Plot Panoramic May 09

It's been so long! (May highlights)

May Highlights.......

Firstly the early (overwintered) broad beans were great. They were sweet and yummy and were not affected by blackfly at all until the very end. In the pic below they are the ones on the left. The right-hand rows are the spring sown ones. These grew well (eventually, after being severely munched by the Pea & Bean Weevil!) and have grown monster pods. However, the blackflies have since smothered them! We have now (July) stripped all the pods and chopped off the tops, leaving a bit of stem and roots in to get the goodness back into the soil, but get rid of the blackfly - yuk!


In the greenhouse I potted up the toms and had a go at a hanging basket of tumbling toms. A nice idea, but as I don't get to the plot everyday (more like every 3 days) these dry out far too quickly. I'll need a rethink for next year. The rings on top of the growbags do seem to help keep the pots moist for longer than with just the growbags though.

I had really sporadic carrot germination again (might have been due to me hoeing them off - durrrr!), anyway, I had a go at them in cells that I then transplanted in clumps. It's worked really well and so far no forking either! A definate for next year.

Next is a panoramic of my plot in May. They have finished the communal area which is next to my plot looks great and it has really made my plot look fab as well! Like I've a manicured front lawn :o). They gave the other half of the communal plot back to the town council and it's now been let out as a half plot.

A mad 5 minutes with the hose! We were nowhere near finished so they had a good hour in these wet clothes :o) Muppets!

Strawbs were on their way.

And we got the pumpkins and squashes in. We have now got the sweetcorn around the squashes too - a kind of 2 sisters!

This is the first of the Tayberries.

Our Onion army.

And finally the baby apples. We were supposed to take all the flowers off in the first year, but I just couldn't do it! So we took all but about 8 off each tree so we would feel like we'd get a good crop - and we have - hoorah!

First Bouquet

I took these home for my windowsill. The beautiful frilly red tulips and grape hyacinths are from my friends plot the rest are from ours.

The kids flowers look fab. I need to put even more for next year and try to fill the bed so when I pick some it doesn't look bare. I want to be able to cut them, it's not just to look pretty. I've got some of my other bulbs coming up too.

The new spring broadies are poking out of the ground at last - I just think they needed a bit of rain to get started (they've certainly had that now!). Unfortunately the Pea & Bean Weevils have already been munching :o(.

So I decided to move the new peas from the bed I had planned to put them into to one as far away from the broadies as I could. I finished this and wandered off for a chat with my mate on the next plot (hers is from the blue pallet compost bin) and realised that she had P&BW too and my new peas were between them and my munched broadies. No chance for them them :o(. Oh well, at least these peas are sturdy little things!

The early spuds are poking their noses out already (only sowed them 2 weeks ago - I wonder if I planted them deep enough? Thought I had!), I earthed them up - if a frost got them they'd be done for. I do love the colour of the Red Duke of York leaves!

The PSB looks terrific and I picked loads for taea. I steamed it and it was nice enough, but I think I need to find some more creative recipes.

I pulled up a few of my lovely looking rhubarb. I've only had it in just over a year so don't really want to force it yet, but it'll be great next year!

The greenhouse is looking full. The peas have now been planted out, the toms have been moved in here and I've moved to sweetpeas to outside.

At home the chillis look happy. I'm keeping them here this year rather than in the greenhouse as they were happier. I wasn't very impressed last year, I think they were neglected for the toms.

Rainbows

We had the most amazing rainbow today - or I should say rainbows. It was a super-bright double rainbow that my photo really doesn't do justice to spanning the whole of the view from my back garden. A fab sight to see!

My folks came up for a visit on Sunday and they had a tour of the plot. They made all the right noises :o) - they hadn't seen it in nearly a year I think so it had changed a fair bit in that time. I managed to offload some of my excess of a thousand spuds to Mum too, hooray!!



The worst discovery this week is that I have Pea and Bean Weevil :o( . Having never had it before I wasn't sure why my broad beans leaves had notches chomped out of them. On closer investigation I spotted the culprit. They are only little things (5mm ish) and didn't realise until I blew the photo up that there where actually two of them making new baby weevils (and one watching !?!). All three were removed from the plant and I searched the rest of the plants but couldn't spot any more (hiding). Anyone know what to do about them? Can I do anything??


The plan was to keep all the beans and peas together for ease of rotation, but now I'm wondering if that is such a good idea? The pic below shows my row of broad beans and the cane and chicken wire I prepared for my peas in guttering. I'm now thinking I may use my other free bed, well away from the weevils. Will it make any difference? Will I get them anyway? :o(


On to happier things, the rhubarb is looking very healthy and I'm looking forward to chomping on a bit of this.

All the fruit trees seem to be in fine health so far and blossoming away! This is the little greengage baby from my friends allotment last year.

And finally a plot shot. It's been so warm and dry lately that I had to water the whole thing on Sunday night. I think I actually only had to do that twice in all of Summer last year - and this was the first time I've had the WHOLE plot to water. It took me close to an hour!!!! I'll need to factor the timings into my visit or I'll end up watering in the dark! It really needed it though - everything was parched down to a good couple of inches.

So here we have the finished fence. They didn't cut down the bushes and trees behind it (yet!) thankfully, though you can hardly see the greenery now :o(. At least it's secure!


In the greenhouse everything is growing nicely. Peas are just about ready to get in and I've popped some more greenhouse shade netting stuff up to stop my babies getting scorched (toms in particular).

Jostaberry is looking very healthy as has blossom on it - so fingers crossed for some fruit this year. Rhubarb also looks happy!

I've buds on a lot of my apple trees - I'm very excited as to how these will do this year - got my fingers crossed for one or two apples xx pplleeeeeeeeaaase!

Below are the raspberries (back) and my three currant bushes (middle). In front of them are the left over alpine strawberries. I think these are supposed to be annuals but I'm going to leave them in and see (I'll also sow some more just in case).

Parsnip Progress

The parsnips are starting to sprout.

Spuds

Today we sowed the seed potatoes (all 77 of them!). In the spud-bed-to-be we found garlic seedlings. I don't know whether they will make it to adulthood, but we thought we might as well give it a go and so I moved some to the bed under one of the step-over apples. They seemed happy enought at first but over the next few hours went a little floppy - hopefully they'll perk up!


The spud beds got a dig over and the strawy manure mixed in. I then marked out the rows and sowed them from side to side in long rows rather than short 'across the bed' rows like last time. I got single rows of Red Duke of York, Swift, Kestrel, Romano and Valor and two rows of Pink Fir Apple. I still have well over 100 left :oS so will probably sow some in bags or tubs at home too.


The left-overs!!!

The boy's pal on a plot next to ours has just had a raised bed made up for him. This meant that the boy then really wanted a bed of his own to dig (something he has shown no interest in - despite my encouragement for the last year and a half!). While on one hand I think it is brilliant, on the other hand the bed was spoken for for other veg . Dunno where my parsnips or red onions will go now! :o(

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Anyway, as the spuds were demanding all my attention, I showed him where the bed was and said that 'if he really wanted it he will need to look after it or I will need plant my veg in it - here's a fork!' and left him to it. Well, I think it was the best thing I could have done! Up until now even with me saying I'll help him dig, even sorting him some link-a-bords, he never spent more time on it than to sow some seeds. However, TODAY he dug it over, weeded it properly and put up a little wigwam for peas ready for next time we go (with the minimum amount of help needed to put the net on it). I'm really proud of him! The girlie turned up a half hour later and I gave her what was left of the bed and she dug hers too! Brilliant!

The PSB has at last bloomed!