Plenty of sun and rain, plenty of growth especially weeds

Whole plot seems to be growing over -- with recent rain and sun -- and couple of breaks away, the weeds seem to be taking hold and grassy paths growing rapdily.

Boys both short of money so got them down doing jobs. Cutting grass, weeding and back filling the newest box to the far right -- added a layer of green compost & grass, then a deep layer of straw menure mix and finally one of the skip bags of soil mix dug out from the box initially. Still not quite full and hopefully should settle as another skip bag, at least, to go.

Yellow courgette seems to be doing well and manage to pass on some off them to the neighbours.

Some of the white onions now starting to fade -- tops got blow over in storm -- and some have got the root mould which means they just pull out and possibly loose some of the out skin layers. Also keep finding more red onions which I planted in odd locations and they all need picking.

Sweetcorn looking good -- not super high but plenty of cobs forming.

Squashes very overgrown and green and leafy with plenty of fruit formed but not growing so large ...I think they'll depend on getting a mini heatwave to really take off.

Potatoes very sucessfull -- clearly they like the 2 year old compost mix in my boxes, so I think anual rotation for boxes filled with new compost should be:
- squashes
- potatoes
- garlic, onions, leeks
- carrots, beetroot

with cabbages and sweetcorn in there somewhere.

Potatoes

Dug up 5 or 6 potato plants, for Saturday's gathering. Probably about 10Kg. Quite a good harvest from all the varieties I tried, with some being very large for this early time of year. Ground a little dry, even with recent storms, and tops wilting in the sun. A couple of the plants have died back completely (with no pattern to which have ben affected).

Also dug up a couple of carrots - not a good year for them, as short and bent.

Cougettes coming along - picked 4 already. The squashes really starting to take off, with plenty of fruit set, however lets see if the continue as that seems to depend on the weather (i.e. if it gets chilly then the fruit wont do well).

The weather has been intermittently quite hot but with the odd storm every now and then. At least an inch of rain last night, with I suspect another inch to come as the same depression sweeps round and comes back for a second shot.

Picked potatoes, beetroot, carrots and onions

Heat wave coming to an end, but it's still very sunny and no rain. Just not in the 30's which is a relief.

Picked first batch of veggies ... carrots (not very sucessfull) potatoes (not bad) and beetroot (very sucessfull). Also cleared all the red onions at the back. Potato and onion much for tea. First bacth of carrot seedlings coming thru' so sowed some more in the space left by the onions.

Working on the revamped box on right. Bitumen painted the inside top and stuck left over lino to it, with a few galv nails to hold in place. Then dug over the base of the box to break up even more of the hard packed clay and started to fill it with compost and straw mix. Will leave that to settle down...hopefully the compost gets into the cracks in the clay.

Trying to root numerous blackberries by bending over shoots into pots and backfilling with soil, so hopefully they will take and can get planted around the area where there's no fence between me and the outside.

Cleared all the garlic

Picked all the garlic now, as increasingly looking like its done (leaves browning and dying down) and some more had white fungus on root ball. Where I had uncovered the bulbs it made no difference; possibly worse, as the came up with no effort at all - almost as if roots had died back. Good crop none-the-less and should keep us going for the year, with some to save and some to give away.

Bought some lettuce seedlings to go in the front left box to replace some of the garlic.

And also got some fresh carrot seed and sowed in large bed at back, again where the garlic has come up. Seems very late to me ...but does say on packet can be sown in June, so we'll see.

Got 2 replacement courgettes from the garden centre as previous ones were looking a bit sad ...small, feeble plants, yellowing and covered in black-fly. But at £2 each, they'll have to produce a lot of courgettes to get much of a payback!

Sunny, warm weekend.

Sarah and Mark down for the weekend. Got them weeding and built the next, long thin box to go in centre where currently there are some potatoes, and cabbages. Box is built, just needs some protective treatment.
 
The late planted garlic is also looking ready to pick (not bad since February) but noticed a few bulbs had died down and this was reflected in a rotten root ball ... so got rid of them and uncorvered the remainder ... maybe they are too deep (I dont think so) and the soil is keeping them damp. Anyway did half like this, so lets see how it works.
 
Sweetcorn coming along nicely. Mulched up between the plants. The only issue might be that some are much more advanced than others -- heights range from 4" thru 8", which might reflect in when the start seeding.
 
Red Cabbage planted up to fill remaining spaces, and netted over, in the middle box. The leeks haven;t grown much -- still rather thin and weedy looking -- plus the courgettes are very yellow looking. Maybe with the weather being a little nicer they'll take off soon.
 
Main bed of garlic and onions looking very nice. Garlic bulbs are starting to split so maybe time to pick the lot...wondering about clearing it and using space for something else...maybe more cabbages?

Picked first garlic.

Heatwave is over for now, with a cold spell and some storms. A couple of inches of rain on Sat night/Sunday morning, which was needed.

Finished digging out the far right box, down to about 18". Started a third skip bag to hold soil, this one next to compost bin at far end of plot. Now got to find something to line it, as previous plastic bags are very decayed.



Picked some garlic as looking very good and some starting to flower. Six bulbs; 3 with a purple hint and 3 plain white - cant remember varieties.

Planted some remaining squashes in the skip bag to right of compost bin at end pof plot. This containined very fresh straw and even some fresh cut grass, so not sure if they will be ok but we'll see.

Cut the grass at last

Mini-heatwave and not much rain. The ground is getting very dry and starting to crack.

Finally bought a petrol lawn mover (Ryobi, £150 with B&Q discount) and cut down the grass on the paths. Richard down on Sunday with Jack, so he was helping out with that. What to do with the old one though?



Got a few leek seedlings from Mum and planted them in the central box next to courgettes.

Only one of the french bean seedlings came up, so planted that amougst the runner beans, but I suspect it will get swamped.

Got some tomatoes from Mum and a few more from Steve O'Toole. Two largest planted at home. At the allotment planted one in tub, one in the pot that had carrots (which all got slugged) and one in a new pot which I'll leave in a tray on a pallette.

A spell of bad weather

Mum planted out some sweetcorn on Thursday (8x3 in bed, centre left). However they look a little small and that was followed by some bad spring weather ... rather gusty with short sharp showers and they dont look too good. Plus Michael was helping out and fell over and sat on a couple.

Also planted out butternut squashes in the fresher compost box at the back and made up a make-shift coldframe from the shower screen to protect them (although worried the wind will knock the screen over and it'll flatten the plants).

Courgettes planted at one end of the centre bed and closhed to try protect them also. Again worried the wind will simply blow the closh away. Plus one courgette in a large pot.

Continuing to dig our the far right box and resorted to filling up a skip bag as nowhere to dump the soil on the other beds. Tom helped alot on Sunday.

Bought a £25 strimmer from B&Q -- absolutleyl rubbish -- from a 5 hour charge, it only lasts 10 minutes and doesn't seem to hack down the grass well either.

Warm and sunny and no rain

A dry and sunny spell of a few weeks...although rain forecast for later this week.

Continuing to dig out the far right box and earth up soil around all the potatoes which are growing nicely -- about 12" high. Just over half the box is dug out...not sure what to do with rest of soil to empty it. Also set up one of the skip bags and filled that up with straw/menu mix, some green compost and grass and a few layers of soil.



The grass is getting rather too long. Unfortunately the lawn mover seems to have a petrol leak so need to find an alternative.

Planting out carrots, beetroot, leeks.

Mum down with carrot, beet and leek seedlings. Planted in various places - mostly in near row central box, and long thin box in middle row.

Dotted left over seedlings all over the place. Plus loads of onions in any odd gap. Plus planted up a couple of large pots with Pink Fir Apple potatoes, and one with carrots that couldn't go anywhere else. Even tried some carrots, potatoes and cabages in the very poor soil of the non-boxes beds. Nothing to loose as this was left over stuff anyway.

Earthed up the larger potatoes that were coming through (Michael helping out there) by digging out soil from last year's carrot box (first row, furthest right box).

Raspberries all coming through nicely -- shoots a few inches high.

A bit of effort to fix the plumbing to sphypon fill the water tanks -- the valve had split over winter so new fittings required; managed to reuse some bits from my plumbing junk collection.