31 Aug - Bank Holiday Weekend

The last week has seen poor weather with cool temperatures and long periods of heavy rain. I suppose you could call it a typical Bank Holiday in August! Luckily there has been the odd sunny break and I've been able to get on with a few jobs on the plot.

Firstly I decided to check on the parsnips; as I planted more this year than last season I thought I'd dig one up to see where we are. The blighter put up a fight but I eventually got one out of the ground with the minimal of swearing. Quite chuffed actually, they are looking good and there'll be another two months before I start taking them properly so plenty of time to put on a bit more growth. They should be a decent size by the end of Autumn. (Pic - first trial parsnip - picked 2 months early but a good size nevertheless).

Well, as I hinted in my last post, my cauliflower experiment has gone to pot! The plants were firmed in well, grew strongly, I ensured that they were watered regularly but, they still formed little florets which bolted to flower. Oh well, win some, lose some! Maybe I'll have another go next year with a couple.

Still, this has given me the opportunity to tidy up the brassica bed. Out went the cauliflowers; along with them I picked the last of the kohl rabi which has been very successful this year - I've still got a load prepared and stored in the freezer. (Pic - kohl rabi - variety White Vienna).

I've added a bit if granular fertilizer to the sprouts and kale, both looking a tad small to me but, there is still time for them to grow larger yet. There are sprouts developing on the stalks so I'm pretty sure we'll have something by Winter. There are still a few summer cabbages left too; they look a little untidy but that's just the outer leaves, the heads are heavy and solid. (Pic - brassica bed weeded and tidied up - sprouts in the foreground; a few summer cabbages, kale, and carrots under cover in the background).

Thanks to Croesyceiliog & Llanyrafon Community Council, we had some funds this year to buy and repair tools. We finally managed to track down a part for our broken strimmer which arrived this week so I was able to cut the grass around my plot. 

I consider August Bank Holiday a high-tide mark in the season - it's an opportunity for many plot holders to put a few hours in at the allotment. Crops are harvested, the ground is weeded and turned over, grass is cut and things are put into some order because, from now on, the season is beginning to wind down. 

Autumn is just around the corner, yes we will hopefully have some fine weather ahead of us with warm days still to come but, the evenings and mornings will start to get increasingly chilly and more and more allotment beds will become empty. It's a time for blackberry picking and wine making, storing harvests and picking tree fruit. I love the approaching time of year, it's fantastic, lets hope we have some fine weather to enjoy it.

See you next time.

18 Aug - Mid-August Update

It's official, it hasn't been a great growing year for some fruit & vegetables according to Gardeners' World. One particular fruit highlighted is the tomato - it's been suggested that the fluctuating temperatures have produced a sporadic crop that has been slow to ripen. I can vouch for that; one minute in the greenhouse it's been in the 40's by day then by night it has fallen as low as 4C. 

I certainly have a good number of tomatoes in the greenhouse but they have taken a long time to develop, no doubt giving a truncated fruiting season this year. There will be many more that won't ripen before the temperatures really start cooling in the next six weeks.

On a more positive note, the new potatoes have been really good. The variety Rocket have been great and, though the second early Maris Peer could have been more plentiful, they turned out to be a good size. I've dug up the last of them now and the remainder will easily last us into September. I've cleared the weeds, tilled over the new potato bed and have covered it, mainly to keep the cats off and to cut down the number of Autumn seeds blowing onto the earth.

Just a quick mention of some other things cropping at the moment; I'm still taking cabbage, kohl rabi, potatoes, courgettes, runner & french beans, finger carrots as well as the stored onions, garlic and broad beans. Still developing are sweet corn, beetroot, kale, swede, winter squashes (butternut, turks turban and pumpkin), main crop spuds, parsnips, leeks, main crop carrots and brussels sprouts. Unfortunately my experiment in growing cauliflower doesn't look promising but more on that later in the month.

One job that needed to be done was the removal of the old raspberry canes and the tying in of the new growth. I mainly have summer fruiting raspberries which means that the fruit grows on the previous year's canes. So, I've been cutting out the spent canes that developed last year and fruited this year while tying in the newly grown canes that will provide the raspberries next summer.

Once the raspberry rows have been tidied up it was a lot easier to do a spot of weeding around their bases. The rest of the fruit bed needs a good sort out too but that can wait a few weeks as I've other jobs to get on with.

See you next time.

09 Aug - First Runner Beans & Cabbages

The temperature has been very up and down this year and according to my reckoning, most crops are at least two weeks behind last year. Saying that, I've already cropped my peas and broad beans successfully with another few pound of new potatoes still to be dug up.

Last post I was picking the first of my brassicas, kohl rabi, and on the 2nd August I took my first Summer cabbage, Primo II (aka Golden Acre). The cabbages are a nice size with weighty tight heads - I'll be taking a few to eat fresh over the next month or two but will end up freezing some for the Winter months.

I've been picking French beans (Cobra) for a few weeks and, at last, the runner beans (Prizewinner) have now come into crop too. I'm pleased with the amount of beans appearing and their length is very good. I believe this is the first time I've grown this variety as I've usually grown Scarlet Emperor. Despite a neighbour telling me about problems with his runners 'setting', i.e, not forming pods after the flower stage, mine seem to be OK.

We've had a window of a few hot days with a forecast for rain on the horizon so, I took the opportunity to harvest my onion crop on 8th August as they had all 'gone over' and there seemed little point in leaving them in worsening conditions.

The onions were planted on the 20th March, the variety was Sturon (see 21 Mar post). Yesterday I pulled them up and set them out on latticed trays in the sun to help them dry. As rain is forecast for later today, I've brought them inside and put them in a light, dry extension to my allotment shed to continue the drying process.

It's not a bad crop but I think last year's was better with more larger onions. In fact, we are still eating last year's crop, there's four or five still left! After drying, these will be put in net bags and stored in the house is I find that when the damp weather arrives the onions don't store so well in a shed or out building. Just to clean up a bit, I removed any weeds and gave the onion plot a rough dig over. That's a whole bed cleared now - it's done well this season, peas, broad beans, garlic and onions - all successfully harvested.

Well that's it for this post. I'll leave you with a nice picture of one of my bright and gaudy gladioli plants which are used in the house as cut flowers. Bye for now.