We are still in desperate need of some real rain. The situation is being made worse as the warm, sunny weather accompanied by very breezy conditions soon dry out whatever moisture we can deliver to our plants. The grass is beginning to turn yellow and the cracks in an uncultivated bed are widening.
In the garden plants in the pebble gardens are dying.
On Saturday, Yorkshire was forecast to have heavy rain and thunderstorms. Yorkshire is a large county and maybe some parts of it had heavy rain, but not our area.
We were at the allotment on Saturday when it started to rain, but the amount that fell didn’t even properly wet the ground. The result was a few damp patches on the paved area.
On a more positive note, the blueberries are just beginning to ripen and so we needed to net the bushes as any berries showing even the slightest change in colour would be pounced upon by the blackbirds.
The rest of the time on the allotment has been spent watering, weeding, watering, harvesting and watering.
I tidied up our new lavender bed. Grass has grown in amongst the old lavender plants and gradually taken over the bed. This will be dug up but for now the plants are producing flowers amongst the grass which I am cutting.
It’s amazing just what will seed itself if left to its own devices. In the bed where we planted dahlias and cosmos, self sown cosmos are popping up amongst the newly planted dahlias. These seem to be stronger plants than the ones we grew the conventional way. The bed was rotovated at some point but the seeds have still germinated. Cosmos are supposed to be half hardy and seed packets indicate that the seeds should be started indoors but obviously these seeds haven’t read the instructions. I think next year I’ll try sowing the seeds direct outdoors.
You may remember that my first sowing of parsnips didn’t germinate successfully so I resowed. Suddenly lots of seedlings appeared, some I suspect are delayed germinations from the initial sowing. I have thinned them out so there is only one seedling or plant to each station. We’re now left with parsnips at all sorts of stages of development. I wonder if the newly germinated seedlings will develop into mature plants? We’ll keep them well watered and hope for the best. Last year germination was excellent. I think the prevailing conditions at seed sowing time are instrumental in producing successful germination. Whether you hit on the ideal conditions seems to be just pot luck.
Harvesting is now on the increase.
Some of the cabbage is being used to make my weekly batch of coleslaw.
Raspberries and strawberries are being eaten as a dessert; the fresh fruits don’t need any further enhancements.
The raspberries are very small this year, maybe another casualty of the dry conditions, but the flavour is still there. The poor canes are also being buffeted by the winds.
The first batch of broad beans are now ready for picking. Lots have been frozen but the first lot were served with some salmon and our new potatoes.
The early sweet peas came from a sowing of seeds collected from last year’s plants. The stems have been really long about 30cm (12″). The original plants only produced short stemmed flowers with very little scent. These flowers are sweetly scented. I must remember to collect some seeds from these for next year. Maybe we have bred a new variety by accident,
We emptied three pots of potatoes that had been growing in the garden. Although these hadn’t produced anything like the ones grown in the crate which we harvested last week, they were still welcome.
This year, after reading on some other blogs that radishes were being grown in module trays we decided to try this method ourselves. It’s worked really well and we have clean radishes with no slug damage.
We’re harvesting radish and cucumbers fresh from the garden as we need them.
Having had no success at growing spring onions for some time now, we are trying sowing them in a large pot of topsoil. For some reason, we can’t grow them by sowing direct outdoors as we used to. We haven’t had success growing them on pots of multi purpose compost either.
Finally, last week’s meal included a cabbage and chicken dish that used one of our freshly cut cabbages.
I made a turkey, quinoa and black bean bake that used some of our overwintered onions, garlic and some of our frozen sweetcorn.
I also made a coconut and squash curry that used some of our frozen Crown Prince squash and overwintered onions. This was served with brown rice and homemade onion bhajis.
That’s all for another week. I hope that next week I can report that we have had some decent rain.
As always stay safe and well.
Once again I am linking to Dave’s Harvest Monday blog on his Our Happy Acres blog.
We seem to keep getting rain forecast which never materialises, though we’ve had a couple of heavy downpours over the past week. There isn’t much rain forecast in the coming week though. I keep seeing people harvesting their potatoes and feel I’m missing out this year, I haven’t grown anything with moving house, so no tomatoes to come either.
They can’t forecast tomorrow’s weather Jo ao why they think they can predict weather long term is beyond me.
We had some really heavy rain yesterday morning, but when we down to the allotment the soil still looked very dry. We’ve filled up the water butts again from the allotment site tap and mainly use this water for the greenhouses and any crops in tubs
Still no heavy rain here, Margaret. We haven’t been able to avoid watering everything or things would have just died.
That idea for radishes is good. Maybe I’ll try that method, I have said that I’ve given up and will only grow the mooli-style ones but I used to enjoy seeing a plate of mixed colours. We’ll see..
I grew the moolis last year, Belinda but they weren’t very successful
So very dry, the ground is like dust even after some rain. Self seeded cosmos on my plot always flowers better than the ones I attempt from seed so I just leave them to it now. I can’t grow spring onions either for some reason! I’ve found success with multi sowing onions in modules and planting out as clumps, I pull immature onions to use as salad onions and leave some to bulb up.
It seems that spring onions are a problem for lots of us.
Your potatoes and cabbage are making me hungry. Lovely seeing your harvests and flowers. Lovely meals too. I do hope you get some rain soon. We could do with a decent downpour too.xxx
No luck with rain yet, Dina. It’s good to start harvesting more.
Only two of our first sowing of parsnip survived. Unusually there was on at each end of a row! Our second sowing of parsnip is just showing through. I am mystified by how bad my spring onions are, so it is almost a relief to find I am not alone!
I don’t know what has happened with spring onion, Mal. WE are certainly not the only ones. We haven’t grown any successfully for some time but they used to be so easy to grow. The ones in the pot have germinated but that’s happened before and then they have stalled.
Gorgeous flowers and berries. Our lavender is blooming now too. Finally, something we sync on in our gardens. Have you tried lavender lemonade? You can search for the recipe on my blog. If you’re a lavender lover you might like this or perhaps lavender shortbread cookies, also on my blog. So hope you get rain soon.
The only problem with lemonades and cordials is the amount of sugar that us needed, Sue.
Your lavender plants sure look healthy. It doesn’t often survive our winter here. We are enjoying our fruit too for dessert, and for breakfast. I just set out some raspberries this spring and I am looking forward to them in years to come. Your flowers are lovely, so bright and cheery!
How cold does it get in winter, Dave? Our climate is temperate so winters are usually not too cold and summers not too hot.