The plot so far

31 August 2005 at 12:56 pm (Allotment, Garden, Pictures, Vegetables)

Well, after a weekend away, I still haven’t got down to the allotment. This year seems to have been a bit hit and miss, with the vegetables as well as with myself and motivation. I was unwell for a bit in June and I missed out on sowing lots of vegetables for a late crop. I want to start afresh, but have to wait for next year to get sowing again.

Picked a pumpkin last week as it was growing on the path and was being strangled by the stem. It weighed 2 stone. The pumpkin plants are growing amongst the sweetcorn, which I fear I am not going to get a crop out of – very disappointing.

French beans are turning into haricot ones as I hadn’t been down to pick them. Runners, the info in the catalogue for my variety says they can be left to dry to give a crop of “butter beans”.

cabbage
The brassicas have been good – cabbage wonderful, both pointy and round ones with little caterpillar or slug/snail damage. The caulis are suffering a little bit, though managed to have a nice green cauli or two. The sprout plants look good though some have some white blister – I have removed the affected leaves so fingers crossed.

greencauli
Potatoes very disappointing with wireworm damage and even the acclaimed Sarpo type spuds don’t look healthy – tried these last year and the plants were massive, with large tubers that hadn’t got a single hole in although slugs were crawling over some of them. This year, the plants look pathetic in comparison with the other maincrop plants. Have managed to harvest a handful of asparagus for the first time this year.Leeks went in a bit late as did the onion seedlings. Gave some surplus onions away, and they turned out to be bigger than mine. Garlic from an autumn sowing did well, but I must harvest earlier next year before they start to rot with old age. Got some spring planted garlic in the garden, but the cloves are a little small.

Must try and keep up a diary next year – started this year and last but sort of fizzled out. Might also try to plan sowings of seeds to incorporate successional sowings as well. Might go and investigate the garden shortly on this overcast day (looks like it could rain).

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Summary

30 August 2005 at 8:16 pm (Allotment, Vegetables)

I have been neglecting to keep up the log again. So far, has been a disappointing year. Things got transplanted out a bit late and have suffered setbacks in harvest size and quantity. Had harvested a handful of asparagus this year – think it was late April. Garlic planted last autumn did well, but started to rot (age) when I didn’t get round to harvest some of it. Some seeds did not germinate – the paris market carrots didn’t even show. Carrots, although not numerous, were interesting shapes but no carrot root fly (planted with onions/leeks). I was a bit late planting out leeks this year, so might be a little disappointing in size this coming winter. I have been surprised by how good the cabbage has been – the golden acre and cuor di bue have been tasty – no cabbage whites on them, but the butterflies have been at some of the caulis, sprouts, broccolis and I haven’t been able to keep up with squishing them. Peas had been ok, though I did not do as much successional sowing as I wanted to, plus harvesting was a bit intermittent, so got a few dried peas to have this winter. Runner beans are doing nicely – harvested loads and have frozen some – might leave the rest for butter beans (to mix with breadcrumbs to make chocolate biscuits in the mousemill!). Lack of french bean harvesting means they are turning into haricots! Harvested one pumpkin last week because it was being strangled by the stem – weighed 2 stone! Sweetcorn again poor this year – not many tassles to get pollinated. Celery looks good – though not very big. Have trenched it up a bit. Potatoes don’t look good this year, though no blight, the wireworm seem to be doing a lot of damage. The sarpo potato plants don’t look as healthy as the other maincrop plants.
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