After another break from the allotment, went down yesterday. OH had been down during the week to lift some spuds, etc - the Edzell Blue are lovely, especially in mash and was a good cropper. The blight had spread onto the Golden Wonder plants, and as for the Sarpo - the plants looked “old” though not blighted. I chopped down all the haulms.
The lone Kalibos red cabbage looks good, albeit a bit slug eaten on outer leaves. However, other brassicas, apart from a sprouts plant, look the worst for wear:- cabbage white caterpillars (found some eggs which I squished), slugs, white blister rot, and then clubroot which I found as I pulled up the bolted pak choi. I pulled a couple of slugged brassicas but they showed no signs of clubroot. Apart from the bolting, the pak choi looked healthy!
The Crystal Lemon cucumber plants look healthy - fruit have been set. However, other curcurbits - the squashes, look pathetic. Compared with last year where the one pumpkin wandered across the allotment, this one wouldn’t reach across the length of a computer keyboard!
The beans are being battered by slugs/snails though there are a few french beans set and untouched in the picture above. The other french beans on the plot look healthy albeit with a few slime trails across them. The runner beans have started to climb and there are flowers on - will we get runner beans? The neighbour’s plot has loads of runner beans - he uses the same patch every year for them.
Broad beans have been a bit of a disaster this year. The chocolate spot has affected the broadies badly this year - only picked half a dozen bean pods from 2 sowings - there were flowers but the beans hadn’t been setting well. The blackfly has gone though. Chopped the plants down.
Spoke with one of the plotholders - he was collecting seaweed to put on his beds. That, he said, was the answer to his harvests - he gave me some big onions. He’d harvested loads of potatoes and still has more to lift.
What am I going to do with this?
I bought this fleece for £1 a fortnight ago (before the F&M outbreak) at a farm which was open as a tourist attraction - they keep some sheep back for sheep-shearing (including manual shearing) for demonstrations. I do not have a spinning wheel. Suggestions welcome. Should I wash it in the bath with soap flakes/other detergent for washing wool? Perhaps I could felt it?
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