May is out, June spells summer?

1st June 2013

Yesterday, I spent a good couple of hours planting out some of my home reared plants.

Three courgette 'Golden Delight' plants, two pumpkin 'Mini Lanterns' plants and six cucumber 'Burpless Tasty Green' plants. These will all hopefully share the plot with the sweetcorn. I say 'hopefully' because I am not having a good time with getting the sweetcorn to grow. In previous years, they  have germinated and grown without a hitch but this year they simply do not want to co-operate. The variety is 'Extra Sweet' and out of 45 seeds sown, twelve have germinated - go figure?

Next up was the beans. I set up twelve eight foot canes for the french and runner beans and planted out three pots each of runners 'Lady Di', 'Desiree', 'Sunset', two pots of French 'Farsold', and a pot of 'Blauhide'.

On a different area, I planted twenty borlotti bean plants.  Despite being labelled as climbing beans, they didn't get very tall last year so I am going to wait to see what they do before messing about with supports.

Today, I returned to the plot to do a little watering and put protective collars around the beans. These are made from the body of pop bottles. I am hoping they will keep the snails at bay and help protect against wind damage while the plants are getting established.

3rd June 2013

I went to water this evening as the weather has been warm, dry and a little breezy. I think we might be getting a little of the breeze from the coast even though we are 40 miles inland.

Everything I planted the other day seems to be settling in well and the beetroot and chard are beginning to put on some growth as are the lettuce.

 

Along the back edge of the plot, I have the two blackcurrants I saved, the rhubarb and a bed of strawberries. At the very end of the path in the pot you can see a golden hop I acquired last year when someone was throwing it out at work. I am hoping it will grow along the fence and help 'mesh' it up a little to help combat the hoppy invaders.

5th June 2013

So what is going on with my sweetcorn?

The tray at the front is the most recent, second sowing (20 seeds), while the pots and tray at the back are what is germinated out of 30 seeds in the first batch; it's pretty pathetic.

7th June 2013

Okay, so I have got some advice on the sweetcorn issue and have decided to have one more try. I have some left which I have placed on some wet kitchen towel in a plastic box in the airing cupboard. Fingers crossed...

Meanwhile, at the allotment things are beginning to look fruity.

Strawberries:

Blackcurrants - last year we harvested over 2.5kgs of fruit from these two bushes so I have put a few supports in:

Apples - almost ready to thin out:

These are 'Lord Lambourne', a great all rounder which tolerates all sorts of situations and soil. The fruit are large and crisp like a Braeburn. I also have 'Katy' which I like for its dessert and cider potential and I have a Shropshire damson too.

The herbs along the border are all growing well and a carpet of Calendula is helping to suppress the weeds. I am hoping that they'll attract predators and keep the bees happy. The sage plants towards the end are covered in flower buds, the chives also have lots of flowers and I am hoping to get the dill to flower too.

But overall, things are starting to pick up and grow...looking fairly good I'd say.
Just got to look out for pests on the broad beans - I noticed a couple of ants lingering which can only mean one thing - aphids!

You can see though, that I am fighting a potentially losing battle with weeds. My neighbour's plot behind is now a jungle...not good. Additionally, my neighbour to the left works the plot on her own and I think she struggles to get on top of the weeds.

Lastly, just as I was leaving today, I noticed this fella:

I guess the spores do well in the wood chippings.

9th June 2013

Update on the sweetcorn saga...

So I set some sweetcorn seeds to germinate in plastic boxes in the airing cupboard a few days ago.
They have almost all germinated. Aha! Success you might say - not so - they have gone moldy.
That dreadful white hairy stuff. Ah, but perhaps I left them too long? Well, I did the same with some pea 'Maro' seeds and they have germinated beautifully in good health.

As this was my third attempt, I reckon that the seeds were dodgy.

So I am going to plant out my healthy, chitted pea seeds in cells today.

14th June 2013

I've not done much this week. Largely because I spent the first few days of the week feeling sorry for myself, suffering from one of those annoying summer colds.

I did get a chance though, to acquire some potting compost and some pots to plant my tomatoes which I did today in spite of the changeable weather.

There are three pots of tomato 'Inca', a plum variety and a pot of three Tumbling Tom'; I also have some in a hanging basket. 

16th June 2013

Just a little update folks. Despite it being Father's Day yesterday, I put my beloved to work to weed the allotment. Meanwhile, I set out a row and a half of carrot 'Resistafly', making a tent of fleece over them for resistafly reassurance. I also planted out the few sweetcorn plants I have. I put them on the curcubit bed as they are spaced well and it allowed me to place the sweetcorn block-like as is required. 

The strawberries are all fruiting nicely, and ready to ripen, as are the blackcurrants. I put a simple netted cage over them  to deter thieves.

20th June 2013

In an effort to get some seeds sown before the rain sets in at the weekend, we went to the plot yesterday.
I sowed two rows of carrot 'Royal Chantenay',  A row of cabbage 'Mammoth Red Rock', a row of broccoli 'Di Ciccio' and a final row of beetroot 'Red Ace'.

As we were about to leave the plot we noticed some caterpillars on the damson. I left them in order to identify them first and when I got home referred to my insect books; turns out they are Vapourer moth caterpillars - very attractive.

Armed with knowledge, knowing that the female has no wings so remains on the plant, we returned today to remove all offending wrigglers. Here's hoping we got them all.