Allotment Diary–Thursday 21 July 2016
This is my first day working the allotment for a few days, although I’ve cropped more frequently and it was wonderful to really get stuck into some real work. The first job, that was desperately needed, was to brush up all the wind fall apples from the orchard and give the whole area a really good weed, I’m very happy with results, however temporary.
The next job was to weed my three newly planted seed beds, that are destined to provide me with autumn salads, it’s key to weed these before the plants get established, so that they’re not too damaged later. This is the bed that Steph planted for me so it’s extra special!
Then I cropped another bag of potatoes and then planted up another 6 bags of Christmas potatoes. I didn’t have enough compost though, so I cleared the top off my first bin and was pleased to find lovely warm, dark, crumbly compost underneath.
By this time the visitors had started to arrive at the plot, first Gill arrived for a tour and took away a giant courgette, kale and beets, followed by Sue who also wanted a tour and she took some currants, beets and spinach, then it was Caroline’s turn and she wanted gooseberries and carrots, in trade for about 30 onions, then Simon and Ellie arrived to talk about cold frame designs. Suffice it to say, I spent most of my time today chatting.
Finally I got around to cropping for myself and, including the fruit in the back garden we are really starting to get quite the variety now:
- carrots
- mange tout
- peas
- runner beans
- French beans
- broad beans
- cucumber
- courgette
- spinach
- chard
- radish
- mixed salad
- rocket
- kale
- raspberries
- gooseberries
- strawberries
- cherries
- blueberries
- onions
- beetroot
I also planted up a few rows of perpetual spinach to replace the rows that I pulled up.
