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.

Planted garlic; first crop for 2011

Had saved 3 good looking bulbs from this years crop and kept them in fridge since Augsut. Cold snap coming this weekend so seemed like good chance to plant out now. Gone into box that had runner and french beans - normally follow on from potatoes, so lets try it differently this year.

Rest of site is almost completely bare - just 3 leeks and a few potatoes left in ground.

Sweetcorn - total failure

Back from holiday and alot of stuff has gone to waste -- maybe too hot then too wet whilst we were away?

Sweetcorn has all turned either rock-hard and flourly or if its the 2nd variety we planted it's rather pale and watery and tasteless. Digging it all up - rather expensive and time consuming way of making compositing.

White cabages all gone off also; however red cabagges looking fine.

Beans and courgettes finished and clearing their space.

On the up side, potatoes looking good - quite good yield and size and not too much worm damage.

Tomatoes not too bad -- picking them a little early (i.e. on any sign of ripening) incase blight wipes me out -- a few spots detected but not too much so far (but it's rather damp at moment so could be any day now).

Quite a few melons but mostly about an inch or two accross so dont think they'll come to much - only one looks a reasonable size.

Bean overload

Plenty of beans and yet more courgettes.

First sweetcorn - 3 out of 4 quite nice but one was rather pale and watery. Maybe too early.

Tomatoes starting to come on well - picked plenty and no sign of problems yet.

Started digging up potatoes - plenty of them but dont seem top boil well (according to cook).

Late planted carrots no show at all. Maybe down to fact packet was from 2004, use by 2006! (cheapskate)

The late squashes and melons at back box doing well, greenery wise, but no sign of much fruit.