{"id":37026,"date":"2025-07-27T19:08:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T18:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ossettweather.com\/gardening2022\/?p=37026"},"modified":"2025-07-28T12:53:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T11:53:30","slug":"a-watering-free-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ossettweather.com\/gardening2022\/susan\/a-watering-free-week\/","title":{"rendered":"A watering free week"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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After the previous week’s rain, we had a treat – a whole week of no watering<\/strong>, except for the greenhouses.<\/p>

The grass is already looking greener, but no doubt we will soon be toting watering cans again.<\/p>

Its seems Yorkshire Water did indeed send out engineers to further investigate our poor water supply. People wearing hi-vis jackets were seen in the vicinity of the stop tap on Monday morning. When we arrived at 10:30, they had left.\u00a0 There is no improvement so I guess we are still at the investigation stage.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Last week we spent time trying to catch up with some general maintenance and weeding. The weeds came on in leaps and bounds after the rain. We had some prize specimens of fat hen.<\/p>

I didn’t take any photos – I was too busy weeding.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Ruby had fun exploring on the plot and ended up with weed seeds embedded in her hair. Goosegrass seeds are not the easiest things to remove from curls.<\/p>

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Free from watering duties, we took time to ‘smell the roses’ or in our case admire the flowers.<\/p>

The hibiscus started life in our garden where it didn’t seem to grow so it was transferred to the plot. This often happens to things that don’t do well in the garden. Now I’d really like it back but it is too big to move so maybe I’ll take some cuttings.<\/p>

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Lots of hardy cyclamen have somehow migrated to the allotment but I wasn’t expecting to find one flowering now.\"\"<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Of course, we had to spend some time harvesting.<\/p>

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21 July – Climbing French beans, plums, cabbages, courgettes, mangetouts and sweet peas<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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22 July – Cucumber and tomatoes from the garden greenhouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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25 July – Courgettes, climbing French beans, plums, cabbage, mangetouts and dahlias<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Apples, cucumber and tomatoes from the garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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27 July – Climbing French beans, plums, greengages, apples, blackberries, broccoli, courgettes and cabbage<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The plums have done really well this year and so far haven’t been spoiled by grubs.<\/p>

Details of July’s harvests are here<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In the garden, each year we plant up pots of annuals which are grown from seeds and spend time in the greenhouse before planting out. This year the young plants just didn’t thrive. Despite having had good results with the same brand earlier, we suspected the problem was with the compost so we bought a different brand to fill the containers. We planted the pathetic looking plants with low expectations.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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However, once the plants were placed in a different compost they started to grow and look healthier. The pots that appeared to be sparsely planted soon filled up.<\/p>

Buying compost these days is a minefield. Differing batches of compost can be vastly different in terms of quality. The compost was B&Q\u00a0 branded and so I emailed them to ask what quality control processes they employed. Their response told me to go into a store for gardening advice which wasn’t at all helpful and didn’t answer my question. I emailed again and no reply has been forthcoming.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mangetouts have done well this year and some were used with yellow and green courgettes in a chicken stir fry<\/a> that I forgot to photograph.<\/p>

I used more mangetout and climbing French beans in a Thai turkey curry.<\/p>

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\u00a0At Nostell all five cygnets are fit and well.<\/p>

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Fortunately, I am sure they have outgrown any threat from the heron that was prowling the lake.<\/p>

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Finally, in spite of the drought there was plenty of fungi in the woods.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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That’s all for this week so as always stay safe and well.<\/p>

Again, I am joining Dave for Harvest Monday<\/a> on his Our Happy Acres blog.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the previous week’s rain, we had a treat – a whole week of no watering, except for the greenhouses. The grass is already looking greener, but no doubt we will soon be toting watering cans again. Its seems Yorkshire Water did indeed send out engineers to further investigate our poor water supply. People wearing 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