A day without rain, so I went off to the allotment to play

I can't remember a whole day without any rain (well certainly not on a weekend) for months, so I took advantage and went to the allotment.  So much to plant, lots of catching up to do.  I packed the car with tomato plants, leeks, runner beans and french beans, plastic bottles, canes, drill & accessories, poor Diesel, there was very little room left for him, we arrive for just after 1pm.

First job, fill the gaps around the back door on the bottle house with bottles (obviously), done....after that I wanted to fill in the triangle above the front door to the bottle house, done.... next on the agenda, plant out the tomatoes inside the bottle house, done.... next on the list, plant out the leeks... bit of a stumbling block here, had my dibber ready but the soil was rock hard so I decided to dig over the bed to loosen up the soil, but every time I lifted a clump of soil all you could hear was a squelch, the top was crusty dry but underneath very sticky and wet, I didn't know if this was a good idea to plant out the leeks, so I've turned over the whole bed and left it to dry out, try this one again next weekend.  So my next job was to plant the runner beans and the french beans, done... moving along, hoe the strawberry bed and put mulch mats underneath the plants to keep the fruit off the soil, another one ticked off the list... time was getting on now, I hoed around the Jerusalem artichokes in the bed at the front of the chickens... back to the bottle house, I made a start on one of the back panels, filling it, got about half done when I ran out of bottles... more washing and cutting over the coming week should see this just about completed.   I was beginning to waiver, I had wanted to lift the garlic and shallots, but I've left this for another day.  We left at 10pm completely shattered, but with still so much to do.

I have tomatoes in my bottle house....

Weather - 4 Year Cycle (I blame the Olympics!) & an Update

I love looking back over people's blogs, specially new ones that I've found, reading what they've been up to and looking at how they've done, or haven't done.  Anyhow, I found this blog and I was reading it, but I had to double check the date, were we in 2012?  No it was actually in 2008 but the weather was very typical of how it has been this season, e.g. April - cold start, warming up towards the end of the month.  May - Lovely warm start with highs of 22.5 degrees Celsius, but wait....it ended with days of rain and temperatures dropping to around 13 degrees... is this all sounding familiar?  June - again typically colder than average temperatures and the result for that year was a cold summer, with temperatures only reaching late teens, not a very good year for growing by all accounts. So, is this what we have to look forward to; a cold summer?  Oh and by the way, they had an Olympics that year too... so I'm blaming it on the Olympics, roll on another 4 years, LOL.

Back to the present day then, I have put on another four roof panels on the bottle house, it is starting to come together.  I'm going to have to sort out some kind of support for the middle supports of the roof.  With the weight of the panels on the back side it is pulling on the middle supports and tilting to one side.  When I have put up the two panels on the front facing side, I have had to put these in the middle positions with a hope to counteract the weight on the supports, once I have the final two in position I will assess it more, but I think to be on the safe side I'll have to sort something out, else I may come down one day and the roof will be in next doors allotment, I don't think they'll be too pleased about that.  Here is a quick picture of how it is coming on.

Six Roof Panels Attached

I've put up my bean supports, and direct planted some French Beans and some Runner Beans.  I have done this down one side of each set of supports, I have also sowed (have I spelt that right?) some Runner Beans in pots in the greenhouse, I will plant out these along the other side of the structure.  Hopefully this will give me differing cropping times, we'll see.  Additionally,  I sowed some Borlotti (French) Beans in the greenhouse, these are to go on the other side of the direct planted ones, these will be left on the plant for picking at the end of the season and drying for stews etc in the winter.  When I pull up my Garlic and Shallots towards the end of the month, I will plant another crop of French Beans, dwarf varieties in the bed which they vacate.  I may even try some in the little polytunnel I have (this isn't ready yet, area still to be dug over and cover put on).

Bean Frames

I've direct sowed some more parsnips.  My first batch which I pre-chitted at home and planted into peat pots were quite successful and these have been planted out and looking quite nice.  Thinking it was going well I tried to do the same again, but only about two seeds germinated, so I tried again, this time none of the seeds germinated.  I've given it one more chance using some free seeds which I got with a magazine only a couple of weeks ago, so the seeds would be viable you'd think.  I've put two/three seeds per station and will thin (hopefully) to one per station if and when they germinate.  I'm not sure with parsnip seeds, they say you have to use fresh each year, but I got the seeds last year but hadn't opened them, they had a sow  by date of 2013 so I thought they'd be OK, but apparently not.  I had hoped to plant out my brassica plants, but the rain came and boy did it come.  I'd dodged the rain all day yesterday and again this morning, but when I returned after some lunch the rain gods were not playing... 

Something has been EATING my Vegetables!

I went to the allotment last night to plant up some beans and do some watering as it’s been very hot and dry here the past few days. All seemed well until I passed the end of the bed where I had planted out the Celeriac on Sunday and noticed that something was missing, it was my Celeriac plants, all that was left of them were spines. Something had made a nice tasty meal out of them all, all nine plants that I planted on Sunday. As it’s too late to sow and plant anymore, I’m now going to have to wait for another year to see what Celeriac tastes like, well home grown Celeriac, I could easily go and buy one from the shop to taste it, but that is not how I want to do it. And if things couldn’t get any worse, I turned to find that who or whatever had been tucking into my Kohl Rabi as well. All is not lost with the Kohl Rabi; I do have some small seedlings which I can plant out so hopefully I will be able to try that for the first time this year.

Kohl Rabi Eaten

All the Celeriac Eaten!

On a more positive note, I planted up more Broad beans, and whilst doing so I noticed that I had some pods growing, so now I’m waiting most excitedly for when they’ll be large enough for me to start picking them to eat. I love Broad Beans; they have to be one of my most favourite vegetables. The bees loved them also, there was a very large bumble bee flying around and doing his stuff with the flowers. I also planted out some Runner Beans and some Borlotti Beans, did a bit more weeding and finally spent a good 45 minutes watering everything with the hose.

Wahey, It's Stopped Raining!

Well the constant rain since Sunday has stopped, I think i've seen every version of rain there is, but that fine hazzy rain is the worst, and I think you get the wettest with that one. Anyway, i'm going to take advantage of the break in rain (it's forcast to return on Sunday) and pull up some of those dandilion weeds and the thistles that seem to be growing this year with a vengence.

Sweetcorn and Beans to get planted up over the weekend, maybe put out one or two of the bigger Courgette and Squash plants. Other than that, it's dig, dig, dig to get some more ground cleared and beds made.