Allotment Diary–Sunday 5th June

Wow, it’s hot down on the allotment today, so this will be brief as I was out of there as quickly as possible.

The main job for the day was taking the polythene off my second tunnel and replacing it with mesh.  I only have one poly-tunnel now and I’m leaving that one open, I might replace it with mesh, but I don’t think so.  This remaining poly-tunnel will be the one where I start my first autumn crops off, for winter.

My main salad bed is now starting to go over, the plants needed cropping heavier over the last few weeks, but I just had to much to find homes for, so it was left.  As a result the plants are too tight together and are maturing too fast and either starting to rot or bolt.  Over the next two weeks I will be stripping this bed back to soil and replanting, I think I will have crops coming on in other beds to keep me going though.  I planted up the final vertical growing area with mange tout peas, so I now have to wait for the peas and broad beans to finish cropping before I can plant any more.

Today I bagged up two rows of radish and replanted one of them, the other row was replanted with rocket.  There’s hardly any room for these new rows but by the time they are sprouted the surrounding lettuce will be gone.

Overall I cropped a huge amount today, two bags of rhubarb, two bags of radish, one bag of chard, four bags of mixed lettuce, one bag of rocket, and a bag of gooseberries.  The gooseberries are still a bit under-ripe, but they needed thinning out and they should be fine cooked, I hope Brian and Elona enjoy them.

Finally I am now cropping enough Kale for my evening meal, I’m just taking smallish leaves from the plants that are left in my seed bed, they are a bit over-crowed, but still thriving and cropping strongly.