Digging My Potatoes

One of the best days of the year is the day you dig your first potatoes for the year. Today was that day, we dug up a couple of plants and although there wasn't a huge amount, they tasted good. Picked some more strawberries too.

I planted out the sweet corn plants, although they look a bit straggly now they will soon pick up. I also planted a row of seeds at the end of the bed to use for replacements if we should looses any of the plants.

The broad beans are forming nicely, but still suffering from black fly.

The runner beans that were started off at home are now starting to climb their canes, but the seeds that were planted directly into the ground are not doing very well so I'm going to buy a new packet and plant some more.

Beetroot are coming up nicely. The same can't be said for the butternut squashes and courgettes. Out of all the plants I put in, I have one courgette left, time to go in search of some more plants.

Planting Out

I planted out the runner beans, butternut squashes and courgettes today. Also transferred the sweetcorn, chillies, aubergines and basil to the allotment shed.

Lin planted some leeks (Autumn Mammoth) for next winter, they're a bit late, but we may be lucky. Most of the seeds are coming up nicely as you can see from the beetroot picture. The exception are the peas, which are not doing very much at all. The only reason for this that I can think of is that the seeds are old.

Whilst having lunch I sat and watched the bees collect the pollen from the comfrey flowers on the next plot. It's obviously a good plant to grow to encourage bees, plus it has many uses on the allotment.

Weeding & Watering

Two visits this week so far. Firstly on Tuesday afternoon, I planted a third row of peas, the other two are just starting to come up. We were given half a dozen globe artichoke plants by a friend and they were put in next to the peas. Lin thinned out the first row of mixed salad leaves. I planted some runner bean seeds straight in to the ground. I planted some spares as we've not had a good success rate with the ones in the propagator at home. It will be interesting to see how they compare to the ones we are starting off at home.


Today was mainly weeding and watering. The beetroot are looking good as you can see, the cabbages are starting to get eaten so I covered them with a some chicken wire. The Charlotte potatoes are now starting to flower as are the broad beans (which are still being eaten, but much less, I've treated them a couple of times with a mild water/washing up liquid mix).


The asparagus is not doing very well this year, our only consolation is that other people on the site are having the same problem. Overall since planting them they have not given us many spears, I was hoping that this year would be better, not worse. But we do have one strawberry that is starting to turn red!

Mulching

The broad beans are still suffering from something eating them. I've sprayed the beans with watered down washing up liquid and that seems to of helped.

Now that the onions and shallots are a decent size we have covered the beds with leaf mulch. This should make it harder for the weeds to grow and when watered it will help keep the moister in.

Most of the seeds that Lin planted recently have started growing. The mixed lettuce (above), spring onions, beetroot, carrots and cabbage are all coming up. Only the parsnips haven't, they always take a long time to germinate.

I planted more seeds today, carrots (Artemis F1), red lettuce, parsnip (Place F1), beetroot (Alto F1), Romana lettuce, spring onions (Long White Tokyo) and rocket.

 The potatoes are all doing very well, these are the early Charlottes. The strawberries are getting more and more flowers on and it shouldn't be too long before we start getting fruits.