Helped out at our annual plant sale at work today. Despite the slightly damp weather it looks like we made around £700 in under two hours.
I was being very good and not buying any plants, as we're off on holiday on Friday, and they'd die in our flat while we're away. However, the chap who grew most of the plants for the sale said he'd look after anything I wanted to buy until we got back, so I bought:
Peppers (two each of Californian Wonder and Sweet Banana) Two trays of marigolds (African Crackerjack) Basil (Genovese) Lavender Sage - which will be used in a dish I'm cooking tonight.
Arrived on the plot yesterday morning to find that the grass had taken over again since I was last there. Grrrr. The plot is rife with couch grass and it's the bane of my gardening life. No matter how carefully you turn the soil and try to remove every last bit of root, the darned stuff comes flooding back within minutes. It's one thing I shall not miss if I have to give up this plot when we move house.
However, after a couple of hours digging and raking I had a few more beds prepared. I planted sweetcorn into one; a block of 12 plants, each 18 inches from it's neighbours. I must say that growing sweetcorn in the cardboard tubes from loo rolls has been a success - the tubes stayed in one piece, and there was no disturbance to the root systems as I dropped each tube into the ground. I shall definitely be doing that again, and for other plants as well.
In between the sweetcorn I planted three pumpkin plants, in the hope that they will provide some ground cover around the corn stems, and not choke them entirely.
I also planted six courgette plants, three green and three yellow.
All my previous plantings seem to be coming on well, despite the couch grass - the onions are poking their heads above the soil, and the potatoes have started to show, after only two weeks! The broad beans are in flower, and we'll hopefully get a good crop soon.
Once I'd done the planting I set to work again with the petrol strimmer, hacking back the overgrowth on the grassed area and around the plot edges. Anne joined me after a while and did some stirling work collecting all the grass, tidying around some of the beds and turning over the old flower bed section, which was heavily inundated with... yep, couch grass.
We're off on holiday for a week next Friday, so I'm hoping to be able to get back down to the plot before then to plant a few more things I've got in the flat - namely brussels sprouts, squash and sweet peas. Unfortunately my tomatoes won't be big enough to plant out before we go away, so I'll have to enlist some help looking after them for the week, or they'll all die of thirst before we get back. We're off to Cornwall, and I'm hoping we can visit both the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan while we're there. Fingers crossed for the weather...
...first day of the month, and I spent a good few hours on the plot. Despite the weather forecasters predicting continuous rain, it didn't rain once in Hampton Wick all day!
I couldn't believe (but shouldn't have been surprised) at the speed that the grass and weeds had grown over the past few weeks. So the first job was to crank up the old petrol strimmer and cut back the grass along the paths around the edges of the plot. After a bit more tidying up I then cleared a bed to plant my spuds - eighteen each of Pentland Crown and Anya. Should be enough. I also raked over the bed I dug during my last visit, and planted my onion setts (48 each of white and red onions). They're going in a bit late, but we'll see how they do.
There have been major developments for us over the past few weeks. We've recently had an offer accepted on a house! The vendors are currently finding somewhere themselves, and we are awaiting the outcome of surveys and all the other legal stuff, so we won't be moving that quickly. Unfortunately the new place is quite a bit further away from the allotment, so I don't really know what will happen with it. The rent is paid up until October, so we'll see whether I can still manage to get down there to tend to it frequently enough from the new place. There are allotments closer to the new house, so depending on waiting lists I might be able to get one there. The new house only has a small garden, mostly laid to paving but with a few beds (and a pond), but one big plus is that it's got a greenhouse! How exciting. Being able to grow tomatoes, aubergines, peppers etc. without depending entirely on the vagaries of the English Summer!
