Allotment Tour Summer 2021

It is a sure sign of summer progressing when your fennel is ready for harvest.  After a summer where my focus has been elsewhere I realise it is time to do my "warts and all" tour of the plot. 

The parsnips are progressing steadily regardless of the stop start weather.  Alongside I have some second sowing of  autumn crops where the elephant garlic was.

The fruit cage is looking very green where the gooseberries and redcurrants are, A really good redcurrant crop but only a few gooseberries. I might have been a bit vigorous with my winter pruning?  The blackberries and autumn raspberries behind are yet to come. The two summer varieties are finished

Spring planted Onion from sets are flopping over of their own accord.  The early leeks behind show no such tendancy. 

For the first time I have tried to grow onions from seed too.  They are behind the celery and celeriac in this bed.  (It is also the first time I have tried to grow celery)

Moving along to the brassica patch there are three distinct phases as indicated by the height of the plants. The early cabbages and cauliflower are all gone but the Brussels remain tall and now suitably distanced. 

Further along the beans are hitting their peak.  Both Runners.

and Dwarf French

The winter squashes are the sea of green next door to the beans - although there are some flowers.  Fruits?  So far three marrow sized courgettes.

The foreground bare patch here is where the peas were and are now sown with winter leaves (Land Cress , Claytonia and Lamb's Lettuce.

Bringing up the rear I have hedged my bets trying to establish an asparagus bed but growing strawberries in between - at least until the asparagus gets going. It was grown from seed. (The rhubarb blueberries and globe artichoke just get on with their business year after year.)    

The final area is not very pretty,  It is the potato patch with nearly all of the tops cut off.  It looked like this in the middle of June.

But now it looks like this.

Hope you enjoyed the tour around my patch.

Currant News

 

Busy weeding, being sick and a week away, I see I haven't posted for weeks.  Yesterday's harvest will have to suffice.

In the Summertime - 4 Seasons in One

The summer solstice has arrived and it is time to review the four seasons square foot beds: 

Summer

Swiss Chard			Garlic			Onions
Parsley			Pea Jaguar			Strawberry
Radish			Leaf Beet			Elephant Garlic

These items should be ready for harvesting in a week's time. All except the radish which seedlings the birds demolished!

Fruit and Legumes

Having been away for the weekend it was a case of reacquainting myself with the state of play at the plot.  Soft fruit is now cropping heavily.

  Legumes are on their way but needed support and weeding.  Potatoes second early potatoes are flowering and it is time to start on the earlies.  (The single Jerusalem artichoke, in the corner, is the odd one out here. I have decided to treat this as a perennial rather than moving it around with the rotation).  The runner beans are shooting up the poles, higher and higher.

Time to Face The Music

Clearing the decks for spring I have to record that the cut and come again trays in the greenhouse and on the kitchen windowsill failed to deliver.  They stalled at the microgreen size and proceeded no further.  Whether it was cold, lack of nutrition or lack of sunlight is academic.  The yield did not justify the effort

Another failure has been my attempt to overwinter broad beans at the plot.  I thought my fleece tent would shelter them.

Maybe it did help,  but some agency has still uprooted any plants that survived into the new year:

Move on please - Nothing to see here

A combination of frost action and mice I would guess.  On the plus side my Malwina strawberries delivered to late for planting out look quite happy in their temporary greenhouse residence

Also getting greenhouse space are these violas

Holding on for spring is this bedraggled parsley plant

On the plus side too is the clamped carrots

Despite my best efforts we are only three quarters of the way through the crop.  BTW  I have added carrot cake to my limited baking repertoire.

One more admission.  The pigeons discovered the purple sprouting broccoli was get attable through the net, and get at this one they did. 

Skeletalised PSB

Fortunately one robust plant is taller than all the others and so they couldn't get at the shorter ones.  Talk about taking one for the team!

For the Record

It's great when the soft fruit gets going (and some peas)

Just so I can keep tabs here are the last four pickings of strawberry Marshmello on the scales - each at two day intervals:

16/06/17

18/06/17

20/06/17

22/06/17

Not to be left out the raspberries have started ripening:

Time to hone my preserving skills.  Judging by the mess I made of the gooseberry jam (it caught) honing is definitely required.

Mountain?

Time For a Tonic?

At the allotment this morning and not all is well.  Half a row of raspberries has veined leaves like this:

Raspberry Leaves showing classic symptoms of iron deficiency.

and early cabbage Greyhound is also a bit blotchy.

Cabbage with blotches - Manganese deficiency?

Returning home with pictures and consulting the books both seem to be mineral deficiencies. Given recent climatic conditions it could simply be waterlogging showing up in different ways.  All the same I will be looking for a suitable tonic for each.  The iron deficiency might benefit from a sprinkling of ericaceous fertilizer as this  states "Extra Iron For Richer Green Leaves". Manganese sulphate might be harder to come by.  The advice seems to be not to over lime susceptible soils.  This seems harsh for a brassica patch!  If there is an organic trace element cocktail in the shops/garden centre I will probably get it as an insurance.

Now on a more cheerful note, I also picked the first strawberries of the season today. Now when is Wimbledon?

Fix

Ready Set... Go Go Go

Edinburgh has had a terribly dry, dull, cold April and early May this year but things seem to progressing even before the promised rain of this weekend.  My early early row of potatoes has started emerging (and are being dutifully mounded). I've never been keen on watering spuds but I made an exception for the really early ones and they seem to have responded.

The Potato Patch

As you can see there are a lot more yet to emerge. Even the weeds have been discouraged by the conditions!

The soft fruit area is getting a move on too and soon I will have to sling a net over the newly painted wooden frame

Soft Fruit Cage

The redcurrants are shaping up nicely....

,,,and so are the gooseberries:

Three rows of raspberries seem to have sprung to life.

Raspberries

Not forgetting the strawberries

Strawberry Patch

Next door to the soft fruit the alliums are leaning to the light source from the south. The latest planting of sets is to the left and that's two rows of elephant garlic on the right with ordinary garlic between it and four rows of onion sets in varying degrees of development as some were presprouted at home and others set out directly.

Alliums

Squeezed in at the end I've recently planted out the first leeks (Jolant). Not sure where I will put the next lot (Musselburgh) when they are ready.

Leek planting and Rhubarb

Maybe I have been over generous in the space allocated to carrots. All the more because they have to be netted. I really am trying to make a success of carrots this year, being one of the crops that we eat most of all the year round, and yet they did miserably last year. (The tunnel to the left is sown but the hooped tunnel is going to house our main crop - and, hopefully keep out the root fly.

Carrot Nets

These peas and broad been are squatting between the weed suppressant fabric for the brassicas and the WSF for the cucurbits. The runner beans and French beans have been allocated another similar sized area on the other side of the brassicas which is currently still covered with WSF - which won't be removed until the last moment before planting out.

Broad Beans and Peas

It's the bit with the bricks in the foreground here:

Room for Brassicas and Beans

With these preparations and the sowing and growing in the greenhouse at home, and the promise of rain this weekend,  it really is all about to go in a clatter!



Go Go Go

The Covers Are Off... Scottish Strawberries Before Wimbledon

After a mixed weekend I visited the plot this morning and was glad to find the first few strawberries ripened:

Marshmello Strawberries

Not only that, but these ones were reasonably pest free.  (Some have already been spotted by the slugs and had to be discarded.)  This post is for my record keeping, but I am happy to share the good news!

The Missing Ingredient

.

A week ago I welcomed the rain. Now after a wet week we need some SUN.  I've heard of strawberry crops rotting. It doesn't seem to put the birds or slugs off.

Strawberries at the ready

Runner beans at the ready

Courgettes at the ready

The only crop that really likes these conditions is potatoes.  (Sssshhhh but these conditions are blight inducing - fingers crossed)