What with the heat, hospital appointments, waiting in for workmen who kept cancelling at the last minute until 'tomorrow', and then the rain, we hardly Managed to get to the allotment last week. We know that there are crops to be harvested, things to plant and flowers to deadhead but we were trapped. We managed an afternoon and a couple of quick visits at the beginning of the week to carry out one or two essential tasks and some watering in the greenhouse. On Sunday we had to brave the rain as we needed to harvest some vegetables. One of the disadvantages of growing on an allotment means you can't just pop in and out between showers to harvest a few things.
One urgent task was to cover the salad leaves that are growing in the grow bags on the old strawberry bed.
These are now safely tucked under enviromesh to protect then from the ever present wood pigeons.
Before they disappeared under cover, I thinned out the beetroot that is growing really well.
The spring onions are growing too so maybe we have found a way of getting spring onions to grow. It's early days so fingers crossed.
Unfortunately we don't appear to have the same success with swedes. Since the seeds germinated they have hardly moved.
We managed a quick visit to a local garden centre. I'd cut back a faded dicentra and it had left a large bare space in our new bed.
I wanted plants that would follow on once the dicentra had faded. It was a case of seeing what was available. We found a primula vialli and aster dumosis Island Tonga which I hope will fit the bill.
Our Mini Munch cucumbers, both in the garden greenhouse and on the allotment, are Producing Lots of fruits just large enough to eat fresh in our lunchtime sandwiches.
We managed most of our harvesting during quick visits to the allotment on Monday and Tuesday before the very mini heatwave, before the rains set in, before the workmen decided to play games and before hospital appointments put paid to an afternoon on the plot.
The sweet peas are now producing lots of long stemmed flowers. There are lots more to pick and no doubt lots of deadheading to do but we had to concentrate on grabbing vegetables and fruit.
The first lot of garden peas are just about over and plenty are now in the freezer.
I managed a couple of pickings of mangetout but due to not being able to pick them regularly they are a little beyond the mangetout stage and will need to be treated as petit pois which I am sure we will enjoy anyway.
Sunday we braved a downpour to harvest some fruit and vegetables that would spoil if left much longer. The calabrese had produced some huge heads that were on the point of flowering.
The heat combined with heavy rain meant that the courgettes have burst into growth. Many were more the size of small marrows. They grow so quickly when you take your eye off the ball. I picked as many as I could.
The four smaller fruits on the left are Mini Munch cucumbers. We also managed to pick a few strawberries by which time it was pouring down and I ended up soaked.
If you're interested I've posted a couple of videos of our plot on our vlog.
We are hoping to catch up with our harvesting next week but with more workmen related problems that may be just wishful thinking.
Suspected compost contamination - an update,
I also emailed Levington's to ask them to conform that they had received the sample of compost that we sent them for analysis . The reply that I received was surprising. I quote,
'Thank you for your feedback on our Tomorite Grobags. We would like to reassure you that all batches of green compost used at our manufacturing plants are tested against herbicide contamination before it is sent out to our customers. The symptoms you are seeing could be brought about by other reasons other than herbicide contamination, this could be stress due to underfeeding'.
My response was to ask them whether they were aware of our previous communications. So far I have not received any further replies but have forwarded their response to Corteva and CRD, both of which replied promptly. I have received no reply from the f=garden centre that we purchased the compost from either
One urgent task was to cover the salad leaves that are growing in the grow bags on the old strawberry bed.
These are now safely tucked under enviromesh to protect then from the ever present wood pigeons.
Before they disappeared under cover, I thinned out the beetroot that is growing really well.
The spring onions are growing too so maybe we have found a way of getting spring onions to grow. It's early days so fingers crossed.
Unfortunately we don't appear to have the same success with swedes. Since the seeds germinated they have hardly moved.
We managed a quick visit to a local garden centre. I'd cut back a faded dicentra and it had left a large bare space in our new bed.
I wanted plants that would follow on once the dicentra had faded. It was a case of seeing what was available. We found a primula vialli and aster dumosis Island Tonga which I hope will fit the bill.
Our Mini Munch cucumbers, both in the garden greenhouse and on the allotment, are Producing Lots of fruits just large enough to eat fresh in our lunchtime sandwiches.
We managed most of our harvesting during quick visits to the allotment on Monday and Tuesday before the very mini heatwave, before the rains set in, before the workmen decided to play games and before hospital appointments put paid to an afternoon on the plot.
| 22 July |
The first lot of garden peas are just about over and plenty are now in the freezer.
I managed a couple of pickings of mangetout but due to not being able to pick them regularly they are a little beyond the mangetout stage and will need to be treated as petit pois which I am sure we will enjoy anyway.
| 23 July |
The heat combined with heavy rain meant that the courgettes have burst into growth. Many were more the size of small marrows. They grow so quickly when you take your eye off the ball. I picked as many as I could.
| 28 July |
If you're interested I've posted a couple of videos of our plot on our vlog.
We are hoping to catch up with our harvesting next week but with more workmen related problems that may be just wishful thinking.
Our complete monthly harvests are listed here.
This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on
Dave's blog Our Happy Acres
Suspected compost contamination - an update,
I also emailed Levington's to ask them to conform that they had received the sample of compost that we sent them for analysis . The reply that I received was surprising. I quote,
'Thank you for your feedback on our Tomorite Grobags. We would like to reassure you that all batches of green compost used at our manufacturing plants are tested against herbicide contamination before it is sent out to our customers. The symptoms you are seeing could be brought about by other reasons other than herbicide contamination, this could be stress due to underfeeding'.
My response was to ask them whether they were aware of our previous communications. So far I have not received any further replies but have forwarded their response to Corteva and CRD, both of which replied promptly. I have received no reply from the f=garden centre that we purchased the compost from either
