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Weekend 3 August
On the plot
Monday was a beautiful day -
But then after that it didn't just rain -
We thought that we had everywhere well weeded and could sit back and just enjoy for a day or two but the rain has put paid to that idea. Rain + warmth = weeds + more weeds.
As for further activity on the plot, it has been a case of weeding. hoeing and picking! Included in the picking were our first yellow tomatoes and first cucumber of the season.
We are still picking strawberries including lots and lots of alpine strawberries -
Snipping all the black-
Planted out some Sweet Williams to provide flowers for next year.
The dahlias and sunflowers are now flowering well as are the bedding plants left over from the garden -
The gladioli are just starting to produce buds.
The buddleia are flowering well -
Most of our plum trees have been a disappointment in terms of fruiting this year. Just one or two fruits on our yellow plum. It must be a poor season all round as as soon as a fruit is anywhere near ripe the wasps home in. Trying to retrieve any fruits is a dangerous job!
The peas that were planted directly into the soil are now growing well and needed providing with sticks to support them. We have a couple of hazel bushes planted on the plot that we hope soon will be providing us with sticks as well as some fairly sturdy poles with which to maybe build some structures.
The courgettes are continuing to be prolific and the squash are setting well. We have had courgette soup, stuffed courgettes and frozen some maybe we can carve totem poles from some too. The squash are developing well -
We dug up a root of our contaminated potatoes and there seems to be a fair crop but will we eat them. We have been told that they should be safe to eat but we also have lots of potatoes growing in soil where the manure wasn't used. We always grow several varieties of potato, more than we need as often one variety fails to crop well but this year so far things are looking promising. So given the choice of eating potatoes that are free of herbicide and those that may have some herbicide traces (even traces that should be safe) then I think the former will win out. We grow our own to avoid residues in our food safe or otherwise but what to do with the potatoes that we are unlikely to eat?
Weeded round the brassicas but somewhere I read that whitefly don't like the smell of chickweed so as an experiment I left quite a bit of chickweed -
In the garden
The ligularia dentata -
The crocosmia Lucifer is also flowering -
About a couple of years ago now we bought a miniature water lily for the pond. Since then there has been no sign of a flower, (we had even forgotten what colour it was), but now it has a bud so fingers crossed we may have a dark pink flower this year.
The hostas are continuing to flower well. They have been subjected to a bit of nibbling but considering the weather seem remarkably unscathed.
In the greenhouses
Garden greenhouse:
The tomatoes are ripening now but, despite flowering, the chillies, sweet pepper and aubergine don't appear to have set fruit.
The grapes on the other hand are swelling up well and will soon be ready to pick -
The pot plants -
Plot greenhouse:
Still like a jungle in there -
Out and about
What can I say really rain -
Weekend 10 August
On the plot
I’m sure that I am developing webbing between my fingers. I think I am evolving into an amphibian in order to cope with the wetness. The frogs are enjoying the weather though as they seem very active on the plot. It seems that we are forever contemplating whether or not we can arrive at the plot before the rain starts. Even when it isn’t raining the weather has been humid and damp.
The shrub roses that are more cabbage like have suffered in the wet with the flowers and buds becoming mouldy. The ones more like dog roses seem to fare better. The roses have needed quite a bit of attention. As last week I have been spending quite a lot of time snipping off leaves that show signs of blackspot. The leaves are then taken home to the wheelie bin in an attempt to prevent the black spot spreading. The weather has been ideal for cultivating blackspot and other fungal infections.
The Bees Knees sunflowers are now providing long lasting cut flowers for the house as are the dahlias and gladioli – we have had to buy another vase!
We have picked the last of the broad beans and cleared their bed. I am just so glad that I won’t have to pod any more of them. Someone needs to cross them with either a pea or a banana to ease access to the beans. Alternatively breeding one with a zip fastener would be ideal. The broad bean plants also developed chocolate spot – another fungal disease. It really is the year of the fungus! Fortunately this doesn’t affect the beans themselves but the plants looked a bit of a mess.
Cut back all the spent flowers of the centranthus to try and avoid them seeding everywhere.
The strawberry plants that provided us with a wealth of strawberries this year have had some attention. All the old leaves have been cut off, taking care not to cut away the emerging new shoots. The straw mulch has also been removed. Once the weather is dry enough to get back out the plants will be given a feed to set them up hopefully for a good crop next year. We have another couple of beds that were set out earlier this year using runners from existing plants. These haven’t had much fruit so have been left to build up their reserves for next year. Unlike the older plants they have sent out a mass of runners which will be chopped off. As the runners have produced some strong plantlets, it is tempting to pot them on but we already have three strawberry beds. There is a limit even with strawberries as to how many plants can be coped with. No doubt some of the other plot holders will take some off our hands.
Harvesting continues and some beds are being cleared – it seems that the turning point has been reached. The last couple of weeks saw the plot at its best but now some crops are fading.
The squash and pumpkin plants are elbowing other plants out of the way as they spread across the beds and escape from their allotted areas.
Planted more herbs Broad Leaved Thyme, Pineapple Sage (it really does small of pineapple), oregano – Country Cream and tarragon
Dug first lot of Charlotte potatoes – these have produced a good crop and are herbicide free.
Continued sowing radish seed for succession.
Started to harvest apples and blackberries.
In the garden
The miniature water lily has flowered and is red. It even has some more buds developing. Other lilies in the borders are also now flowering. It’s a pity that we haven’t had a warm summer evening to sit out and appreciate the scent.
We have a few small plants, lettuce and spring cabbage, growing in the cold-
The poor birds visiting feeders are saturated!
The hebe in our front garden is due for the big chop but at the moment it is in flower and swarming with bees – just too many to count -
In the greenhouse
Tomatoes are gradually ripening in both greenhouses but much slower than normal – no doubt due to the lack of sunshine and warmth. It has been important to thin out the leaves to allow the air to circulate.
Out and about
The verges have lost their greenness. Lots of dried grass heads.
The fields along the sides of the motorway have been harvested and would have a golden glow if the sun actually managed to shine on them. It all seems very autumnal – including the weather.
The foals in many of the fields must wonder what they have been born into as some must have been permanently soggy since emerging into the world.
Weekend 17 August
On the plot
This really has been the week of the butterfly especially around the buddleias both in the garden and on the plot. Lots of peacock butterflies which are very welcome and the small and large whites which although pretty are less welcome as no doubt shortly they will be homing in on our brassicas. I also noticed on comma. We have lots of meadow brown butterflies flitting about but interestingly not many of them seem to visit the buddleias. The allotment is full of their honeyed scent so it is no surprise that the butterflies swarm in.
Some plants growing in the area that has been affected by contaminated manure are just beginning to show signs of distress. Tomatoes that have been growing happily for over a month now show symptoms of poisoning – the typical disfiguring of the leaves and growing shoots, some peas and French beans planted directly into the soil are also disfigured. We can’t really make our minds up about the chard as the symptoms of poisoning in chard are bubbling on the leaves and it is difficult to decide whether the bubbling is excessive or not!
Pruned the cordon apples. We inherited these with the plot and they are now really large and doing their very best to become trees. Many of the main branches are disfigured and they do get woolly aphid but are worth persevering with for the apples they provide. The fruits are only smallish but then again we don’t have to follow EEC rules and reject them.
We have started to dig up our potatoes some of which are just starting to show signs of blight. It looks as if we will have plenty to see us through next year without using the herbidcidal crop!
We continue to harvest a mixture of berries, the alpine and ordinary strawberries are continuing to fruit. The blackberries and raspberries are starting to ripen and we have also managed to pick a few blueberries. The tayberry has now completed its stint at providing fruit and so has been cut back severely. I prune it exactly as I do the blackberry and as always worry that I have gone too far but hopefully next year it will provide us with a good crop.
Many of the onions and shallots have been gathered in. A few of the onions had soggy bottoms due to the wet season but there were plenty to store. The garlic however hasn’t fared as well with many bulbs just disappearing altogether. The onions will be dried off in the greenhouse as to leave them on the plot would just result in them completely rotting.
We continue to have plenty of choice of cut flowers. The sunflowers in particular last for a long time in a vase.
The courgettes continue to produce a bounty of fruit with plot holders competing with one another to find someone to give them away to. Also harvested were broccoli, cabbage, carrots, salad leaves, tomatoes French and broad beans and peas.
This has also been a week for clearing beds that have finished cropping always a sad time in many ways as it hints that summer is passing.
In the garden
The lilies in the garden look beautiful and fill the garden with their strong perfume. The colours have intensified with all the rain. Much of the pollen has been washed off on to the lower petals so they have a slightly orange tint.
We have been surprised this year by a the appearance of a cluster of apples growing on what once were cordon apples growing along one of our boundary fences. The cordons gradually just become too large and we cut then down to the ground. Some continued to sprout providing a sort of hedge. Then this year hiding behind the greenhouse we noticed that one ex-
In the greenhouse
Tomatoes are beginning to ripen a little more quickly but still far slower than expected.
Out and about
Not really out and about – more inside and about I suppose. We appeared on Gardeners’ World this week. The four hours of filming and eating and coffee drinking spent with the crew was condensed into just three minutes being broadcast due to the number of items that had to be included in the programme. Never quite believed that our slot would actually be shown so it came as a bit of a shock when I saw myself actually appear. It did make me realise just how much time goes in to producing a one hour show if our little slot took so long. As we shared our slot with the RHS it would have meant, when the travel time of the crew was included, almost two days of filming. The ‘crew’ were due to arrive on site at 1:00 p.m. Although I had been warned that BBC time was give or take a couple of hours, I didn’t expect the call that came at about 10:30 to say they were actually half an hour away! So it was quickly into jeans, pack up some coffee and buns as it looked as though we would miss lunch and off to the site. As we arrived, ‘the crew’ Phil the researcher and Tom the camera/sound man were already waiting. The actually filming was interesting. The researcher asked questions that I had to answer knowing that his question would be edited out! Then of course there were the retakes due to passing aeroplanes, police sirens, the microphone revealing itself or hair blowing across the face etc. The request to say all that again can be fairly difficult to achieve when you have forgotten exactly what you did say. Then there are the action shots such as filling a wheelbarrow full of someone else’s manure and hoping that they won’t mind! Anyway Phil and Tom were so easy to work with – great guys – so maybe we will meet them again some time.
Weekend 23 August
On the plot
The dreaded blight has struck! We have been on alert for it all year due to the excessive wet weather – the potatoes have a spray of dithane too. This week however the potatoes and tomatoes both in the greenhouse and outside have been struck. The tubers of the potatoes seem OK so far, although we are still digging them up. The tomatoes have been stripped off the plants in the plot greenhouse and the diseased ones disposed of so we will have to wait and see if the green fruits ripen and are any good. Fortunately we have some tomatoes in our garden greenhouse so maybe we will have more luck with them. It would be interesting to know if anyone on our site is blight free and what varieties they have grown or precautions they have taken!
Some of the peas that we planted in the bed which had dodgy muck applied are showing signs of distress. The symptoms vary along the row but in patches the plants are hardly growing have cupped and distorted leaves. The stuff is still doing its worst. We can still see bits of manure still to decompose that has come up to the top of the soil. We planted two wigwams of sweet peas – one in good soil and one in the contaminated stuff. Both lots started cropping long stems colourful flowers. Now the ones on good soil continue to flourish whilst those on the poisoned soil although have very poor weak looking flowers with only one or two flags on short weedy stems.
Yet another of my whitecurrant cuttings has started so sprout so I am now up to 75% success.
We have managed to harvest a few blueberries but as yet the two year old bushes are not very prolific. Other fruits that we have harvested are the faithful alpine strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, a few plums and lots of apples from the old cordons.
Under the plum trees a couple of small clumps of hardy cyclamen are flowering – they arrived there by accident in soil from the garden. We started with just one white flowered and one pink flowered plant and they have seeded themselves everywhere – more so the white ones. Or maybe white dominates if any cross pollination takes place.
The cardoons are gradually falling foul of the winds and being flattened. They do sprout again from the base next year but we won’t have the dried flower heads that look fairly dramatic through winter. We have never actually harvested anything from them – apparently the stems should be blanched like celery but we just leave them to make a statement – although this year it seems that the wind will have the last say.
The other two strawberry beds have had runners removed – they had produced an incredible amount.
Beds are being cleared and thoughts turning to what we will do next year. Some beds will be refilled with some crops for winter but the burgeoning effect will have gone for this year.
Incredibly for this time of year much of the plot is too muddy to dig.
In the garden
The crocosmia (unlike most of us) seem to have loved this summer and are flowering better than they have for several years.
The bananas and ginger plants also have revelled in the wet conditions and have huge leaves although the banana leaves soon become ragged when battered by the winds.
The ligularia is still flowering – it has been fantastic. It is another plant that likes moist conditions and it certainly has had that this year.
Years ago we grew begonia sutherlandii as pot plants. They are the small orange flowered plants in the photo. We used to propagate dozens of them to sell at the carnival of a school where I used to work. We had so many that I popped some in the garden never expecting them to overwinter but each year they pop up in nooks and crannies and in the pots of larger plants. I think the actual plant dies off each year but it produces small tuber like growths on the stems which drop in to the soil or compost and spring up again the next year.
Less welcome are the violets that appear in pots everywhere and are a nightmare to pull out. They seem to try and choke everything and started life in our garden as one fairly innocuous dainty looking plant.
We have just one fig on our fig plant but will it survive?
In the greenhouse
As mentioned early the plot greenhouse has been devastated by blight on the tomatoes. The one thing to be left thriving is the cucumber which has fruits that could grace the supermarket shelves and not look out of place. The melons didn’t do anything at all though.
In the garden greenhouse things look much better. At the moment most things are thriving (I shouldn’t have said that – it’s tempting fate). The chillies and peppers have started to set fruit and we have harvested the first of our grapes. The potted plants are providing lots of flower. I have had a go at a few penstemon cuttings. I put plenty in so am hoping that at least one will take!
Out and about
It has rained again -
One highlight which probably should be under – on the plot – was a tasting of Pat’s Pickled runner beans. It inspired us to have a go ourselves!
We had another media event – in fact very nearly two this week. We had another slot on the Radio Leeds Breakfast Show and were due to have a visit from the local TV Look North programme but they changed their mind at the eleventh hour!
Weekend 31 August
On the plot
Still plenty of harvesting, hoeing and weeding and clearing of beds. It is beginning to feel very much as though we are emptying the plot with beds becoming bare soil.
Still a few things being planted though, a selection of lettuce and salad leaves – Red and Green Salad Bowl, Yugoslavian Red Lettuce and Winter Density lettuce and spring cabbage – Excel
Harvested our first sweet corn of the season – they are rather small this year.
The flower beds are still looking good with the asters just beginning to come into flower. Foxgloves have been planted to provide some colour next spring.
We have a good display of cosmos. According to the seed catalogues cosmos are half hardy annuals that are sown inside and transplanted after the threat of frost has passed. We religiously follow these instructions but each year as I plant out these cosseted young plants I find self sown young plants growing. This year I either left them in situ or moved them into other positions. These plants are just as good if not better than the plants that were given the full half hardy annual treatment. I am going to collect seeds from them this year and sow some directly into the soil to see what happens. Some of the self sown varieties have good strong stems ideal for cutting with each stem having a cluster of buds at the top. We have tried both double and single varieties but I much prefer the simplicity of the single flowers. I think some garden flowers – primroses for instance – just lose something when double varieties are introduced. Insects prefer single flowered varieties too.
I’ll certainly grow some more sunflower Bees Knees again next year – they have made some fabulous cut flowers. You only need about five in a vase for a good display – as the name suggests -
The limnanthes (poached egg) plants have produced masses of seedlings and so I have transplanted a row of them as edging in front of the roses. Hopefully this will help keep the early aphids at bay until the birds start collecting them to feed their young.
Made some mint jelly and it is really good.
In the garden
Several shrubs have been trimmed or pruned this week. Some just to tidy up straggly bits – others needed more severe chopping.
The John Downie crab apple has ripe fruits that are poised ready to bombard the plants that live below. Many plants have thrived in the damp conditions – mainly the perennials – the annuals look far less happy.
In the greenhouse
The plot greenhouse now is more or less relegated to becoming a storage area for green tomatoes and onions
The garden greenhouse, however, is still full of growth. The chillies are now developing well although we seem to have only one or two sweet peppers formed.
Out and about
The cylinders of hay are now a feature in the fields alongside the motorway.
Hawthorn berries are now formed but not yet red.
