to curl round the centre of the plants which hopefully means there will soon be cauliflowers. 2 plants from the same batch planted at home have already produced tennis ball sized heads which I have eaten this weekend.



Newly planted french beans around the left teepee and direct sown (after soaking) runner beans around the right one. Keeping the cats off the bare soil is not easy!



Kohl rabi planted alongside the cauliflowers should be ready to eat soon.

[Penellype]

Fruit



Cherries! There are 5 fruits this year - that's 5 more than in either of the last 2 years. A bird net will be going on shortly. Last year the whole tree was covered in black aphids which effectively smothered it and the fruit fell off. This year as soon I saw aphids on the new growth I cut it off. It seems to have worked, but maybe there are just fewer aphids this year.



Plenty of blueberries. I'm not sure why the bush looks yellow - I wasn't aware of it until I saw the photo. Maybe it needs an ericaceous feed.



The new fruit bushes are growing, but the total crop this year is one gooseberry. I wasn't expecting much from new plants.



Plenty of blackcurrants forming, although the bush once again has scale insect.



A good number of gooseberries on the old bush too.

[Penellype]

Bits and pieces



I've spent quite a bit of time last month putting a plastic barrier between my plot and the next door one. The plastic is quite thick but flexible and is 10 inches wide, so about 8 inches or more is buried. I am hoping it will go some way towards stopping the relentless march of the horsetail. There is a level difference, which made this path extremely hard to mow - the plastic is level with the ground at the far side.



This photo shows what I have to contend with - next door's plot is just a sea of horsetail and grass.



This is spinach which has been splashed with water in sunlight (by mistake). I have a little book about gardening myths, written by Charles Dowding, which categorically states that splashing water on leaves in sunlight will not damage them. That may be true for most plants, but ones with very soft leaves like spinach and lettuce CAN be damaged by sunlight shining on water drops, as my photo proves. This was not the only damaged leaf, all of them definitely where I had been watering.



My latest purchase, which will live at home so I can pamper it - an Owari satsuma tree. I've been looking for one of these for a while, now I just have to try to keep it alive, which may be easier said than done!

[Nicos]

Thanks for sharing Pen- I’ve really enjoyed having a wander around your fruit and veggies.
Looking really good.

But OMG …the amount of horsetail next door!

[Penellype]

July

A LOT of photos this month, so we will see how far I get before I run out of time! Photos were taken yesterday after tidying the allotment as best I could as there was an inspection today.



Grass is starting to look brown due to lack of rain. Raspberries are in full flow and flowers are starting to open on the runner beans.



The french beans are ahead of the runners and there are a couple of beans that are ready to pick today. The melons in the hotbed are growing fast and in danger of escaping from their bed. There are plenty of female flowers and at least one of them looks like it may have set fruit.



The spinach has been removed and replaced with a tomato. This is Honeycomb, and I intend to let the sideshoots grow to form a large bush. It has been mulched with hay and later yesterday I cut down the bolting lettuce and chopped it up to add to the mulch. The onions in the covered part of the bed are dying down. They are small this year due to lack of water. I intend to replace them with a watermelon which is currently in my greenhouse having germinated about a month later than expected. It will need a warm summer and autumn to produce any fruit, but as I have the space and the plant I may as well try! The bed behind contains Kohlrabi which is ready to harvest and a tomato Sungold which is being treated in the same way as the Honeycomb. These are very similar varieties so I am hoping for a direct comparison to see which I prefer.



The Meteor peas under the net have been truly astonishing. These are supposed to be a dwarf variety growing to 2ft, but they have outgrown the net and have attached themselves to the top, making harvesting tricky. They were planted far too thickly and I have been unable to get at some of the pods, but it doesn't matter because they have produced a huge number of peas, more than half of which have gone in the freezer. They are still producing pods and a few new flowers are appearing. The beetroot underneath is growing more slowly than expected due to the shade and a few of them are bolting from probably being too dry. The potatoes behind are looking a bit worse for wear, and the Lady C are dying down and about ready to harvest.



Courgette Sure Thing is growing really well and I have had a couple of fruit from it with plenty more developing. Firenze on the left was attacked by slugs soon after planting and had its central bud eaten. It is slowly recovering and producing new shoots. There are 2 tomato Oh happy Day in the growhouse, mulched with hay.

[Penellype]

In the tunnel



The first planting of Hurst Greenshaft peas has finished, having produced very few pods. The remaining plantings in the centre of the tunnel are a little better and are currently being harvested. The first lot have been chopped and dropped around 2 tomato Garden Pearl plants, which are hiding behind the cucumber at this end. Terrain peas on the right are looking much happier. The large red lettuce was self seeded and I am eating a few of the leaves. Further down are PSB, florence fennel and parsnips.



On this side there are 2 cucumbers in the cold frame, the large area of strawberries and the turnips under the cover which are slowly being eaten.



The parsnips are more visible from this end and are growing well after a slow start. The peas in the central bed are really not happy despite daily watering. This bed has grown peas for several years in a row and I am wondering if it needs a break next year. That will give me a problem as to where to put them as there are pea moths outside.



The strawberries are looking rather sad - more about that later.



Climbing french beans and more Hurst Greenshaft peas at the shed end of the tunnel.

[Penellype]

The east side raised beds



Bed E1 - melons. The potentially developing fruit is just to the left of the copper ring.



Bed E2 - romanesco and florence fennel which is ready to harvest. The romanesco has been kept in pots a bit too long waiting for the cauliflowers to finish, which is why some of the leaves are a poor colour, but it is growing now and should be fine.



Bed E3 - the growhouse. 2 tomato Oh Happy Day are starting to flower. These normally produce huge plants and may cause problems being confined to 2ft by 6ft, but they were absolutely desperate for planting and this was the only space available. I considered various options including attempting to move the growhouse to the next bed but I decided it was best to leave things as they were.



Bed E4 - the Sure Thing courgette is doing really well.



Bed E4 again - the badly damaged Firenze courgette looking like it will pull through. Plants amaze me - this was down to 3 shredded leaves at one point and I thought it was certain to die.

[Penellype]

The west beds



Bed W1 - onions have keeled over and are dying back. These are disappointingly small almost certainly due to lack of water. The Honeycomb tomato is visible on the left. The net is to keep off onion fly which have been a problem in the past.



Bed W2 - the Sungold tomato and kohlrabi, some of which have got really big.



Bed W3 - potatoes. The nearest bucket of Lady C has almost completely died down and will be harvested very soon. I am not expecting great things from these - the lack of foliage compared to previous years warns me that crops are likely to be small. I have been watering these every day since the shoots emerged in mid April, even when it has rained.



Bed W4 - the astonishing Meteor peas. There is an old pod ripening for seed top right, new pods nearly ready to pick, and below them a new flower. The net has (so far) kept the pea moth at bay.



The bed at the road end of the tunnel. This is something of a problem as it is full of roots from the hedge and the leeks I planted here last year absolutely hated it. I have planted a spare Crimson Crush tomato mulched with hay here to see what happens. The bricks are to stop the cats from using the rest of the bed as a litter tray. I'm considering the possibility of planting the apricot tree here in the autumn - it clearly isn't going to produce any apricots while in its pot (even though it is a "patio tree") so I may as well give it a chance in the soil in a bed which I am struggling to find a use for.

[Penellype]

Fruit



The raspberries are producing plenty of fruit, although some of it is rather small, very probably due to insufficient water.



Loads of fruit on the blackcurrant, which is nearly ready to pick.



Similarly lots of fruit on the gooseberry Careless, which is just starting to change colour.



The strawberries in the tunnel are really not at all happy. They started off really well, but then I noticed that a lot of the fruit was not ripening at the tip. This got worse until the fruit were rotting before they ripened. They go red a the stalk end, but before they develop that nice shiny ripe red colour they go a dull matt reddish green and start smelling over ripe. They taste horrible at this stage. I blame the hot weather and lack of water - the strawberries are one thing that has not had as much water as I would have liked due to lack of time, energy and water. Some of the plants are now 4 years old and need removing, and there are some runners developing so hopefully I will get some new plants for next year. This photo also shows another issue I have with large parts of the allotment - suckers from the blackthorn hedge. They are everywhere - in the raised beds, in the tunnel, under the weed matting on the paths... They seem to spread out about 20ft from the hedges and are impossible to remove.



The new gooseberry Hinnonmaki Yellow is behaving rather oddly. The other new fruit bushes are doing what I would expect, with the most vigorous growth near the top (apical dominance), but this one has all the biggest new branches at the bottom, some of them flat on the soil. As these are supposed to be cordons I need to prune them soon, but this particular one is going to be something of a challenge!

[Penellype]

More fruit and veg



The cherry tree produced 8 cherries, 2 of which got pecked by birds despite being netted and 4 got damaged by (presumably) a slug or snail. They were all harvested on 30th June. The blueberries are turning blue and are very nearly ready. Teh courgette Defender in the compost bin is growing well adn I picked the first courgette yesterday.



Cucumbers in the cold frame in the tunnel will be ready to eat soon.



The other cucumber in the central bed is behind the one in the cold frame, but has plenty of flowers. The 2 Garden Pearl tomatoes are just visible among the chopped pea plant mulch. The plant in the pot on the right is also Garden Pearl.



The turnips have done well, although even under 2 layers of insect mesh they are managing to show some cabbage root fly damage. I can only think that the wretched things are present in the soil.



Damage on the PSB leaves caused by small pale green caterpillars. These are not cabbage white caterpillars. I think they may be cabbage moth. I am picking them off with tweezers every day.

After I had finished the photos and taken my camera home I discovered a very unwelcome intruder. Behind the fence at the bottom of the plot the people in the house have planted bamboo in their garden. I found a large bamboo cane (at least 7ft high) has grown between the fence and my woodshed. I have cut it down, but I suspect this is the start of a real problem, as bamboo is very invasive. I managed to speak to the councillor who was doing the inspection (he has the allotment 3 down from me) and he said he gets bamboo growing through into his plot. All I can do is cut it back when it appears, or attempt to dig it out, or as a last resort, ask the house owner to remove it. I think I will just have to chop it down when it appears as digging is going to be impossible (it is full of old leylandii roots), and that house owner was very aggressive about removing the hedge and has done everything he can to replace it with fast growing plants including the bamboo. Anyway, such is life!