Monday, 09 July 2018
Sweet Pea Picking
We still haven't had any rain, although the last time I checked, one weather model was hinting at some rain on Friday night into Saturday morning. Thunderstorms, at one time predicted for Thursday night, seem to have disappeared. It must rain sometime, mustn't it?
Temperature & Rainfall Records 09 June - 09 July 2018
Trips to the allotment have taken on a bit of a routine in order to get everything watered as best we can. We fit other jobs in between watering but we make sure we harvest as much as possible on each visit.
Sometimes I think it's a bit of a shame to cut flowers, grown on the plot, for displays at home. However, we get to see them more when they are cut for home. Usually, one of our last jobs is to pick all the sweet peas. If the flowers are left they set seed forming pods and the sweet peas stop flowering.
It's not a very time consuming job and as soon as they are cut the flowers are placed in a small container of water to keep them as fresh as possible for the journey home.
By the time we've finished picking the sweet pea trellis looks like this.
It's usually a couple of days before we visit the plot again by which time with any luck we'll have another batch of flowers ready to pick. On our return we expect the sweet pea trellis to look something like this.
With a bit of luck this will go on through the summer and into early autumn.
Wednesday, 11 July 2018
Are Your Runners Beans Setting?
I’ve seen a few posts on Facebook about the first trusses of runner bean flowers not setting any beans. I've also seen a few lucky gardeners picking their first beans. I’m assuming that the flowers failing to set beans is down to the weather. On our watering visit to the plot I decided to check out how ours were doing as they’re just coming into flower.
Runner Bean - Firestorm
The runner beans certainly aren’t setting any beans despite the best effort of this bee to pollinate them. Hopefully they’ll decide to set some beans higher up as the plants continue to climb up the supports.
It was better news when I checked out our climbing French beans Cobra. Checking out the lowest flower trusses they are beginning to set some beans.
Climbing French Beans - Cobra
Hopefully, conditions aren’t too bad and our runners will get the message and start setting fruit too. The beans should go on growing well into autumn so there’s plenty of time for the beans to form. In the meantime we've plenty of cabbage ready and a steady stream of cauliflowers to cut.
Cabbage - Regency & Cauliflower - Helsinki
Our calabrese still keeps producing a few side shoots too so we've plenty of fresh vegetables for the cooking pot.