Send In The Cavalry

A quick visit to the allotment this evening to do some emergency planting. We bought three new courgette plants and two new butternut squashes. They are a little bit bigger than the ones we lost so hopefully they will survive. We also added some organic slug pellets to keep the little slimy buggers away.


A new packet of White Lady runner bean seeds has filled in the gaps on the runner bean bed. I also planted another row of peas, and as you can see the previous rows are starting to come up nicely now.

A few of the haricot beans are starting to make an appearance too.

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!

Asparagus Dinner!

Wow! Two spears of asparagus - enough for a meal. Planted a second row of Twinkle peas.

Another Very Hot Day On The Allotment

Lin and I spent the morning weeding and watering on the allotment in the scorching heat. I also planted a row of peas (Twinkle). As you can see, the potatoes are coming along nicely. These are the first earlies, the second earlies are shooting too, but the main crop haven't started yet.


In the shed at home, the butternut squashes are shooting, all of the courgettes have too. Runner beans and sweetcorn have only given about 50%, so I may have to buy another packet of corn seeds and plant some more beans.