22nd - 27th July

Back to the allotment for a little more weeding, watering and picking courgettes. The courgettes are really in the swing of things now. I’ve picked 30 including today’s lot and in Tesco they are selling for £1.89 for a pack of 3 small organic courgettes. Mine have mostly been larger so I have already had about £20 worth of vegetables from just one section of the plot and we still have over a month of regular production to go. This is the kind of arithmetic I like!

 

I weeded only a little part of the leek section, but I also got down on my knees to carefully examine the seed bed area to track down the leek seedlings. I found the 4 rows and marked them out. The last thing I want is to finish weeding this section by taking out the leeks!

 

Last week I viewed the garlic plants and thought that they were nearly ready to harvest. Today I looked and knew that now was the time for them to be dug up. The leaves had yellowed so much more and the plants were beginning to flop over, so despite my father’s inadvertent attempts to destroy the pleasure this day would bring, I harvested 22 garlic plants. This is further good mathematics of the kind I like as I only planted 20 cloves. One plant was actually 3 in 1. I guess that all my Dad did when he dug over that ground was to spread them around in a more random fashion and slice one up in order to make 3 plants, so well done Dad.

 

 

23^rd July
Today there has been a noticeable improvement in the weather. A while ago I was complaining about the wet, then recently I was moaning that although it was dry it was not really sunny, and so now it befalls me to say that it is a bit too hot. I really want to get on with weeding the leek section but the heat put me off. I just can’t be satisfied weather-wise!

 

Back home, I checked on my sprouting broccoli. Of the 40 Claret types, 9 have died and only 6 look positively healthy, whilst the 10 Rudolphs include 2 dead and 3 lively looking ones. The rest are in limbo.

24^th July

Another day of increasing heat, so much so that I really didn’t want to do anything at the allotment, or in the garden except to water everything. We are going to Leeds tomorrow morning for a wedding on Saturday and return on Sunday so I wanted to get as much moisture into the ground as was practicable especially since it has been dry and is now getting hotter. For only the second time this year I used the hose – it was simply too much bother to walk back and forward 30 times with a watering can. Everything got a thorough soaking. My tomatoes are going really well. The turbo toms are doing what they said on the label and are growing tall, thick and bushy and are starting to set some small fruits. The other 2 plants are the cherry tomato which is setting lots of fruit or at least flowers, and the Ailsa Craig which is going well. I learnt from last year not to count my tomatoes before they’re harvested as I had a count of about 120 before blight struck.

 25^th July

I had time before we left for Leeds to do my ‘feed on Friday’ and another quick watering to the crucial, most needy plants. My wife’s parents popped over to collect something so I was able to give them some sweet peas, and then whilst we are away, the plants can put forth more flowers!

27^th July

We arrived home early evening after a very hot weekend, but a very enjoyable one. The wedding was one of the better ones by far that I have been to, which was good considering the hot sticky journeys we had, it was well worth attending. I went out to the garden to cool off and water and to pick some sweet peas. The plan had worked and the plants had blessed us with an abundance of flowers. I got a large bunch of the light blue Charlie’s Angels for one vase and a large bunch of the Red Arrow and white Sweet Chariots to make a rather striking red and white display. I also picked some of the ones that I planted by the bamboo canes which were a mixed Spencer batch. There are dark red and light pinks.

Next post: 28th July