Fire! hehehe.

Burned absolutely masses of bindweed, old junk and dried weeds today. Most enjoyable. Particularly the very intense green flame from the Russian vine.

Didn't get up there today.

A bit of a non-entry today, as I haven't managed to get up there. Rachael took over watering duties. Just thought it worth noting that it feels very odd not going, perhaps some sort of masochism has set in. Hmmm.

Some shots from today

Decided to get serious with my intervention between bramble and Russian vine, two plants I've come to realise have a massive sense of self entitlement. Nothing grows underneath them though, which means we have an almost clear bed of leaf mould, so it's not all bad.


Some pics from today, hopefully not too random :)




Also, I saw my first Harlequin today. Last year the media did their best to replace their usual "OMG we're all gonna die!" with "OMG all the lady birds are going to die!" due to the arrival of these little beasties. Well I've seen loads of two and seven spots this year and this is the first Harlequin I've come across. And it didn't even bite me.

Got a bit done today

Rachael did a bit of weeding and I looked after the kids till she went home. Once I was on my own I had a bit of a go at the Russian vine that's costing us the bottom ten feet of our allotment and swamping our shed almost totally on most of one side and completely on the other. I found a fruiting Elder tree under it, which was quite a nice surprise. I think a few days of concerted effort might actually get it under control. Will endeavor to do it this week. As usual topped off the water butts and watered the greenhouse growbags.



Rachael came across a recipe in the River Cottage cookbook for pickled Nasturtium seed pods, which odd as it sounds, taste reminiscent of capers, and possibly better. We've got lots of nasturtiums so we found some pods and tried a few raw, and they are very nice indeed. Will pickle the few dozen we have and report back.

We dug up our first potatoes today, the yield is pretty low, probably because we didn't manure properly, but the spuds themselves are very good. We had them with a melange of courgettes and beans and a salad of lettuce and my own radish pickle - all from the allotment. Very nice indeed.

I love August

Loads of stuff going on at the moment, courgettes keeping me busy, tomatoes coming to fruition and the herbs all looking good. Blackberries are coming on stream. The only real effort is the mowing and daily watering. Tomatoes are greedy plants and need pretty much a can full per plant per day. Aubergines haven't done anything yet, but the plant looks healthy so I plod on with the water.

A bit of background on 2009

Daniel was born in December and those first five months were pretty hectic, and also wet and cold. As a result, there was always something more immediate to do than get out and dig. That's not to say that I didn't think about it daily, like any other job you really know you should be doing, but aren't. As a result, with rumours of our allotment being taken away, it was May 28th before I got down there. Fortunately my instinctive obsession with new projects kicked in - all that remained was industrial relations negotiations, which I won't go too far into, but I realised I could only save it if I was allowed my own head, so Rachael graciously agreed to step back while I kept it going this year. I'm still stuck with her beds, rotation and scheme but we will be doing it 'together' next year and hopefully on a more equal footing because I'll no longer be a total noob.

Back in May, I was greeted by a water meadow. It was a quite amazing bed of wild flowers and brambles. A casual glance would have given you no clue that this was cultivated land just eight months before. Over the next few days I made strides with the brush cutter, and eventually the lawn mower and then the spade and fork.

Progress report

Beds 1 and 2 (spuds) are doing fine. A surprise crop of Nasturtiums are in bed 1 on top of the potatoes. Fine with me. Herbs at the bottom of the bed are looking great now.

Bed 3: Have planted Kale and white sprouting, all doing fine. South end is doing better than North end, and I think that is just down to situation and prevalance of bindweed. Needs weeding. Chives are now in flower and finished (as a crop, but I love the flowers)

Bed 4: Lettuces are just great. No problems at all. One or two small icebergs but most hearting-up nicely. Harvesting and eating regularly, and it is amazing how much taste they have compared to shop bought ones.
Radishes harvesting, and I made radish pickle yesterday. 2nd crop to come.

Bed 5: Squashes are finally fruiting. One good courgette on plant (about 8") several more on the way. Needs weeding. Fennel looks nice. Corn is beginning to show cobs. Runner beans doing great.

Bed 6: Broad beans. Tiny. Blackfly appears to have moved on. I am beginning to suspect that I have in fact a perfectly healthy crop of dwarf broad beans. Dwarf runners growing well, I have staked them, just in case. Probably a waste of time. Leeks doing really well.

Bed 7: Done and empty

Bed 8: Needs one last fork over and dig.

Greenhouse: Toms doing well now. Have some red and many yellow ripe. Squash doing really well, whatever it is will be fruiting soon. Lots of fruit on the Apache pepper plant. Very long fruit. Russian Taragon doing ok, one looks to be dead but feeding and watering anyway.

Tomatoes outside greenhouse aren't fruiting at all. Maybe they need more shelter from the wind or juset more time. Time will tell.

Border: Rosemary bay, thyme, artichokes all doing fine. Second artichoke harvest now ready. 1 of 3 plants looks nearly dead after massive blackfly infestation.

Jerusalem artichokes are doing really well. Very vigourous.

Jobs to be done: Plant cabbages, empty incinerator and have a fire. Tidy up. Kill wasps. Bring down nettles. Have a fiew. More harvesting.

Things done: Made gooseberry jam (some of our own, some scrumped from next door), rhubarb jam, redcurrant jam, pickled radish.

Observations: Very glad I didn't compost the broad beans. Absolutely delicious. Today is much, much too hot for doing serious work.

The allotment fed me today.

Been picking at stuff all day, but actually put a summer salad on the table that was 100% allotment grown. I haven't started actually murdering my own pigs yet, so the ham was bought in. Very satisfying (not to mention enormously tasty!)



Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

Getting there

A one week gap between visits has left my best tomato plants looking decidely sorry for themselves, although the fruits are fine and ripening nicely. I've fed them with organic sea weed fertiliser after giving them a really good drink; so hopefully they'll perk up.

Some good chillis sized chillis are now coming.

Generally now taking the fruits of my labour rather than planting anything worthwhile. Tomatoes, radishes, mint, broad beans are all coming through nicely.

The beans are interesting, the plants are tiny but the beans are normal looking. Will continue to sit on the fence about them. The runners I planted are coming up.

Second batch of white sprouting brocolli are looking much better than the first. Glad I put them in.

One, and only one courgette so far. Most distressing.

Wasps have made a nest in my nettle patch, which needs sorting.

Interesting Black/Silver flat spiders in the greenhouse.