General ramblings
So I finally succumbed to applying some Glyphosphate based weedkiller to the allotment plot. I’ve sprayed the bottom section of the plot which we aren’t using at the moment, so hopefully it will kill off the weeds – particularly I’m bothered about the spread of convolvus down there as well as the brambles and thistles which seem to be coming up with abundance. I’ve also sprayed a couple of other bits of convolvus by the path at the top – that’s the bit which keeps invading into our plot… That was on Wednesday and when I popped up on Sunday afternoon, a few things had started to look like they were dying down. Its supposed to take up to three weeks, so we’ll see …. given that we weren’t going to have time to clear that section in time for use this year, I don’t mind waiting 9 months or so for it to breakdown so that its safe to use next year.
Sunday was mostly tidying and I did a bit of watering. Planted out the sage, lettuce leaf basil, sweet green basil and another type of basil which I’ve forgotten the name of right now (edit: Lemon basil it was)… Also put the last few sweet pea plants out on the plot in a gap where some beans didn’t germinate. Also put a couple of Pinocchio’s nose chili plants and some normal toms out which I didn’t have space for in the greenhouse.
The corn seems to be coping OK and has certainly started to grow … just need to hope for a bit of rain! – Apparently if they lack water then it can stop growth completely, the plants will look healthy enough, but just won’t grow… Hopefully the clay soil will retain enough moisture to keep them going, assuming we get the odd rain shower!
I’ve now removed the glass cloche from over the melon plants as they are starting to put out flowers, hopefully some will set soon! There’s also a few flowers starting to appear on the bush tomatoes I planted out last week. The courgette plants look like they are starting to produce some fruit as well, I suspect in the next week or so, some will be ready for picking!
I’ve put the plastic hoops from the cheap poly-tunnel that I bought out over the strawberry plants, need to add some bird netting over it – at some point I’m going to build a proper full sized bird cage, but I don’t think I’m going to get time before the fruit comes. There’s certainly some fruit on there now, and its starting to ripen. I don’t think we’ll get a huge crop this year, but then some of the plants only went in this year, and the rest were the remnants of the ones which were removed by the previous occupant. The ones at home look better, though the fruit isn’t ripening yet.
Back at home we’ve done some general tidying of the garden (removing the odd bit of couch grass there as well!). I’ve also just installed a drip-water irrigation system in the greenhouse. Got the drip system from Amazon as well as the timer module (just went for the basic one as it seems to have all the functions I need!). I did have to replace our outside tap with a new one – the old one used to spray water out the top of the tap when it was turned on, but under pressure…. it was actually quite easy to replace, (though it looks like there might be a tiny tiny drip, so I think some more PTFE tape may be needed).