Friday, 07 September 2018
The Wait Goes On!
Harvesting on the plot is slowing down and the regularity of our visits are slowing down too. The start of September has brought with it some much cooler weather but so far no "proper rain". However, as the temperature cools the crops that are still growing will last longer between waterings.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 01-07 September 2018
On the plot it's a case of harvesting and clearing crops and waiting for rain before any beds can be dug over. I've managed to get a couple of beds ready for some flowers seeds and a crop of winter onions and garlic.
Last month a couple of beds were sown with green manure crops. One bed is doing reasonably well and one looks like it will need re-sowing.
This bed was sown with grazing rye in August and germination of the green manure crop has been good. There's also been excellent germination of weed seedlings too so it will be interesting to see how things progress. There's no point showing you a picture of the second bed as it's just a patch of mostly bare earth with very little signs of any germination including weed seeds.
I'm planning to get some more beds ready to be sown with green manure crops as soon as conditions improve and I've bought some seeds ready to sow as beds are prepared. The seeds don't have to be sown until the end of October but I'd really like to get some in as soon as possible. I might rake over the bed with the failed green manure crop of buckwheat, give it a good watering and re-sow it with some of my new seeds. It's a question of deciding whether to use Mustard Caliente or Autumn Mix.
Tuesday, 11 September 2018
Autumn Clearing Jobs
I'm not sure whether it's me or not but autumn seems to be well underway this year. The weather has turned cool for early September, although we are still awaiting some prolonged wet weather. At the allotment we're well into clearing beds of their summer crops.
The above beds have been cleared of climbing French and runner beans. Ideally I'd have liked to dig over the bed but I think the soil will be far too dry and hard for cultivating even though the beans were well watered through the summer. The only rain we get at the moment comes in dribs and drabs which does nothing for our bone dry soil. I did manage to resow one of our beds with a green manure crop. The first sowing of buckwheat in early August hadn't been successful despite our watering efforts. I've resown it with Caliente mustard and I'm hoping for better germination this time around.
One of our cardoon plants has been cut down, a couple of plum trees have been tidied up by removing some of the lower branches and Sue has given our red currants a good cutting back. They were starting to outgrow their allotted space.
Plum Tree - Marjories Seedling
Redcurrants
Although we've spent a good deal of time cutting back and clearing beds we've still had time to do some harvesting.
Harvest Sunday, 09 September 2018
The dry weather this year has meant no blight on our potatoes and tomatoes and, whereas the potatoes have done poorly in the very dry conditions, our outdoor tomatoes have done very well. If all years could be guaranteed to be blight free I think we'd manage without greenhouse grown tomatoes.