Allotment Diary–Friday 02 September 2016
I cleared out the last of the broad beans and composted them, I was sad to see them go as they’ve been a new discovery for me and the rest of the family have enjoyed them too. I have two new bean beds ready for next year, so we should be enjoying them again soon. In their place went a bag of mixed onions from Wilco, they over-winter and should be ready by May, allowing me to use this bed for later crops. I gave the med a good feed of chicken manure, volcanic rock dust and seaweed meal.
Next I finished planting up the second cold frame, mostly with oriental salads. Red Giant mustard
Organic beet leaf rhubarb chard
Lamb’s Lettuce, which I’m really looking forward to as it’s a firm favourite of mine in salad mix bags (the one’s I never buy anymore)
Pak Choi Tai Sai, which is actually planted to attract pests away from the other veg, so there’s a little in each frame. if it survives it’s good to eat too
That was the cold frame filled up.
I then moved on to the chive bed, we’ve moved chives over to the herb bed now, so I pulled out all of the chives and a few remaining rocket plants which I have plenty of and put in a large bed of Lamb’s lettuce. It’s a little over-shadowed by the radicchio, but that will be cropped by the end of next week.
I then moved on to the bed between the cucumber and the butternuts, this was full of summer kale which I don’t need anymore, so I composted that and replaced it with:
Autumn King carrots, it’s too late to plant these really, but I’m short of carrots and I have 2500 seeds in this packet, so it’s worth the risk.
I also popped in a Mesclun Mix, mainly because the packet was open and needed using up!
Finally I popped in a row of Winter Density lettuce, a classic hardy variety
Finally I planted a couple of Hosta’s that Debbie brought home yesterday, they looked pretty dried out and feeble, but they might grow next year. They went into the flower garden that runs along the front of the plot.
If they end up looking like this I will be very pleased
