July

July has been a busy month at the allotment. Mostly it has been constant weeding and a lot of picking as the vegetables gradually start to become ready. Above is how one of the plots currently looks, at the end of July, with the Runner Beans now producing and the Squash plants well and truly taking over and covering the soil. Plenty of Courgettes are also being picked.


At the start of July I planted out Purple Sprouting Broccoli and White Sprouting Broccoli plants that were started off at home about a month before. They're inside a high net cage as the plants grow really big and tall. By the end of the month the plants had grown from how they look above when they were planted out, to how they look below.




During July I dug up all three rows of Potatoes, 1 row at the start of the month, 1 in the middle, and 1 row at the end. Their size was progressively bigger the later I dug them, as expected. There's quite a few with the wire worm holes as always unfortunately, but generally it's a good yield.


The Sweetcorn is growing very well and the cobs have all started forming now as you can see above, with their tassles clearly displayed.


The Leeks that were planted out last month are growing well, only a few have been lost so far, but obviously in need of some weeding soon.


The Squash plants are growing rampantly. Above are the Butternuts. Below is a Festival.




These are Turks Turban Squashes starting to grow, and below is the biggest of the Pumpkins so far. Probably about the size of a basketball already.

Late June

The Cabbages I planted at the start of the month are growing really quickly now. I've also now planted out a few more of the various brassicas.


The Leeks have now been planted out from the initial rows they were sown in. Each Leeks is placed in a hole (made with the handle of a rake) and just watered in.


For the past couple of weeks I have been picking absolute bags full of peas! Definitely a good years for peas this year. Podding them all takes forever, but it's worth it. The supply in the freezer will last us quite a while.


The Courgettes are just starting to be ready for picking now. Shown above are the yellow variety I'm growing.


This is the first sign of a Pumpkin starting to take shape. Tiny at the moment, but it's growing quickly already.


The Squash plants are starting to grow quickly too, bulking up and looking very healthy. Some are already showing flowers.


The Tomato plants are all growing well and it's an on-going battle to keep pinching out the side shoots and moving the ties a little higher each week.


Here's a view of the square plot, with the Runner Beans just reaching the tops of their poles.

Mid June

It's the middle of June and I'm now picking absolute buckets of Strawberries. I've never had so many! I'm picking them every other day, and regularly overfill a large ice cream tub. We've had so many that Melissa has even made several batches of Jam for the first time. The Raspberries are also starting to ripen now, so I'm picking a few of those too.


I've planted out some Cucumbers next to the shed, and fixed some horizontal wires to the shed wall to tie them in to when they grow big enough. In front of them I've also planted out a few Celery plants. It makes the purpose built bed between the shed and the patio look really good.


The first Peas are just days away from being ready for picking, and there are tons of them. I've planted the rows a little too close together once again, which will make picking and weeding quite tricky.


I've prepared the ground ready for all of the Tomato plants to go out. These are the canes that will support them. There are 3 rows of 7 canes, one row each for the Red (Gardeners Delight), Yellow (Sun Baby? can't remember now!) and Orange (Sungold).

Early June

Some of the brassicas were ready to be planted out, having been started at home in newspaper pots. So using a bulb planter, I make a small hole then just drop the plant into the hole, complete with it's newspaper pot. It makes planting them out very quick and easy. I have Red Cabbage, White Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage, Broccoli and Cauliflower. A few more of each will be planted out in a few weeks time.


Using a bamboo cane frame (with build-a-ball joints) and a sheet of Enviromesh I then cover the brassicas to help keep off the pigeons (which regularly decimate any cabbage plant on our allotment site) and hopefully also the butterflies (which in turn lay their eggs and allow their catepillars to much holes in all the leaves).


The Onions and Shallots had become very overgrown with weeds, so I hand weeded them all. Above you can see how it looked mid-way through the weeding, before and after. Makes quite a difference.

May Update

Haven't had much time to update this lately, but May has been quite a busy month both on and off the allotment. A lot of plants I started off at home are now ready for planting out. So as shown above, I now have Runner Beans planted out in two tee-pee arrangements, with sunken orange buckets under each one with holes drilled in the bottom to make it easy to water the roots. In between these will be the Courgette plants, one of which has so far been planted out.


Behind the runner beans is the large area which will be given over to all the different Squash and Pumpkins I'm growing this year. I've planted out about half of them so far, with the remainder either not big enough yet or having been resown after not germinating. The squash varieties are Festival, Sprinter (Butternut), Turks Turban, Futsu and Uchiki Kuri.


The French Beans have also been planted out and I've given them a mulch of grass clippings to keep the weeds down and aid water retention.


The Sweetcorn plants have also been planted out, next to the French Beans, in a grid arrangement to aid pollination. I'll give them a mulch too next time I cut the grass.


Last week I picked the first bagful of Broad Beans from the Autumn sown plants (shown on the left) and I also planted out the Spring sown Broad Bean plants (shown on the right) which are now big enough to go out.


The Potatoes are growing well and I've already given up trying to earth them up any more.


The Peas are also growing really well and the first few rows are already in flower. The next few rows are a couple of weeks behind and catching up fast.

This month I've also been picking quite a lot of Asparagus and Rhubarb. The Cherries, Strawberries and Raspberries have all produced 'green' fruits so far, so if we get a few weeks of sunshine they should start to ripen.

Asparagus and More Sowing

Today the first Asparagus of the year was ready for picking. There was 7 stalks to be picked today, but it's still an exciting moment. Within an hour and a half of picking them we were eating them. Fabulous.


I sowed another 3 rows of Autumn King carrots today. They were then covered with a tunnel of Enviromesh to help prevent carrot root fly.


I also managed to lay the final slabs for the patio, which provides an area where we can sit and a convenient walk way in front of the shed.


Next to the patio you can see the peas are really coming through well.


The strawberry plants are all just starting to flower now too.


The Cherry Tree is covered in lovely white blossom and looking very healthy.

Rhubarb and Sowing Time

On Saturday I picked Rhubarb for the first time ever! Just a few stalks so far, but it should be enough for a crumble. The colour of them is fantastic.


Over the past week I have sown all of the seeds that I always start off in pots at home in mini greenhouses on the patio. This year I'm using home made newspaper pots even more than last. In newspaper pots I have French Beans, Broad Beans, Sweetcorn and all of my brassicas: Cauliflower, Broccoli, Savoy Cabbage, White Cabbage, Red Cabbage. I've only sown half the amount of brassicas that I intend to grow so far, I'll wait a few weeks before sowing the rest to stagger them a bit.

Also in pots I have Cucumbers, Runner Beans, Courgettes (green and yellow), Pumpkins and five different types of Squash (Turks Turban, Futsu, Uchiki Kuri, Festival and Butternut).

The Tomatoes I sowed about 3 weeks ago are also coming along nicely at home.