Mid-winter - planted garlic

All thats left now is 4 or 5 rather thin looking leeks, everything else is clear.

Filled in back-corner box with a little compost and covered with soil from another bed, in otder to level that one off and plant the garlic for next year. 4 bulbs to fill the box -- seem to be larger cloves than usual.

Was a little chilly, now suddenly warm again!

WInding down, end of season

French beans, soft fruit just about over. Courgettes still going but less excessively (although got 5 in fridge). Carrots, plenty of them, no root-fly but wierd shapes and split stems. Potatoes and leeks great and plenty left.

One melon - difficult to know when to pick it!

Everything going quite well

Tomotoes have blight on stems but doesn't seem to be taking over and getting afarily steady crop.

Potatoes very good and plenty of them even where the tops dont look too great.

French beans in full flow and courgettes of course.

Trying to give plenty away as last year much of surplus simply rotted before it got used.

Blackberries and raspberries also ... tried making low sugar jam ... its ok but not set at all.

Blight

Blight stuck most of the tomatoes last week (and most of the site aswell). Chopped off all the affected parts and lets see if it spreads - not so far, but very hot and forecast is to get wetter so maybe it will then.

Potatoes seem very high yield. Also beetroot good. Courgettes in full swing and digging up the odd carrot - some ok and some rather shoirt, stubby or bent.

Plenty of blackberries, raspberries not so good but not too bad considering dry start to year.

Manure day

Picked hottest day of year to get 15 barrow-loads of manure, for £5. Very hot work. Borrowed Pauls barrow as thats really big. Filled newest box about 80% with manure and then covered with a few inches of soil. Also filled a skip bag and again topped with a layer of soil or older compost. Finally raised level in the pallet-built box by digging a trench, filling with manure and then moving soil back over. All of these will all do for various squashes and got a melon to plant out.

Finished transplanting all the french beans, so that box is now done.

Two garlic left in ground but they need picking now - tops fallen over. Might try some more carrots from seed but tricky when its this hot. Last lot I sowed have come up - but that may be becuase it was cool and wet just after I planted them.

Onions a disater again. Most have hardly grow and many are rotting in the roots so slight pressure on stem knocks them over or pulls them out. Leeks however looking very fine. Garlic ok as well so I dont understand why onions do so badly here.

First crop of potatoes

Dug up first potato - not too bad and enough for one meal for us all. THats Accord - rather "white" and possibly a little tasteless!

Clearing garlic as thats starting to fade and sowing carrots in their place.

Final purchase for remaining free space is a tray of french beans - seperated and potted up for now to make sure they take.

Various sqush seedlings in pots in large box at rear waiting to get planted.

3 more tomatoes planted in large pots, with 4 in skip bag that'll do for them I think.

Weather not too bad - intermittent heavy rain, but when sun does shine quite warm.

A bit of rain over last week

But looks like its warming up again. Plenty of watering required.

Potatoes all recovered from damage about 3 weeks ago fomr one very cold night.

Carrots transplanted from seed tray looking good.

Planted 2 tomatoes into skip-bag (that had squashes in it last year) with 2 more for that at home in pots.

Earthing up potatoes

DIgging out new box and using soil to earth up all the potatoes.

A little bit of rain so that was good - maybe 5mm so not much

Carrots; only 1 bed left to do for this year

2 rows of carrots in one of the long boxes; only one of the large boxes remaining to plant out. Digging out the new box butrun out of places to keep the soil

Leeks

Planted out some leek seedlings - filled one of the larger boxes with 4 rows of at least 8 plus anoter 20 left over so potted them up to use incase main load dont come thru

Another box and planted aload of potatoes

Used up all remaining timber to create another long, thin box and also enough to top out some of the older well-worn boxes.

Started on planting for the year: 3 beds of potatoes, one of cabbage and one of onions all done.