Penellype's Allotment

[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.

[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]

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]

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]

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.