After having nearly four weeks away from the allotment due to a combination of holidays, illness and bad weather I wasn't looking forwards to my visit earlier this month.
I was expecting caterpillar munched brassicas, slug munched lettuce and courgettes and drowned everything else, but I am please to say that although there was some damage, it was nowhere near as bad as I was anticipating.
The torrential downpours had washed away every slug pellet, so there were quite a few fat slugs enjoying the fruits of my labours. They soon got the sharp end of a trowel and were flung onto the manure pile.
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| Onions hanging on - just ! |
In bed 1 the square of 15 onions had suffered some slug damage, with about four whose tops had been munched but the rest seem to have been left alone.
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| Big lettuce pressing against the netting |
In the next picture you can see just how well the lettuce are coming on - when I planted them I thought they were the sort where you harvest the outer leaves as and when you need them, and that they didn't form a heart, but every one is now a huge, full-hearted lettuce that are very sweet tasting.
One problem with all the rain we have been having is that the very outer leaves which have been touching the soil had started to rot on the plant, but I soon whipped those off.
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| Brussels, PSB and Kale |
The brassicas also under the netting in bed 1 are still growing strongly - there have been a few caterpillars on them due to the flimsy construction of the netting and cage, but nothing major so I am hoping for great things from them later this year/early next.
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| Before removing the finished courgette plants |
The peas at the top of bed 1 had withered so I pulled them out, and the courgettes had been badly attacked by the slugs, so they came out too.
The turnips planted from seed are starting to bulk up a little - the largest was about 2 inches across, and some of the spinach is also doing well, but a lot of it has been swamped by the cabbages in the next squares so was still pretty spindly. A lesson to be learned for next year here, don't include brassicas in a square foot bed unless they are all similar size plants or they will overwhelm their neighbours.
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| Pak Choi doing well |
The pak choi planted from seed have done fantastically well, so I harvested a couple for our tea, and very nice they were too.
Some of them were also having trouble with the huge cabbages next door, so I did a little trimming of the lower, larger cabbage leaves to give the pak choi a bit more light, which will hopefully allow them to grow a bit more.
The star of bed 1 so far has got to be the french beans. I have had four small harvests from them already and all four plants are still loaded with flowers. I just hope that the frosts keep off and we have enough sun to be able to harvest the rest as they have an unbelievable flavour.
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| Lots of Bean Pods |
The Mammoth pumpkin hasn't really lived up to its name despite an early showing - the one remaining fruit hasn't really grown very much since the last time I measured it.
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| Mammoth Pumpkin |
The Jack 'o' Lantern, however, has nearly doubled in size.
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| Jack 'O' Lantern |
I just hope that at least one of them will toughen up enugh to be carved for our Halloween Party on Oct 27th!
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| Top of bed 2 |
At the top of bed 2 the Savoy cabbages are doing well despite their somewhat shakey start and are pretty much the same size as those in bed 1.
I had to remove the two cherry tomato bushes as they had signs of blight, but I have left the chillis in place - the plan is to trim them and try to overwinter by wrapping in fleece with the surrounding brassicas also providing some shelter.
In the space left by the tomatoes I have planted some of the kale that was pigeoned, slugged and caterpillared back in July as they appeared to be staging some kind of come back.
I also planted three Kohl Rabi that had been sitting at home and should really have been in the ground by now.
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| Bottom of bed 2 |
At the bottom of bed 2 the donated rhubarb is growing fantastically well - all my rhubarb at home is starting to die down ready for winter but these two are still going great guns.
The transplanted turnips have taken well, but aren't as far along as the ones left behind in bed 1.
The radish at the botton right of the picture have started to form bulbs, but they aren't much more than pea-sized right now.
The chard and perpetual spinach are flourishing, but some of the slug-munched onions appear to have been too far gone to save.
I have also started to plant into bed 3 as I had to bring out all the remaining brassicas from home, plus those munched on earlier but still with full hearts.
The whole of bed 3 now contains spring cabbage, curly cale, brussel sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli.
I think the next thing to do is to get beds 4 and 5 ready using the lasagne method.
This isn't as I planned, but I need to get some onion sets and some garlic in and the way the weather is closing in as we head through Autumn I doubt that I will have enough time to double dig as I had wanted.
