Murderer!

I feel bad. Very bad. Last week I left the plants I bought at our plant sale in my cold frame, to protect them from the vagaries of the weather. However, we had one extremely hot day on Friday and I nearly lost the lot. By the time I got down to the plot after work all the sunflowers were crispy, and most of the marigolds had gone the same way. Giving the rest an emergency drink saved the melons, one of the okra plants and one of the cape gooseberries. The melons and okra plant I have planted in the cold frame, so hopefully they'll recover fully in time.

However, on the bright side, we planted out the nasturtiums in the bed that was originally set aside for the sunflowers (RIP). They are now doing quite well. The cape gooseberry went in the middle of the flower bed all on its own (the mixed flower seedlings are coming along, but are still very wee).

My potatoes seem to have largely recovered from the frost damage, as the picture shows. They have been set back a bit but are growing quickly.



Other weekend jobs included strimming the grass paths and around the beds to tidy things up a bit, planting out my peppers, some into the cold frame (now with it's lid removed as it should be warm enough) and some 'outside'. Anne spent some time forking over part of the area that has been under black plastic for a year, and created a bed into which I planted my butternut squash (5 plants). My pumpkins will go into the other half of the bed, once they have hardened off outdoors for a bit. The soil under the black plastic is in very good condition, and the perennial weeds under there have largely rotted away. We do expect the ubiquitous bindweed to come back with a vengeance, but we'll try and keep on top of it as we go along.

As an aside, Anne and I visited my folks on Sunday, to help them move their narrowboat to a new mooring (I took my petrol strimmer as the grass and weeds along the bank were about 3 feet high!). We had a BBQ in their garden in the evening, and I just had to take a snap of some of their fantastic lupins!

Weekend

...well, Friday night, anyway.

That was the only spare time we had to nip down the the allotment at the weekend, what with a friend's birthday party on Saturday and our wedding rehearsal on Sunday.

Still, the artichokes are now in, along with the rest of my courgette plants (hopefully we're past the threat of frosts now). The rest of my plant sale purchases are sheltering in the cold frame (luckily, given the cold winds of the past few days!) or in the case of the peppers and silk oaks, flourishing in their new home on our windowsill.

Plant Sale

We held our annual plant sale at work yesterday. We managed to make around £900 (after deductions for compost/pots etc) which will go to the appeal for funds to modernise our work's sports facilities. Slightly down on last year, but it wasn't such a nice day, which always brings the punters out. Still, that's an awful lot of plants sold in two hours!


Note: photo taken after the initial rush, after about 3/4 of the plants had been sold!

I managed to make some purchases myself, including a dozen sunflowers (russian giant single), two dozen marigolds (boy-oh-boy orange), three globe artichokes, four melons (charantais), three cape gooseberries (physalis), two okra, two peppers (big banana and purple beauty) and two silk oaks (houseplants).

I will grow the two peppers indoors, as my attempts outside last year only yielded a few fruits (some of which were nicked from my plot!). I have never grown melon, okra and physalis, but they're worth a try. The silk oaks look great, they grow to 100ft in Australian forests, but only 3 feet as a houseplant (luckily!).

Lazy Sunday afternoon

Sunday was glorious, so Anne and I spent the afternoon on the plot, catching some rays and pootling about. I decided, perhaps unwisely, to plant out my tomatoes. Although the weather has been cold of late, it's mid-May and I'm hoping the frosts have passed. My tomato plants were beginning to outgrow their welcome on the windowsill at home, and so really needed to be moved. I provided them with plenty of support, so hopefully they'll survive and prosper. Sixteen plants (eight Moneymaker and eight Gardener's Delight) may be overdoing it a bit, but last year I only got a tiny crop from three plants. You just watch, this year we'll get heavy crops and I'll be knee-deep in the things!

Today's picture is a longer shot of the plot. It's starting to look pretty good now, and things are beginning to grow and fill out. The new tomatoes are shown by the double row of canes with little 'Yakult' bottles sitting on top of them - essential to prevent serious eye injuries when weeding/ harvesting!



Having just totted up what I've got in the ground and what I've yet to plant, it seems an awful lot, although with only two mouths to feed I don't have to plant huge amounts of anything, so there's room for more variety.

Madness...?

Yes, that's a courgette plant. In the ground. I must be mad.

As it was a nice evening we wandered down to the plot after work last night. In a moment of madness I planted 3 of my courgette plants. They're getting pretty big for their pots, so I thought I'd see if they could brave the weather at this time of year. However, having planted the three of them at the base of a cane 'wigwam' (I'm going to try and grow them up it to save a bit of space), I realised exactly how cold it was getting as the sun was going down. So I relented, removed the wigwam and constructed a fleece 'tent' which will hopefully keep them snug until it warms up a bit.



If they do snuff it then I have some more plants on the balcony at home, and our work's annual Plant Sale is next week, so I can replace them if need be.

While we were on the plot Anne sowed some mixed flower seeds into the bed near the shed (and bench). They should produce a nice mixture of bright orange flowers, including Californian Poppies (a favourite of ours). We both did a spot of weeding and I thinned out some spinach and lifted the last of my leeks....



So we had spinach and leeks with our dinner last night, and both tasted fantastic! The remaining leeks will be frozen, possibly after conversion to leek and potato soup.

Brassicas & Bargains

Another busy weekend, but Anne and I spent Friday evening on the allotment, weeding, hoeing and tidying beds as well as planting/sowing some new crops:

I sowed some Florence fennel, which I have never grown before. We hardly ever buy it in the shops, so I only sowed one row just to see how it does. If it grows well, and we like it, I'll grow more next year.

I planted 5 broccoli plants (grown in modules), however they are looking a little feeble, so I protected each plant with a brassica collar and a pop-bottle cloche. As I only had 5 broccoli plants I sowed a row of autumn calabrese as well. They will hopefully give a later (and depending on germination rates a larger) crop in the autumn.

I also sowed some more radishes to use up the space in the calabrese bed (that will be filled by the calabrese seedlings when transplanted). The radishes previously sown in the cold frame are doing well, and needed thinning.

Away from the plot, I have sown some more leeks in modules, as my previous sowing didn't do too well (only around 50% germination). I have also sown some basil (free with Kitchen Garden magazine!) into modules. I always seem to have trouble keeping shop-bought basil plants alive, so we'll see how these seedlings do!

As a bit of a last resort I have also sown my last half dozen brussel sprout seeds into modules - the previous sowings were decimated when hardening off (by slugs I suspect). It may be too late to start off brussels sprouts now, but it's worth a try.

On Saturday whilst visiting my folks (my Dad is recovering from a knee replacement op) we visited a "discount store" local to them. Amongst the Alladin's cave of goodies we found some cheap seeds (3 packets for a pound!) and so bought two 'sprouting kits' for the windowsill - large packets of carrot and radish seeds that are grown en masse in small trays, to provide edible shoots for sandwiches and salads. The third packet I bought was American land cress, which I have never tried but quite fancy giving a go on the plot. I also bought a new weeding tool to replace one that I seem to have 'lost' (of course I may one day find it buried somewhere on the plot!). This tool is one of my favourites for weeding and hoeing around crops. Needless to say the version I bought at the weekend was half the price of the one in the link above!

May showers?

Yesterday I went down to the plot after work to do a spot of weeding, and ended up going nuts with my petrol strimmer, as the grass was taking over in places! As I was finishing up the sky darkened, and on my way out of the site I took a snap of this tree. The white blossom seemed almost luminous against the dark forbidding clouds approaching from the west. Luckily I just managed to make it indoors before the rain hit.

More Herbs

The fledgling herb bed, or 'rockery'!

What a glorious Bank Holiday weekend! Due to having to do stuff for our wedding (the Big Day is 4 June, and fast approaching!), and visiting my Dad in hospital (2nd knee replacement op in 12 months, but he's doing very well), we only got to the plot for a couple of hours on Monday morning. Everything seems to be looking after itself quite well - although the grass and weeds are growing faster than anything else, as usual.

Anne planted some more herbs. We've now got parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano and chives in the herb bed. It's looking a bit sparse at the moment, but I am sure the plants will fill out pretty quickly once they get going!

Apart from general weeding, watering and hoeing, I planted some mixed salad and rocket seedlings into my cold frame. They look a bit pale and wan, but hopefully they'll perk up before long.

The peas have just started showing above ground. I gave up trying to protect them with some lightweight netting after a few attempts, as it just wasn't going to fit over the supports, so I made do with stringing some garden twine over the seedlings, which will hopefully keep the pigeons off until I can get hold of some better netting.

Spinach, radishes and spring onions are doing OK, and my broad beans actually have one or two little pods on them, which isn't bad considering they were sown quite late. However, my leek seedlings don't seem to have germinated consistently, so I will sow some more in modules at home where I can keep a better eye on them.