It's early June and, as you would expect, the allotment is pretty much planted to capacity. So, a quick round up of everything that is going on bed by bed. The main crop potatoes, Sarpo Mira, are now showing and there appears to be very few gaps, they've been earthed up again.
The next entire bed has been planted out with squash. I've planted out three pumpkins, Big Max & Jack O'Lantern (I only intended to plant out two but I had spares); there's around a dozen butternut Hunter F1's; four or five Crown Prince and a load of Turks Turban as well. All of then have a bottle funnel to help with watering and feeding. Plenty of squash plants so I'm hoping to get a few decent ones out of that bunch.
The next bed has well developed lettuces, a couple rows of radish, five courgette plants (yellow Atena & green Defender F1), twenty sweet corn plants (Incredible F1), garlic and onions (Sturon). The final bed on the South side contains the fruit; Summer raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, black currants, rhubarb and Autumn raspberries. I've also planted out a few sweet peas in this area which I'm hoping will eventually get up some canes and provide a bit of colour.
On the north side the brassicas are getting larger by the day under their frame and net - Brussels sprouts (Bosworth F1) and the Summer cabbage (Primo II) - in the greenhouse are the Winter cabbage (Tundra F1) which have already been potted on from their cells and will be planted out in the next fortnight or so.The leeks, (Musselburgh) have just been planted out using the 'dibber method' and they have been covered with enviromesh to help protect against leek moth. Next to them are a row of perpetual spinach and kale (Nero di Toscana) and a row of beetroot.
There are two types of carrots, Nantes and Sweet Candle. The Nantes are in slit trench full of rough compost intended to be pulled when small; the Sweet Candle have been 'barred in' and have been protected from carrot fly with a curtain of fleece. (This is the first time I have tried the curtain method). Lastly in this bed are the parsnips, (Gladiator F1) which have again been 'barred in' and have been thinned to one strong plant per station.
The next bed contain the peas and beans. The runner beans (Firestorm) are starting to climb their bamboo canes and French climbing beans (Cobra) are starting to do the same though the dwarf French beans (Nautica) are still looking poor, probably because I planted them out too early and they suffered in a cold snap. The peas (Hurst Green Shaft) have finally made an appearance and I've put up some wire mesh for them to clamber up. Finally, in this bed, the broad beans (Bunyard's Exhibition) are flowering well and are tied into supporting canes.
The last bed is full of Rocket early potatoes which have been displaying lovely purple flowers. Its been 10 weeks since I planted these (March 18th) and, as usual, they can now start to be dug. We had our first taste of lovely new potatoes today - always a treat!
That's it for a mammoth update. Bye for now.
