Roaming Zebra

Well, we’ve just got back from holiday, and a number of the courgettes have turned into rather large marrows… There’s a couple of normal sized fruit, but mostly marrow sized. I’ve picked them off to encourage the plants to produce more, hopefully they’ll grow on a bit … Some of the smaller fruit looks like its baked a little against the soil, I guess its been quite hot on a few days, and the heavy clay soil as cooked them a bit.

Some of the other things are looking a bit worse for going away, but then some of the things were moved out of the greenhouse at home as they definitely would have died there.

Surprisingly some of the broccoli seems to have gone to flower, given that I thought it was all winter type veg, I’m not sure what’s going on there! Sweetcorn seems to be doing well, though it seems to be sprouting shoots from the bottom rather than going tall…

The cucumber plants are doing well and there’s a number of good sized fruit on them, though the tomatoes in the greenhouse don’t seem to be doing much really. They’ve grown lots of stem, but haven’t really started to develop fruit. The Edonis melons are also doing well and a number of fruit on each plant have set, so I’ve cut the growing tips and removed the rest of the flowers to encourage the fruit to develop properly.

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).

Well, I managed to twist my ankle on Friday when leaving work, which limited the amount of allotmenting I could get up to. Did drop a couple of pallets of there though, from paper and PC deliveries at work.

So mostly taking it easy on Saturday, cut the hedge at home, piled more trimmed tree into the green wheelie bin, so its full again and general tidying of the garden at home. Cucumber plants have started to produce fruit and the melons in the greenhouse seem to have come on quite well. Planted up some hanging baskets with a couple of the Balconi tumbling tomatoes in each one (found some hanging basket liners which are actually the correct size this year from the local DIY/hardware store, which is also quite cheap for other garden products, including paraffin for the heater!). I think I’ll give them a couple of days before putting them up onto the hangers, but they seemed to have grown quite a lot by Sunday! Generally quite pleasant weather on Saturday, so much so that I got the BBQ out!

Did manage to get a couple of hours in on Sunday afternoon though. I was surprised that we were the only people there – maybe everyone else was put off by the rain in the morning. Cleared the area around the water-container again and dug out some large convolvulus roots again. Lined the edges of the plot just there with empty compost bags to try to discourage the roots from invading from the sides again… Earthed up the spuds (after adding some organic feed), though I think I got a bit close finding soil on a couple as I spotted s mini potato at one point!

Planted out the rest of the Balconi tomatoes on the plot next to the corn (which is mostly looking healthy), so they can grow as a bush variety. The melons under the cloche look OK, though the growbag had dried out quite a lot.

Put in the spare canes that I have as a wigwam and planted up some mangetout peas, though I suspect the local pigeons will probably attack … some sort of bird-scarer may be in order for that!

No rain yesterday! Well, at the very least it was almost pleasant by the evening, so we popped up to the allotment for a couple of hours.

The courgettes seem to have recovered a bit, and look like they are might produce some more growth over the next week if the weather warms a bit during the day. The spuds are in desperate need of earthing up, but that will have to wait a bit still. The broccoli seems to have perked up quite well over the last few days as well, though the netting cage had blown over a bit and was lying on it in some places.

Finished digging over the bit below the fruit section and we now have the Sweetcorn in as well as a couple of my Balconi tomatoes – they should be fine outside, though they should really be acclimatised for a few days. Also popped the last pair of melons into a growbag at the allotment. They are in a glass cloch made from some spare greenhouse glass and some special clips my dad gave me last year. We also planted in the redcurrant bush. The redcurrant root stock I bought earlier and planted last week looks a bit healthier now, though the blackcurrent that did look fine when in a pot looks a bit worse for wear – I guess it got a bit battered around by the wind over the last week.

Spent some time weeding again, I guess a bit like painting the Forth bridge (though yes I know they are changing the coating soon), but I figure as long as I keep doing a bit each week, I should stay on top of it.

Some people from one of the other allotments mentioned they thought it was looking good and that we’d got a lot done, which is good that we aren’t getting complaints about the state of some of the plot! I think we’ll try to tackle the next bit which has been covererd for a while before going back to couch grass attacking. That bit is next to the corn where the soil has a completely different structure to further up the plot. I also read yesterday in one of my gardening books that outdoor tomatoes have been known to kill couch grass. Now I’m not entirely sure how this works, but I think I might try planting some in amongst the couch grass and see how things go….

Oh and I almost forgot, Thompson and Morgan have 1/2 price seeds at the moment… so I bought some stock for next year.

Well, the wind and rain over the bank holiday weekend meant we only got a couple of hours digging in on Saturday. Last week we bought some leek plants from Ashwood which we spotted whilst I was buying growbags (my preferred growbag at the moment, though they are more expensive that some places).

The leeks have gone into a bed in the middle of the allotment which has taken three digs over to make the soil vaguely usable (the last 1/2m x 2m section took hours the first time as it was filled with couch grass)… We went for the option of cutting the roots to an inch or so long and then trimming the tops so they are 6″ high. Hopefully they’ve survived the high winds over the weekend, as well as the beans which went in earlier in the week. I guess the courgettes may be a little worse for wear as well, but we’ll see.

I reorganised my greenhouse last week, moving the staging to the back “short” wall which has given a lot of space in the rest of the greenhouse. Got 6 moneymaker tomato plants into growbags and finally planted a couple of the Edonis melon into growbags as well. They’ve also had their growing tips pinched out as they were more than beyond the four true leaf stage. The final two melons are going up to the allotment at some point, into a cold-frame made from spare greenhouse glass. The cucumbers are also doing well now (mostly), though a couple of leaves have got white spots on, which I guess is downy mildew – I’ve removed them anyway.

Chillis and sweet peppers have all been potted on this weekend into larger pots (though I don’t have enough of the “correct” size pots, so they’ll just have to cope).

Planted out the blackcurrent we bought last year as well as the cranberry, blueberry and redcurrant root stock I bought in Woolies earlier in the year (they have some green leaves, so they have two chances). We also got a good sized redcurrant from Bridge End Garden Centre whilst off visiting people at the weekend.

And on a completely different note, now that the roof is secure and watertight, we moved a whole load of boxes out of our shed back into the roof space. The roof is pretty dusty now (not a big surprise given the state of the old slate!), so I’ve had to clear a bit of a path through. The upshot is that you can now get into our shed and to the back without having to climb over everything. I definitely think replacing the old garage with a big shed was a good investment last year.

Well, I haven’t posted about plants for a couple of weeks. But I have been busy both in the greenhouse and at the allotment. So has the couch grass as well mind, and I also found we have an invasion of convolvulus which looks like its come from the paths between the allotments. This has really brittle root structures and seems to go on forever! So something else to keep digging out. To be fair though, the sections we’ve cleared of couch grass haven’t come back with avengence – mostly a few tufts of grass (probably not actually couch) some annual weeds (to be expected) and some thistle/dock has reappeared, though I’ll just keep digging the roots out on that ’till it gives up. I’ve also dug a trench part way down the allotment to separate the area which has been cleared to try and stop re-invasion whilst we get around to clearing the lower part. I’ve also found its necessary to dig the soil at least twice when preparing areas for plants – the first time breaking up the big lumps, the second making them into smaller lumps (though I still don’t really have an area where I feel seeds could be sown direct.

(Incidentally I’m writing this whilst fighting with a Virus Scanner on a laptop, so blame that if the sentence structure gets broken up)

I did take some photos last week of the seedling progress, but didn’t actually get round to uploading them, I’ll either post a few here or just take some more as everything has grown on quite a bit since then!

We now have courgettes in at the allotment – a combination of All Green Bush and Parthenon – the latter I think was supposed to do well even with a poor summer, we shall see! The broccoli has also now gone into the allotment site, I was waiting until I’d got hold of some anti-bird netting – I was strongly recommended by the site treasurer to put something up “as the pigeons don’t share anything”. I also added some Perlka, which the treasurer gave me last week. Its not organic but is supposed to help prevent club-root and needs applying 7-10 days before planting out occurs. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprisingly, my seedlings are all still quite happy. I was expected at least some to be a bit upset for having been left for a while.

Potted on the cucumbers into their final 9″ pots. Also potted on the remaining Balconi Tomatoes and some brocolli. Planted Swift and SuperSweet? Sweetcorn seeds – wonder if we’ll manage to get them to grow properly this year?

The courgettes are looking quite healthy, the All Green Bush are much larger than the Parthenon.

Most of my Peppers (both sweet and chilli) have germinated now, I suspect in another week they’ll need transplanting as well – lacking on space in the Greenhouse at the moment, so some plants have been evicted now.

The cheap fruit I bought from Woolies a couple of weeks ago was one of the first to be moved out. The cranberry and redcurrant look like they should be OK when they eventually get moved to their final location!

I’ve had mixed success with the climbing and dwarf French bean so far – about 50% germination rate at the moment, but we’ll see how things get on.

Also transferred some of the Sweet green basil and coriander to bigger pots to try and encourage them to grow a little…

Maincrop (King Edward) went in on Monday evening. Attacked the couch grass a bit more…

I think some heavy duty plastic sheeting might be needed to cover the parts of the site which have been covered for sometime.

And on a seedling front, the cucumbers are looking quite healty, so obviously survived the transplanting. The first real leaves are coming through now. Balconi tomatoes are also looking like they need potting into larger pots quite soon.

Both sweet and chilli peppers are just about starting to poke their heads up. A number of the courgette plants are sprouting as well. First planting of peas (in drain pipe in the green house at the moment) are looking like they need planting out. I guess a second sowing is needed, though I really wanted to get that done directly onto the allotment.

Tendergreen calabrese is looking healty, again it needs transplanting from the small cells, with the second sowing looking ok.

A small number of basil seeds are just coming up, and the coriander is definately looking like it wants potting on!

Sweet peas are starting to sprout, they went in a bit late really, but are mostly in jiffies so should survive being transplanted ok.

Didn’t need the green house heater last night! Which is a good thing, looks like there aren’t going to be any frosts for the next few nights. Bought a cheap max/min thermometer from Wilko at the weekend, and its dropping to about 5 overnight, and has been up to 30 a couple of days this week, 25 on others, so things really should be waking up now!

Spent a couple of hours on Friday night digging. Got the Pink Fir and other first early (can’t remember the name!) in. Also got the shallots into the ground on Friday including the stack of ~40 that were in the shed left un-planted from last Autumn (the rest of the pack already went in the garden at home).

Amusingly on Gardener’s World on Friday night, Joe Swift was starting off his allotment, from one minute going on about how he was going to dig the plot over properly, to the next rotovating all the grass roots into the soil … Well, I don’t have a filming schedule for home, so digging out the grass as we go is still on the cards, and we aren’t desperate to use the whole plot this season!

On Sunday evening, I popped over to the site for an hour or so of preparing the site for the main crop King Edward’s. Had a chat with the neighbouring allotmenteers, they mentioned that the bottom of our plot had been covered for a long while with plastic sheeting and hadn’t been properly dug for some time. I think I’m going to try and get some plastic sheeting on the way home to recover it for now, I’m still not sure if it will kill the couch grass properly, but at least it’ll stop other things popping up for the time being. I’ve read that plastic covering might be really bad for the soil, and other places that it should be fine. Given that its been covered for a while and the soil has a high clay proportion, I don’t think being covered for a bit longer is going to hurt, and it’ll keep the soil from becoming too waterlogged and so difficult to dig.

The people next door also mentioned they have a band of heavy clay across the plot, which seems to run across ours too (more than a spade’s depth, it becomes solid clay anyway).

Spent a couple of hours this evening over at the allotment! There’s a lot of deep rooted dock on the plot, which goes right down into the almost solid clay below. I suspect digging the dock out will be an ongoing task … possibly even a job for some herbicide, but we’ll have to see how things go.

Started stacking the large tufts of grass upside down towards the bottom of the plot, my plan is to stack some cardboard between the layers and then to cover it with a sheet.

Rather unexpected snow on Sunday, so we decided trying to dig the allotment would be a Bad Plan (shifting a good couple of inches snow before starting to dig …)

So instead a trip finding things to grow. Good old Wilko for some cheap onion sets, though no sign of any red onions… I blame Gardener’s World for encouraging people to plant onions sets . Got some King Edward spuds as well which should help to fill up a bit of the plot this year!

Spent some time in the greenhouse getting this sown as well.

• Broccoli (Autumn Calabrese, Tendergreen)
• Climbing French bean (Cobra)
• Dwarf French bean (Tendergreen)
• Courgette (Parthenon, All Green Bush)
• Sage
• and some ornamental tobacco plant for the garden

Of course, I’ve already got cucumbers, tomatoes, some brocoli, sweet and chilli peppers sown… In fact, we decided it worthwhile transplanting the cucumbers before they get too big. As much as I’m not keen on using peat-based products, I did opt for some of the peat plantpots for the cucumbers – I’ve read they don’t transplant easily and dislike their roots being distrupted. Using the peat pots means they’ll degrade when planted properly and the roots won’t be disturbed again.

Got a new allotment today, Bob’s Coppice, Quarry Bank.

We’ve been thinking about an allotment for a while, though its only quite recently that I’ve actually gotten round to doing something about it.

The plot has only recently been vacated, and apparently they don’t come up very often so I guess we were quite lucky about the time of year when I phoned to enquire about availability. Handily the site is quite near our house and it seems relatively quiet.

Spent several hours starting to dig over the plot, luckily its not massively overgrown or invaded by brambles (given how much trouble I have getting rid of them at home) though its still going to need quite a bit of work to get it into shape.