First Trug of the season

At last we got back to the plot. The last week has been mostly rainy and windy with a few glimpses of sunshine. Everyone's feeling down about the weather and it's reflected in our plot. It's really not looking as happy as it should as we get close to Midsummer!

First trug

We pulled our first Belana potato, just as it started to rain again today. They've been in the ground 10 weeks and the flowers have just opened. We were expecting them to have small new potatoes and that's what we got - 11 of them (just 380g). There were about 6 not-fully formed ones too so in a couple of weeks we hope to get a few more spuds from each plant.
We also pulled some little turnips, some chives and another handful of mange tout. Looks a bit nouveau cuisine but hopefully they'll be nice added to salad tonight!

The runner beans have grown a bit taller but aren't wrapping round the canes as they keep getting blown about. But some good news is that the recently sown broad beans and french beans have sprouted. Jamie planted the four leonaris on Plot 8 - they look really healthy. We just need some sunshine now so that they grow nice orange flowers!

Garden Chafer

Found this little chap sitting in the mange tout flowers last Sunday, This is one of the bugs that emerges from the white grubs that we found masses of whilst digging in the last year.

Stupid Wind!

Quick visit to the plot yesterday afternoon - while the crazy wind was still blowing. Loads of debris from trees over the roads and pavements.
When we got to the plot we saw that our netted sprout cage had blown into the hedge (again!). It seems to be just too tall so catches the wind easily. We've taken it down a level while the sprouts are still small enough to fit. Our potato plants had been blown flat and one had it's stems broken but hopefully there's enough greenery left for it to survive that breakage. And one of our runner beans had snapped, but luckily just above a joint so that should be fine too. We tied the other runners to the bean poles to stop them blowing about so much.
There were a few other casualties around site but nothing too disastrous from what we saw.
Then we put the England flag up for the Euro 2012 championship - COME ON ENGLAND!

Rain stopped play

We were too slow this morning and didn't get to the plot till lunchtime - unfortunately that's when the showers started. Some of them were really heavy so we kept having to run for cover in the container.

We did get some digging done but had to leave when we were picking up so much mud on our boots. Jamie found this little spider in the earth. We thought it may be a red spider mite (bad guy) but have found that it's a velvet mite, a good guy - eating other mites and small insects in the ground.

Velvet mite - a good guy on the plot

Back home another of our squash seeds (the 2nd Cornells one) has actually started growing. The germination of the 6 seeds has been very sporadic over the last 3 weeks. One of the green courgettes hasn't done anything (yet) but we've got 2 of each of the others (Butterbush, Cornells bush delicata and Rocky cucumber).

Nice weather for snails (again)

A very quick visit to the plot this afternoon - we just wanted to check that our cloches had stayed on and the little sweetcorn plants were still upright (they are). It's cold (about 15°) and rainy.

All we saw, in the way of wildlife, was a few birds - one pigeon which we freed from a plot holder's netted cloche - and these snails.

Both these were on the thyme flowers

Pretty - brown lipped banded snail

Tidying and weeding

After a too long walk yesterday I didn't have the energy to do much on the allotment today. Did a bit of tidying this afternoon and sat around while the sun shone.

The peppers look a bit more at home on the plot now

The rainfall yesterday has really made the site look happier, but the weeds have gone crazy on the overgrown plots! We weeded throughout the onions and shallots and have given the onions a new mesh cloche so that they're not touching the top - apparently they'll stop growing if they bend over and they've a long way to go yet (leek moth and downy mildew permitting..)

We planted out our 11 little sweetcorn plants. Protected with bottle cloches because they're only small. And Jamie sowed some Early Nantes 5 carrot seed so hopefully more of this sowing will germinate...

Earlibird sweetcorn

Jubilee digging!

There were quite a few of us on the allotment this afternoon - we could hear music from the Hungerford jubilee celebrations in the background. It was pretty hot but very little sunshine.
We cleared another area on the new plot - we were going to have a bbq but weather wasn't nice enough for us.
Jamie earthed up the rest of the potatoes - definitely only two of the Orlas are doing anything which is a shame but not too bad as long as the rest give us plenty of tubers!

I sowed some petit pois (Peewee 65).
Our little robin is getting very cocky - he comes within a couple of feet from us now. He takes some food away but mostly seems to be eating it himself!

Beans, beans, beans!

Had another fab day on the plot today.

Jamie's dark side :-)

A lot of sitting in the sun chatting but also got some weeding and sowing done: 2 rows of Speedy dwarf French beans and 2 rows of Express broad beans - covered with plastic cloches for a bit of protect.

Legume quarter

We dug over the area for the sweetcorn; 11 of 12 have germinated. And Jamie earthed up some of the potatoes, including the 5 purple congos which were accidentally left in from last year.

Cinnabar Moth

Managed to snap this lovely cinnabar moth and the brilliant forum members from Wild About Britain pointed me to this website to identify this yellow fly... I think Trypeta Zoe is correct based on the wing pattern. There were several hanging round our radishes - which, by the way, are going to seed :-(

(male) Trypeta Zoe

What annual leave is for

Of course, we spent most of the day on the allotment. We had it to ourselves much of the time - it wasn't sunny but still pretty warm.
I planted out the celeriac (14 plants) on the new plot - half are under a green cloche and the others are just protected from birds. We need to keep them well-watered.

Celeriac

The mange tout have flowered already and are growing much better than the sweet peas - I think a little Growmore may be needed for them!

Mange Tout flowers

What happens to parsnips if you don't pull them up! (Not our plot!!)

We bought some pots and filled them with Grow bags and some John Innes young plant compost for the peppers - they should tumble over the sides, but the pots look a bit lonely at the moment...

We've started to see ladybird larvae and soldier beetles on the plot now, also lots of bees as there are quite a few flowers around for them now.


Silver Y moth

I found this moth on our netting.The moth takes nectar from flowers, but of course the caterpillars enjoys tucking into brassica and garden peas(!) as well as nettles - well, hopefully this ones babies will stick to nettles... ho hum...

Watering, watering

Another lovely hot and sunny day meant that we needed to water again this evening. We watered everything but are taking care to avoid leaves particularly on the onions which suffered so badly from downy mildew last year.

The cabbage have settled in really well and I'm sure they've grown a few centimetres already! Plenty of water for the broad beans which are covered in flowers and bees, ants and bugs are doing their best to pollinate so we get some lovely beans!

I chopped the parsley down to ground level, hoping it will recover quite soon... The chives are covered in lovely purple flowers but I'll need to chop that down soon too so that we get some fresh growth to use. The par cel seeds have germinated.

Jamie sowed our Earlibird sweetcorn in the bedroom propagator - they should germinate pretty quickly and we'll get them in the ground as soon as possible. We only want 9 plants so out of 12 seeds we hope we'll be ok...
The turnip leaves are being eaten away by flea beetles (probably) but hopefully the turnips will still grow and the beets are getting quite big but no bulbing up yet - I'm getting impatient!!

Comparing this year to last year

Just a couple of quick visits to the plot over the last couple of days. It's been soooo hot we couldn't have done much anyway but everything needed watering. It doesn't take long to dry the top few inches of earth but it's still damp low down where the roots are.


Stitch of Plot 7

The fennel and coriander seeds have germinated and the most recent spring onions have appeared now. The latest carrots have been as poor as the earlier sowing, with only about 3 seeds germinated so far - don't think I'm going to get much carrot soup this year :-( But (touch wood) the parsnips are looking good.

I feel that the year's running away from us a bit. We planned to go a bit slower and probably everything will catch up but with this type of weather it makes me panic thinking plants should be a bit further ahead than they are. I thought the plot isn't looking as alive as it did this time last year but now  I see the photo (see below) it's pretty similar....

Our plot at this time last year

It's just that the potatoes are a couple of weeks slower so aren't looking so good and the covering over the onions and shallots makes me forget they're there (which explains why there were so many weeds in there yesterday!).