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Early summer on the plot

balcony

By balcony

12 comments


Early summer on the plot

Summer put in the very briefest of appearances on Sunday & Monday 26-27th June. We reached around 30ºC on Monday! On the allotment it was so hot that you could see the plants wilting! Especially the Sunflowers but even the Beetroot & other plants, like the Potatoes in front of our shed, were wilting! I may not be a plant but I was wilting as well!

On Tuesday we had thunderstorms on & off for most of the day. After which the next few days saw much lower temps.

Gerry has 2 rows of Gooseberries on his plot. A row of 3 at the beginning of the plot & another half a dozen behind the shed. This year they are so laden with berries that the branches are bending over & touching the ground! I’ve already picked some 3 times for myself. Gerry has taken quite a few & we tell other people they can help themselves!

The 6 bushes behind the shed haven’t been watered in the 2 years I’ve helped Gerry on the plots. The 3 near the beginning got watered several times a couple of weeks ago

I planted some French Marigolds & Tagetes amongst the Tomatoes as companion plants as they are supposed to repel Whitefly. I’ve since learnt that they attract them – away from the Tomatoes!

My Lettuce is now bolting! This one has flowers that will open any day now! Even so we have had many heads from them & everyone has commented on my “giant” Lettuces! They’ve been quite impressed! Yet I did nothing more than water them after I transplanted them! They have had no fertilizer nor compost or manure nor was that part of the plot treated in any way beforehand!

The bed of Tomato Mallorquin after tying in & removing sideshoots:

1st Early Potatoes Arran Pilot

My very first Cucumber in the greenhouse!

Onions from seed Alisa Craig

Rocket 1st Early Potatoes

The Potatoes are flowering at the top of the plot & they really look fantastic!

The seeds were sown on 28th May. Sunflower bed with wood chipping mulch. A lorry full of wood chipping came to the allotment field on Wednesday 29th June. I got a few barrow loads & covered this bed in them to a depth of a couple of inches! No more weeds in this bed!

This is how my Sweet Peppers looked before weeding:

This is how my Sweet Peppers looked after weeding:

First Black Currants of the year to be picked!

A week later:

Gooseberries:

2nd sowing of Beetroot Bolthardy harvested:

Onion sets Turbo:

The Onions I am growing from seed Alisa Graig:

Three sisters planting:

As we come to the end of this update of the allotment I share with Gerry, I’m adding the last couple of photos of the plot as seen from inside our shed, they are taken about 2 weeks apart so as to get a feeling for the speed of developments down on the plot:

View from inside shed on 11th June:

View from inside shed on 27th June:

This last photo of this blog is a photo down the length of our allotment taken from the top & looking down to the bottom.

Our 1/2 plot is on the right from the Sweetpeas to the end. The half plot, up as far as the bin & the Sweetpeas, belongs to another lady & her daughter. On the left is a partial view of the whole plot that Gerry has.

Hope you find this blog interesting & I hope to post the next blog around the middle of July. Several more crops are being harvested & I will include them there.

Happy gardening to all.

More blog posts by balcony

Previous post: Sunflowers: Big & small

Next post: "Save it for a rainy day!"



Comments

 

Everything doing well...
good set of photos and captions..
get ready for the mid-week rain :o)

3 Jul, 2011

 

everything looks great Balcony, lots of lovely fruit to use and beets look yummy to,its been so hot today here but i love it, no pains when the sun shines.
glad your reaping the rewards of your labour ;o))

3 Jul, 2011

 

Balcony,your allotment looks absolutly smashing with all that veg and barry's.You and your friend Gerry, could start selling veg fruit at the country fairs

3 Jul, 2011

 

Well done you're having some nice crops there. It's good to see things are coming along so well :o)

4 Jul, 2011

 

Looking good Balcony. I'm looking forward to our fruit cage project starting so I can have blackcurrants, raspberries and gooseberries - no point is trying to grow those here without protection as it'll be the biggest bird cafe for miles around! Nice to hear you've been basking in temps of 30 degrees. (I won't tell you of our week of 40 degrees then ;o)) The sunflower plot looks good - plenty of snacks for you and the birds?

4 Jul, 2011

 

all coming along nicely there Balcony....

4 Jul, 2011

 

Thank you all for your kind comments! :-))

@Nariz: We don't need to protect our fruit on the plot because the birds seem to leave most of it alone! :-)) There are only a few damaged Gooseberries or Black Currants. There are plenty of birds on the allotment field & it is quite usual to have Blackbirds or Robins following you around. The pigeons are a nuisance if you grow "greens" or peas but otherwise they aren't a pest as far as I can see.

I harvested our first Cucumbers today! 3 from the GH & 2 from the plot. There are lots more in the GH!

I dug up our first early potatoes on Friday & Saturday. we got 4 plastic bags full of spuds! In my next blog I'll put up some photos of them.

4 Jul, 2011

 

I need some of your well-behaved birds to teach my mob to leave my grapes alone! We don't have trouble with pigeons - not many in this area and the few that are here fly VERY quickly into cover before they become lunch for something bigger! Blackbirds are the main concern - they seem to think that everything fruity is grown for their benefit alone. We've had many a laugh watching a blackbird scaring off every bird who dares visit the cherry tree down the lane! Don't they realise it's HIS personal tree???!!!

5 Jul, 2011

 

Your Blackbird made me laugh, Nariz! :-D)

Talking about Blackbirds, one came down to the row of Gooseberry bushes behind our shed while I was only a couple of feet away &, after looking around in every possible direction starting helping himself to a Gooseberry while I stood still watching him tuck in! :-))

5 Jul, 2011

 

Of course he did - they're HIS gooseberries! Didn't you realise that? ;o)

6 Jul, 2011

 

Oh Balcony, doesn't everything just look so healthy on the plot? If ours looks half as good as yours next year,we shall be happy! We've 'inherited' two different types of Gooseberry bushes, one is a red dessert, the other the usual green variety, if that makes sense! We had a fruit crumble using them yesterday, quite tart even with sugar added. Also have made enough Blackcurrant jam to fill eight jars, so we're happy with that. Lovely to see all your produce on the allotment. : o ))

6 Jul, 2011

 

Thanks Shirley! I just looked at the photos above again & can hardly recognise the allotment now! Everything has really taken off &, almost, followed Atlantis into space!

The next blog I write will show a very, very different allotment to this one! LOL! Everything is now coming to a head & harvest is practically upon us!

10 Jul, 2011

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