First Harvest

After months of taking stuff to the allotment, it's good to be bringing something home!

So, I have 'Maris Bard' early potatoes, 'Aquadulce' broad beans, and a mixture of rather beautiful but large radishes. Fortunately I like them hot!

Last week I dug up some of the 'Premiere' potatoes. Sadly these first earlies have not done too well: a combination of drought in spring and rain in June. No plants grew anywhere near as large as they should have done, and several have gone yellow. With black stems and a mushy seed potato, this could be black-leg. I ate some of those potatoes above this evening, tasty but fell apart in less that 10 minutes boiling, as the 'Premiere' did last week. I'm not sure whether this is due to the problems described above or a characteristic of these cultivars. I'll try steaming next time. It's also obvious that the potatoes in the section which I had dug over have done better. So if I do go over to no-dig, I'll prepare the ground, by digging, first.

The 'Aquadulce' broad beans are big but a little floury, the 'Stereo' are smaller but sweeter. It's good to be growing them, it's been some years since I had space to grow broad beans. The French beans are going well, had to make bigger netting over them. It seems a bit of a shame to have to use netting so much, but I hope that an approach with more ground cover in future will take its place to some extent. That will have to wait till all is a bit less weedy.

After digging out the potatoes I planted a 'Lady Godiva' squash at one end of the plot, 'Nero di Milan' at the other. Both from Nottingham Organic Gardeners' Plant-swap. I planted two innominate courgettes and two 'Di Nizza' round courgettes under cardboard over some garden waste in the lower part of the allotment, a bit of an experiment.

In the onion plot I planted out lots of module-sown calendula, and on the brassica plot I planted african marigolds. Not as companion plants per se, but to attract hoverflies and other useful insects.

Now I am eating yoghurt with strawberries from my little plot at home!

Two hours

I'm just not getting as much time as I'd like in my allotment, for all sorts of generally rather good reasons. However I like to think I make the time I get there really count.

Today I was there for two hours and I...

Weeded the brassica plot. 

(Before) 

(After)

I also planted a red cabbage and a Nero di Toscana kale from the NOGs plant swap, plus some more left-over Offenham 2, rather titchy, will see how they do.

Cut down the under-performing module-sown broad beans as green manures.

Netted the chard and beetroot as the fleece wasn't protecting all of it (look hard at the top of the photo and you can see some very pecked chard).

Removed the under-performing module-sown onions (it's a theme...) and planted 10 leeks which I'd bought from Stonebridge City Farm at the Green Festival.

Here's the allotment really not looking at all bad.