LL's Gardening Diary

[KarenE]

Is that true Sandy, cos I heard you had an onion growing in your chicken poo patch

Your polytunnels look fab LL, I am quite jealous if all your space. But you must mind your back, no point doing yourself in at this stage of the gardening year

[lancashire lass]

I think I post more detail than is absolutely necessary but I do find it useful when looking back in the diary, especially when doing "experiments" for comparison.

I am quite jealous if all your space

The photo of the polytunnels belies the full length of the garden - in theory I could add another 2 more polytunnels beyond the polycarbonate greenhouse but that part of the garden is in permanent shade from neighbouring trees as well as an overgrown privet hedge due to the elders. Having saying that, I kind of like the "wilderness" look which attracts lots of birds (my neighbours might suggest the garden is more unkempt than natural LOL)

I can't believe it is already end of May - where did the month go So much for all the seed sowing I was supposed to do. My problem has been warmth for seed germination and I usually coincide sowing with a warm spell of weather but we've had none of that this spring. Yes I could use a heated propagator but I'm very conscious of electricity bills especially after winter not to mention that the chilli project in the back bedroom was maintained with an oil radiator on 24 hours during March. However, I do have a cunning plan! The office at work gets ridiculously warm (you have no idea how many times I've asked for the heating to be turned down - daily, the temperature is about 25oC and during a heatwave, well just unbearable) The chillies on the windowsills have proven just how cosy it is compared to the ones at home. So why not bring the trays of sowings in to work .... a lot of people have been curious about the chillies so I don't think the trays will look too out of place

So this morning, 2 trays with pots (most 2 pots per variety). These are from The Real Seeds Catalogue:

- Hokkaido (new for me)
- Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato (a dry but lovely squash - great cut in half, seeds scooped out, a dab of butter and pepper and microwaved for a few minutes then mash up in the skin)
- Blue Hungarian (new for the catalogue and cheaper seeds as they are being sold for trials)

Then from Pennard Plants:

- Shishigatani kobacha (new for me)

Seeds from a swap:

- Black Futsu (persuaded to give these another go though I've never been successful in the past)

and finally ... I've entered a friendly competition for the biggest pumpkin. I'm kind of regretting it as the vines of the plants can get enormous and take over a big patch of ground not to mention the size and weight of the fruit - at a time when I've lost half of that to the garlic of which most won't be lifted until late July-ish. Anyway, got to give it a go so I've gone for Dill's Atlantic Giant I doubt at this late stage I'll have anywhere near the size that is suggested and I'm not too sure about eating qualities so there will be no risk of my trying to lift it into the boot of the car should I be successful in fruit set LOL

Meanwhile, baby chillies - folk in the office seem overly fascinated that there are actually fruit developing on the plants in the office and I get a daily report of how they are doing:

[lancashire lass]

Another batch of winter squash and pumpkin seeds sown this morning:

From Pennard Plants:

- Winter Luxury Pie (pumpkin - I don't usually grow many pumpkins but this looked interesting)
- Tonda Padana (a pretty Italian striped pumpkin - new for me)
- Sweet Meat (I grew these last year)
- Ponca butternut (I grew these last year but couldn't tell which butternut varieties had what type of fruits ... the disadvantage of growing several varieties all in one bed LOL)

I still have a few more seeds to sow but I think I've managed to trim the numbers down this year from my usual big seed sow. Next will be the courgettes and cucumbers ...

[lancashire lass]

With not going to the allotment in over 2 weeks, I felt compelled to pay a visit on Sunday even though I doubted I'd be able to do anything. As it was forecast raining for the morning, all I intended to do was pop over with the 2 bags of chicken poop and come home to carry on with repotting the chillies and sorting out the polytunnels.

I arrived at about 11 am and as I approached the plot, surprisingly it didn't look so bad (compared to some of the vacant plots that had hip-high grass and weeds LOL) The garlic beds were the worst with fat hen, dock, nettle, speedwell and a plethora of other weeds starting to gather momentum. I hadn't brought any tools with me but the soil was lovely and damp so most weeds pulled up easily and before I knew it, had cleared the beds at the front very quickly and my back was not complaining. The least weedy were on the smaller beds further down the plot with some bindweed which I couldn't do much about. The worst was the bed where the butternut used to be grown - not surprising as once the vines took off, I used to find it difficult to weed so they quickly seeded the bed.

I didn't want to do too much, and annoyed that I hadn't brought anything with me (a drink) to take decent breaks, so although the beds were not 100% cleared, at least you can now see the garlic growing - garlic and onions do not compete very well with weeds, and shading as well as reduced access to nutrients and water can make for smaller bulbs (something I learned due to a serious lapse in weeding once and never to repeat!) Generally all of the garlic had now reached their full size with good foliage although I'm still mystified why most have yellow tips (I'd always been told this could be a root problem - usually waterlogging - but we've not had that much rain this spring) but it seems to be something that happens every year so I've just lived with it. I wouldn't mind finding out more about why this happens.

The Ornak that I got from Poland are proving to be huge plants - the 5 cloves I had got via ebay were very big so it will be interesting to see how these turn out. Meanwhile, the Cristo Wight that had been planted in polypots over winter and then moved to the plot in late March are in varying stages of dying off - I pulled one up and there was a perfect golf ball size bulb. I accidentally pulled up a green one which was also about the same size, so perhaps they are ready for lifting. They did seem to sprout early, so perhaps they are an early maturing variety.

Last year the Spanish Rocambole died back early but this time they seem to be still growing - last year I left it far too late to lift up and most bulbs had already split (the outer skin rotted off) so I'm keeping my eye on those. Perhaps the little extra feed I gave them last month has helped. As the forecast was for some more rain earlier this week, followed by warmer weather (which may or may not bring rain), I decided to give all the garlic a top dressing of potash. Hopefully the rain will wash the potash into the soil - the potassium in potash is an important nutrient which helps with bulking up bulbs, and the sulphate gives garlic its pungent flavours. It's important not to give them a nitrogen feed at this stage as this can affect bulb size and storage.

I emptied the 2 bags of poop on the empty bed under the apple tree and then left the site 1.15pm. Unfortunately I didn't feel up to repotting the chillies either though I have started to select a few from the multiple sowings of superhot chillies. I'd say most are very much at the same stage as the chillies I grew in 2013 so looks like we may be on target. I really must make an extra special effort this week to start moving them all into the polytunnels to start the batch of experiments I had planned.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for a few purchases - when looking up a variety on the Pennard Plants site, I noticed a couple of new winter squash varieties I had not seen before These include:

Pink Moranga de mesa
Yokohama Ribbed (looks really intriguing)

as well as:

New England Sugar Pie pumpkin
Burpee's Butterbush butternut

[lancashire lass]

I'm afraid I didn't make it to the allotment this weekend ... but I did make a promise that (weather permitting), I would spend a few days there during my week off work (in 2 weeks time) to try and catch up. The good news is that some of the winter squash, pumpkin and butternut seeds I had brought into work (because it is warmer than at home, and no space on the pasting table due to all the chillies waiting to be repotted or moved) have finally started to germinate. I think they would have germinated sooner but someone kept opening the window near those trays on the windowsill overnight I did read somewhere of someone using their car to start seeds off - considering how warm it gets sitting in the works car park, I'm seriously thinking of giving that a try LOL. At least now I'll have some plants to put on the allotment beside the garlic, potatoes, sweetcorn and onions.

I spent the weekend repotting the superhot chillies for the first of the planned experiments. There has to be a "control" (as in, a growing media that I would have used as normal before thinking about experiments) so all the plants involved are potted on. Some plants (like the culinary type) will be inoculated with mycorrhizal fungus spores - like before, it was easier to select 2 plants and treat one of them. There are 5 experiments (of about 12 plants each) of which 3 experiments have plants treated with the mycorrhizae. For the non-treated, I was going to use the surplus plants - and there are plenty of them. Ideally I should have had a smaller project based on a single cultivar then the experiments would be easier, but I also had something else planned which involved growing different varieties so the whole thing is perhaps far from ideal. Still, the research on the experiments are sound so it all comes down to a nice hot sunny summer and fingers crossed LOL. The experiments begin when the plants start to flower and set fruit .... so just a few short weeks to go.

With the fresh potting on, it was time to move the culinary chillies out of the polytunnel into the polycarbonate greenhouse. The next cover I buy for the polytunnel will have 2 doorways just like the new one, because I had to do a lot of walking back and forth, inside and outside the polytunnels to move the plants. The plants are temporarily on the floor in the greenhouse as I've run out of trays. Meanwhile, I still need to sort out the 2nd polytunnel but in the meantime I put several of the newly repotted plants on the supported pasting table and the work bench as well as in the glass greenhouse. The first thing I did was hang up some debris netting over the doorway to the garden as the number of insects flying in were on the increase - bumble bees, a butterfly, flies, midgets .... As before with the middle doorway, I tied the corners of the netting to the polytunnel frame and then used clothes pegs and pegged the netting along the zip edge. It works really well that way and saves me having to spend time constructing a wooden doorway etc. Now I just need to clear some of the rubbish out and try and put the shredder back into the shed and try to devise a similar set up to that of the 1st polytunnel which is actually working out very well. Alas, I don't have any more of the shelving so will have to give this some thought ...

[lancashire lass]

This morning I got round to sowing a few more winter squash seeds, mostly the latest seeds that I had ordered plus one from last year:

Pink Moranga de mesa

Yokohama Ribbed

New England Sugar Pie pumpkin

Uchiki Kuri

Sibley (Pike's Peak)

Kakai

and decided to try the car as a propagator - I left the trays in the boot where in the sunshine, the car warms up quite a lot so fingers crossed for an early germination. All the squash seedlings will be planted out on the plot when I am on annual leave in just 2 weeks time so they'd better get a move on!

Meanwhile, an unexpected gift - a parcel of strawberry plants was delivered to the work's stores but was unclaimed. The address was too vague to forward it and the named person does not have an e-mail account. After 3 weeks of waiting for someone to enquire, the plants were already dying so was decided to ask if anyone wanted them. Have to say they are on the brink of going past rescuing but I took them home and gave the roots a soak in seaweed solution. I thought there were 4 plants but when I took the elastic bands off, 3 bunches had 12 plants each and the other 6 plants. I didn't have time to plant them this morning so will be a task when I get home. I suspect more than half will be dead but fingers crossed. I'll pot the survivors up into polybags for now and then plan a strawberry bed on the allotment

On another note, I've been made aware of a couple of competitions by a seed supplier. I was aware of the Dorset Naga growing competition where you count how many chillies a plant produces to enter but I'm not that confident of high yields. There is another competition for the longest chilli which might be within my capabilities LOL - for more information HERE

[lancashire lass]

From Friday night throughout Saturday, the rain was relentless but by evening it had turned into a light drizzle so I was able to see how the polytunnels and greenhouse were faring. Well, how about a duck pond on a roof



The photo really does not show precisely how much water was sitting on the polytunnel cover and it took some doing to move it off without it slopping over into the gap between the 2 polytunnels butted together. The new cover also has 2 seams which were surprisingly doing well considering the amount of water pulling on them and although there was some leakage, not as bad as could have been expected. I knew the problem wasn't going to go away with the rain still falling and used some canes which seem to have done the job - no more puddles on Sunday morning



In the far polytunnel there was water on the floor – I suspect this isn’t a leak from the cover but more likely the ground level allowing water outside to seep in.



My “floor” is actually plastic sheeting over the soil and it did strike me that the sheet exceeds the polytunnel cover so water running off just slides back into the tunnel. This weekend I hope that is now remedied as I cut the plastic so the flap should direct water to the rest of the garden instead. Considering the polytunnels have been up for 2 months, this is the first time there has been any issues - just goes to show how dry the weather has been this spring.

Last week I just had to buy some big pots for the chillies - I was aiming for standard tomato pots. Wilkos sell them for a £1 each but I needed a lot and my nearest shop was not conveniently close to a car park so I looked online. I found a site on ebay - the more pots you bought, the cheaper they were (cheaper than Wilkos £1 pots) but the next problem was trying to figure out the pot size. Using my hands as a guide, I suspected they were 10L and purchased a load to be delivered to my work's address. Very impressed - they arrived just a day later by courier but oh oh ... my idea of a tomato pot is surprisingly bigger than what they actually are. Still, I could use them but not fill them to the top with compost but the bigger pots do occupy more space which means less plants. Probably not a bad thing as plants do need at least 2 feet apart but you know me, I like to squeeze them in LOL

I spent all day on Saturday repotting lots of chillies but with the rain, I couldn't get in and out of the house without getting wet so they ended up all over the kitchen floor and work tops until Sunday morning. I still had to sort out the 2nd polytunnel and set to clearing out the glass greenhouse . I needed to use the shelving like I had done with the 1st polytunnel. During the big clearout, I found a cactus that had ended up on the floor - I used to keep cacti which was the original reason why I bought the glass greenhouse but during a very bad winter, I presumed I had lost them all (most cacti can survive a mild winter in an unheated greenhouse - the trick is to reduce watering in late summer so that the plant cells do not rupture in freezing weather) I haven't kept cacti in over 5 years so imagine my surprise to find that not only was it still alive but it has never been watered and because it had fallen down at the back and rolled under the shelves, had not had any direct light either. I will probably kill it now with kindness.

The 2nd polytunnel is all set up and while I considered what to do with the glass greenhouse, 2 small pallets that used to be in the polytunnel came in very handy. I still need to find some more trays for the pots but I'm feeling really pleased with how it has turned out:



You can see the size of the new pots in the centre compared to the others. The 2 tall plants are Carolina Reaper - I have no idea why they are much bigger than the others as I’ve not really done anything special with those even though they hold the world record for being the hottest chillies.

Sweetcorn – the warm sunny weather last week helped to move them along and I think I might be able to plant them out next week:




In the polytunnel I was just one shelving unit short to do a length but a plastic table I used to take when camping came in very handy. Still a work in progress but the gap under the shelves/trays makes a convenient storage place (these are just bags of used compost I have yet to take to the allotment):



With all the water hanging about, it got very warm and humid when the sun came out so I was relieved when the clouds came back …. Just not too happy about the rain that came with them. The growbags that I took out of the polytunnel earlier in the year were still in the garden … now that the trees were full of leaf (and crawling insects), I think on reflection that emptying them straight away would have been better. The contents have been spread along the bed with the fruit trees. That cleared space to get weed suppressant down along the side of the polytunnels up to the fruit trees so that should help keep the weeds down as well as keep my feet dry every time I go down to the polycarbonate greenhouse. I’d like to have got the bark chippings down but time was moving on and I still had to fill the bin with garden waste for Monday morning collection. The only downside to my bark chipping garden will be when the trees shed their leaves in autumn - how do you rake them up?

Just one week of work and then I'm off for a week - lots to do on the allotment so I'm hoping to finish off the garden / chilli project this week. That's the plan .....

[lancashire lass]

9th June 2015
Meanwhile, an unexpected gift - a parcel of strawberry plants was delivered to the work's stores but was unclaimed. The address was too vague to forward it and the named person does not have an e-mail account. After 3 weeks of waiting for someone to enquire, the plants were already dying so was decided to ask if anyone wanted them. Have to say they are on the brink of going past rescuing but I took them home and gave the roots a soak in seaweed solution

I'm embarrassed to say that it's taken me this long to do something about the strawberry plants This morning I woke up with the larks I think and decided to make use of the wee hours. I found 18 plants that had green growth (or close to it) and planted these in polybags of compost with a pinch of fertilizer and chicken manure pellets with a little bit of mycorrhizae spores ... I have yet to decide whether using this stuff works but as I'm gradually finishing the last of the chilli repotting, I do have quite a bit left over, so why not use it up. The rest of the plants did not look too promising and I left them in a tray of water for about an hour and when I was about to throw them away, I couldn't help notice that maybe not so dead after all. I drained the water off, lifted up the tops and then spread a couple handfuls of compost over the roots and dampened them with seaweed solution - I'll see if any perk up and pot those up (hopefully sooner rather than later LOL)

Then it was time to sort out the chickens (surprisingly quiet today - maybe the cloudy weather put them off their usual early morning racket) and opened up the greenhouse and polytunnels - 2 trays of repottings moved into the polytunnel and then they all got a dose of watering. I just had time to go round and tap some of the flowers coming on and inspect how they are all doing.

[lancashire lass]

My first sowings are still coming through slowly, with a quarter not doing anything. Using my car as a propagator during the sunny weather really helped with the germinations of the second batch of sowings - about 2/3rds are through now. I can highly recommend it if you ever have seeds that need a burst of heat to break dormancy. According to some sites, squash seeds need between 25-35oC to germinate, preferably the higher temperature doing better ... the temperature in the car easily got to that while sitting in the car park at work LOL

On Wednesday I took the seedlings home that had been on the windowsill at work and repotted them yesterday morning. And you guessed it, a couple got a dose of mycorrhizal fungal spores to see if that will improve things. It looked like it was going to be a sunny day so I popped the seedlings outside but sheltered under the dining room window to gently harden them off ... unfortunately the sun didn't last long and in rolled dark clouds and a cold northerly breeze for much of the day. However, I was surprised to find that the repotted plants in fact had not only survived but seemed a lot happier and had grown a bit too, well into their 3rd leaf stage now and if all goes well, will be more or less at about the same stage I normally plant out on the plot in the 3rd week of June, fingers crossed.

I think the chilli experiment with the mycorrhizal inoculation is showing differences now worth reporting. Last week during a sunny spell, I hadn't realised the compost in the pots were dry until I saw the leaves starting to droop. As I watered them all, it struck me that the inoculated plants were not showing any signs of water stress with leaves still turgid. I've read that the mycorrhizae enable plants to survive dry periods as their hyphae are able to spread out much further than the plant roots and tap into water sources but this does not explain how they can do this within the confines of a pot although I did read somewhere that the stomata (pores on leaves for gas exchange and also water) on treated plants have been known close to reduce water loss.

At first during the experiment, the non-treated seemed to grow marginally taller than the inoculated - given the variability of plants, I wasn't sure if this was normal or not. It could be explained that as the symbiotic relationship is developing, the host plants are being slightly compromised. However, as time has moved on I can see the treated plants (on the right) are now taller:



Leaves on the treated plant are also distinctly darker, broader with a glossy sheen to them:



compared to the non-treated:



As both sets of plants have been otherwise treated exactly the same and are probably in dire need of repotting, it is likely the non-treated are running out of nutrients whereas the inoculation contains other soil flora which can fix nitrogen and so still feeding the plants.

The downside that I've noticed is that the non-treated plants have flowered and set fruit much earlier than the treated which are only just starting. My first fruit on the non-treated is now well ahead:



Mycorrhizal treated chilli plants are supposed to have higher yields - perhaps that will come later so I'll do a fruit count at the end of the experiment to see if that is the case.

Other than that, I think the mycorrhizal experiment with chillies has been a success and I'll be using it in future.

[lancashire lass]

I had such big plans for my week off work, all to do with spending it at the allotment ... well, I WAS busy but not where I should have been.

As always happens when I have leave booked, everyone has me running around silly the days before I finish so that left me tired with muscle strain in my arm but I still forced myself to go to the allotment on the Sunday 21st June. The plot was looking very weedy but if you looked more closely, the bulk of it was the horsetail/marestail on the edges of the beds and footpaths where the weedkiller didn't reach, and ... the dreaded pond bed. I concentrated my efforts on the garlic beds and realised some of the garlic were ready for lifting - the Illico, Albigensian Wight, Iberian Wight and Provence. There were some others that needed to be lifted but despite all my pre-planting treatments and ground preparation, the dreaded rot has got to them. Some are salvageable but generally spoiled.

I woke up on the Monday with a blinding headache / migraine and quietly spent much of the day in the house washing the bulbs (I find washing the dirt off in water with a little washing up liquid also removes pests and possible diseases which can affect storage). They are now hanging up drying off and curing. On Tuesday I decided to spend the day at home as my headache was not for shifting although I realised it was more from blocked sinuses which Sudafed tablets helped to shift quickly. Not idle, I got on with some serious repotting of the last batch of the chillies into the bigger pots, and moved the surplus culinary chilli plants out onto the patio to harden off (read that to mean that I needed the space in the polytunnel and they had no option but be ousted). Doesn't sound like a big job but when you can only carry 1 tray or 2 pots at a time up and down the garden, I felt like I had walked miles.

I had plans for Wednesday evening so did not want to get tired by over-doing it. After a much needed shopping trip, the rest of the day was quiet with some pottering around the garden. On Thursday I tackled the privet hedge and apple tree with loppers and trimmers - now there is much more light getting to the greenhouse and polytunnel although my neighbour seems intent on leaving the height much higher on his side of the garden. I ended up having to stretch over to lop some of the taller branches and found a bird's nest (most likely empty) which stopped me doing any more. Then it was just a case of tidying up in the garden and around the patio because I was expecting guests!

On Friday, my friend dropped off some plants to look after while they went away for a fortnight ... not sure what the going rate is for "plant sitting" LOL and now my patio looks like a garden nursery. These are seedlings that have taken a while to germinate and seemed to be precious - when my friend left, I quickly sprinkled some slug pellets on the pots as I'm sure I could see the nearby snails watching the new additions to the patio with glee. As suspected hence the big tidy up, there was the tour of the garden to meet the chickens (normally rush up to the gate when they see me but decided to be shy when my friend was there) and the chilli project now set up and ready to roll.

As Sunday was forecast rain, I decided to go to the allotment on Saturday 27th June. I was stopped at the gate by a fellow allotmenteer enquiring about their garlic - it looked like the cloves inside the bulb had all sprouted leaves. I couldn't explain it as the plant itself looked very healthy with no pest or disease and wondered if it was a weather thing or maybe infrequent watering. When I got to my plot, on inspection of the garlic, one of the varieties Bella Italiano was exactly the same with all the cloves growing leaves even though the bulb itself is not mature enough. Thankfully the rest were okay although not doing brilliantly. I lifted up the Castano (normally a late maturing garlic) and Therador (not too well known in the UK) and the Thermidrome (the ones that were planted in pots on Boxing Day and late planting out) which looked fine. However, some of Czech garlic and the Polish Ornak (uber large cloves) have not done well - probably not too surprising as both had been planted in a virgin bed as I had nowhere else to plant them after going over the top with buying different garlic varieties. I think I salvaged one good Ornak bulb out of the 5 cloves which I will try to save for planting this autumn. I lifted up a Red Duke, Romanian Red and a Red Donetsky but decided to leave the rest and hope the extra week will increase bulb size but I suspect the rain and high temperature & humidity that has been forecast will just encourage rot. Fingers crossed.

The sun was very strong and my fair skin quickly burned so I didn't stay too long. I cleared the last of the brassica cages, lifted up the last of the flowering parsnip and leaf beet and filled the compost bin. Five bags of chicken poop were spread over one of the proposed sweetcorn beds to act as mulch hoping it will keep the soil moist enough during the forecast heatwave until I can plant the sweetcorn out next weekend. As I need to get the winter squash planted out as well, I'm not feeling too hopeful about getting it all done. The berries on the bushes are all ripening so a glut ready for picking just to add to the pile.

On Sunday, the forecast heatwave this week got me thinking ... I ought to give all the plants in the greenhouses and polytunnels a thorough drenching now rather than rush around in a panic watering during the hottest time of the week, especially inside a hot humid greenhouse. It took me a long time with over 20 trips back and forth with the watering can (I so wish I had set up the automatic self-watering thing) but at least all I will need to do is a quick top up rather than a full watering session later on. I personally am not looking forward to the hot weather but let's hope the plants take advantage of it. Meanwhile, I spent the rest of Sunday washing the second lot of garlic ready for drying off and curing.

[lancashire lass]

Rising temperatures last week were phenomenal but the high humidity was the worst. On Wednesday the temperature in the garden was still 31oC at 8.00pm and with no breeze, temperatures didn't drop at all. I'm so glad I did such a thorough watering on Sunday as all I needed to do was go round the polytunnels and greenhouses with a little top up, and even that was probably not necessary. The sweetcorn trebled in size and turned into triffids even though they were still in small pots, the squash on the other hand probably not as vigorous but still took advantage of the hot weather - even a couple more seeds germinated, several weeks after sowing, and although only at the 2nd leaf stage, "may" be productive if the summer remains warm.

If there was a thunderstorm on Friday in Nottingham, I slept right through it LOL. I gathered we must have had a lot of rain as there seemed to be damaged trees on Saturday morning when driving to the shops, and I had to tip out the water where potted plants were sitting in trays.

Yesterday I got to the allotment early but despite cool temperatures of around 13-15oC, the humidity was very high. I had such a lot to do - urgent planting out of the sweetcorn and winter squashes, but also lift up garlic and a list of other things to do. When I got to the plot, I was dismayed to find the horsetail growing in abundance everywhere which made the plot look a lot messier than it really was.

The potatoes looked well with flowers, but a little shorter than I would have expected - it's possible the cool summer so far has not encouraged much growth, plus I was late planting, followed by lack of water as we haven't had that much rain. My dried blood experiment is not so noticeable other than with the Vivaldi - I had treated half of each variety with dried blood fertilizer (with some chicken manure pellets) whereas the other half had a heavy feed of chicken manure along with other general fertilizer in both. Looking at the rows, the Charlottes, Shetland Black, Mayan Gold and Inca Belle were just slightly taller than the non-treated row, but in the Vivaldi bed, the treated row were not only much taller but leaves were a lovely darker green colour (green leaves = photosynthesis = sugars + carbohydrates which in theory have bigger yields .... it will be interesting to see if that is the case when they are ready for lifting)

Well, my first task was planting the winter squashes. Last year I made an extra special effort to improve soil structure and especially fertility by putting the soiled chicken bedding and manure plus autumn leaves and compostables on to the bed, then covering with plastic weed suppressant sheets and carpet to keep the weeds down. Apart from 2 dock plants, the bed was clear ... as I wanted to get as much planted as possible, I didn't really have the time to clear the sheets up and start digging, so opted for planted through the sheets and letting the plants grow over the top. As the plastic sheets are perforated, rain water will drain away but at the same time any fruit will be clean and off the soil so reduce problems. Liking this idea, I planted out 24 winter squashes and pumpkins - I noticed both the Thelma Sanders and Anna Swartz plants were just started to develop flower buds so won't be long before they are flowering. The Blue Hungarian and the Pink Moranga de Mesi were good strong plants, the others ranged from middling to on the small size. The Uchiki Kuri, Sweet Meat, Shishigatani kaboche and Dills Atlantic pumpkin had not germinated, but there were still plenty of others so no complaints.

The beds for the sweetcorn and tomatoes had to be cleared of the horsetail first - I perhaps did not do such a great job as time was of the essence but at first glance they are cleared but lurking under the soil are many roots. By now it was late morning and humidity levels were high making the job twice the effort, with having to take frequent breaks. First I planted the 2 freebie Crimson Crush tomato plants from Sutton Seeds - despite being in fairly big pots, for some reason they have not grown anywhere near the size I would have expected but hopefully they might get a move on now that they have more sunlight and growing space. The good news is that fruit has set on the first trusses. This variety is supposed to be blight free so a bit of a trial to see how it grows and flavour.

Next sweetcorn. After planting up the first bed with about 27 plants (these are ones that have been inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi at chitted seed stage), I broke off and decided to harvest the garlic. My late planted onions are starting to bulk up - I suspect the rain on Friday night helped. As for the garlic, most seemed to look a lot better than last week and others looked like they were ready for harvesting. I lifted up the Red Duke, Red Donetsk, Spanish Rocambole, Picardy, Music, Harnas, Lautrec Wight and Carcassone. The Red Duke and Red Donetsk were amazing with lovely big bulbs and healthy roots - such a contrast from last week when I was pulling out rotted stems and feeling the garlic project was going to be a disaster. The Harnas and Music on the other hand were not clever - both are late maturing and as always, do not seem to do as well as the early maturing. I won't be growing those again and will concentrate on the early maturing ones instead now. Last year the Spanish Rocambole had matured earlier than I expected whereas this year I suspect I could have left the bulbs in the ground a little longer ... just to confuse matters LOL

It was also an opportunity to see how the potatoes were doing and noticing that slugs and snails have been making a meal of the plants. So I went round with slug pellets. After the umpteenth break and to be honest, I should have packed up and gone home, I pushed myself into planting up the last of the sweetcorn. Then I went round with the watering can to water in all the newly planted stuff with a little bit of phostrogen liquid feed to give them a boost until the roots hit the fresh compost and fertilizer.

I packed up and left at 3.30pm, feeling very hot and sore but also with a feeling of achievement. I have to confess that this past week I have been considering giving up my allotment plot - it just seems like a lot of hard work and taking up all my spare time, and I'm certainly feeling my age these days. Unlike the garden where I could miss a week or two and the only person it upsets is me, whereas allotment plots are often being scrutinised by the powers that be ... I wouldn't be surprised if an eviction notice is served as I've barely got 60% planted up (and worse, beds are emptying as I lift up the garlic!) We shall just have to wait and see.

[lancashire lass]

My efforts at the plot last weekend could be felt right through to this weekend - knots had knots in them and muscles I never knew I had complained with a vengeance. I really did overdo it, putting me off doing another mammoth day like it. On Saturday I desperately needed sand for the chicken runs and bought 5 bags ... I'm surprised the back axle on the car survived the journey with the weight. By the time I had done the shopping, got home, unloaded and sorted out the runs, I was ready for my "day of rest" (usually on a Saturday when I have a tv catch up and a lazy day at home) Even if I had paid attention to the weather forecast for Sunday, I don't think I was going to haul myself to the allotment on a Saturday anyway.

Sunday - dull, dark ... I was sure Nottingham was supposed to have rain in the wee hours and then dry for the rest of the day. After cleaning out the coops and getting the bags ready for the allotment, I went round the greenhouse and polytunnels with the watering can and spray bottle. Most of the chillies were fine, just a couple were looking sad and limp but I gave them all a reasonable drenching followed by a foliar spray with a little magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts) - the foliar spray increases humidity round the leaves which discourages spider mites from infesting the plants (very difficult to eradicate once they appear in numbers) and the magnesium helps the fruit to set. Also greens up the leaves nicely too even if they are not showing signs of magnesium deficiency.

Talking of leaves, the plants in the greenhouse were badly scorched during the heatwave the other week. Most likely it got so hot in the greenhouse that the leaves were losing water faster than it could be transported up from the roots, and then the cells on the tender shoots got damaged by the strong sunshine. These have since grown but the new leaves appear damaged, wrinkled and twisted. As long as the rest of the plant is alright, it is just cosmetic. There was a little bit of damage on some of the plants in the polytunnel but nowhere as severe.

I wanted to take some photos but I've lost my new media card for the camera I know I've seen it somewhere (safe) but where?! Too expensive to get another at the moment but lots of chillies are flowering now and fruit developing, even the surplus ones I dumped outside. In the polycarbonate greenhouse, about 50% of the plants have flowered with more gearing up. However, as suspected the greenhouse is a little on the dark side from the hedge and trees outside, and some plants are starting to look a little on the leggy side. In the polytunnel, the Scotch Bonnet are well ahead with lots of baby fruits. About 80% of the superhots are gearing up to flowering as buds are appearing. Luckily I was bending down to check on the Sweet Sunshine peppers when my eye caught sight of some flowers on the Dorset Zinger, so quickly gave the plants a little shake to knock the pollen about - tapping flowers have ended up with knocking them off so I try to avoid that now (I thread my fingers through the branches and then shake my hand from side to side so that they get knocked and all the leaves rustle) I carefully looked at all the other plants just to be sure I hadn't missed any.

The Sweet Sunshine peppers are weird - I know they are a trailing type suited for hanging baskets but mine are barely 2 inches tall if that, and already flowering. It's as if the plants have no main stem and appear flat with the different stage leaves on top of each other. I can't see how they are trailing or how they can produce abundant fruits as described in the blurb. All 5 seeds that germinated are all growing identical so is not some random mutant.

The surplus plants for sale on the patio are most likely going to be given away or planted on the allotment. I don't have too much of a problem selling the eggs but selling plants to friends and colleagues is very difficult - I'm so used to giving the surplus plants away. As they are already flowering, at least I'll know the ones on the plot will be bearing fruit.

While in the polytunnel, I could hear the distinctive sound of light rain / drizzle on the cover. Perhaps a rogue shower? Then it turned into rain with no sign of letting up. I went into the house to wait it out but after my rear end hit the settee, it didn't feel up to moving once the rain stopped late morning. So despite the length of this post, all I really managed to do this weekend is water the chillies

[lancashire lass]

I still haven't found my new media card but just had enough memory on a current card for a mammoth photo session. I didn't have time for close ups this morning but I really must get myself properly organised for next time. Here goes:

Beaver Dam plants repotted from their office ordeal and coming along nicely - sadly, only one plant has flowered since but fruits developing nicely on all:



An overview of the polycarbonate greenhouse with the culinary chillies - as mentioned previously, I don't think the light levels are bright enough due to the trees outside as the ones right at the bottom look a bit leggy:



An overview of the polytunnels:



The Sweet Sunshine seems to have put a little spurt on since my last post but you can see how "squat" they are compared to other chillies:



Dorset Zinger flowering:



Also the Bhut Red:



The Scotch Bonnet looks like it could be quite a prolific little plant - wish I had planted them in bigger pots now:



Dorset Naga flowering (the plant is also falling over I will need to stake it somehow:



The Carolina Reaper continues to get taller - the 2 Tepin plants in the foreground are trying to catch up LOL (I might nip off the tops of the Tepin in the hope they branch out)



The leaves on the Carolina Reaper are enormous:



And loads of flower buds!



An overview of the glass greenhouse chillies:



With the scorched leaves on the Carolina Reaper from that mini heatwave / hottest day - thankfully new leaves are fine:



The surplus chillies on the patio are doing very well and nearly all have flowers and fruits developing - better than the ones in the polycarbonate greenhouse. Isn't that the case when plants are destined to be discarded LOL Some will be planted out on the allotment plot, but the rest will probably be given away/sold:



Garlic hanging up under the corrugated roof over the shed door next to the chicken run - great place for drying them off. The bulbs in the foreground are the Red Duke and Red Donetsk which I'm very happy with, the Iberian is behind the bunch on the right:



The not so good ones which I'll probably drop off my growing list in future, hanging up in the chicken run - the roof keeps the bulbs dry, but I think the garlic does reduce fly problems too (well, maybe just a little):



Finally, a photo that was accidentally deleted on photobucket - for some reason that batch of photos did not go into the main library and I thought the upload had failed so repeated it only to find the photos could only be accessed if I clicked on "recent uploads". After posting the thread, I thought I'd deleted the surplus photos on photobucket but too late to edit the post when I realised I'd deleted the wrong one, so here is the missing photo of the Beaver Dam fruit that was growing in the 19th June entry:

[lancashire lass]

The surplus plants for sale on the patio are most likely going to be given away or planted on the allotment. I don't have too much of a problem selling the eggs but selling plants to friends and colleagues is very difficult - I'm so used to giving the surplus plants away

This morning when putting clean bedding in the chicken coops, I suddenly realised that I was scraping the last bit out of the bedding bin and would need to get some more this weekend. Then I decided to top up the layers pellets and emptied the bag ... as I'm already being uber frugal until pay-day next week to avoid using my credit card, I wondered if I could generate a little cash from some plant sales to cover the cost. So, despite my reservations I decided to bring some of the chilli plants in to work and e-mailed a few possible colleagues.

Not only did they sell out within the hour ( more than enough £ to buy feed and bedding for the girls) but lots of disappointed interested people too, so I'll be taking another batch tomorrow I wonder - I might have a few surplus garlic bulbs too

I think lots of people like the idea of growing chillies hence the interest. I'm glad I didn't bottle out now and give the plants away

[lancashire lass]

The second batch of chillies I brought into work did not sell as quickly as the first, possibly because I left them in the office where I work unlike the Thursday sale in the main reception area. Still, more than enough money made to buy bedding and feed for the girls

The forecast for Sunday was ... rain As I needed to do my Saturday shop and drive to Derby to get the feed and bedding, I got up early and popped down to the allotment at 6.30am to dig up the last of the garlic (the Romanian Red, Czech garlic, Tuscany & Chesnock Wight) I noticed the sweetcorn wasn't doing so well and had to give them an emergency watering. As I stood there with the hose drenching the plants, I realised that in fact only one bed of sweetcorn was affected - the ones not treated with the mycorrhizal fungi. Up until now I had not seen any difference between the treated and non-treated but on the plot the soil is becoming very dry as we've had minimal rain, and what rain does land on the ground is quickly evaporated off. I'm only guessing that the treated plants have successfully taken and the mycelium have spread out and tapped into other water sources.

Yesterday it was indeed raining, but hardly a deluge - light rain, drizzle, a little heavier rain ... the patio under the neighbour's tree barely got wet so I knew it was only wetting the soil surface. The rain forecast was for early morning only so I loaded the car while still raining and got to the allotment for about 8.30 am. Only one other was on site and he must have thought I was mad as I hooked the hose to the stand pipe and started watering the beds while it was still raining LOL. I concentrated on the potatoes and onions, and gave the sweetcorn and winter squash another drenching. And the forecast was right - not long after, the clouds were breaking up and the sun came out less than an hour later.

My next urgent task of the day was to trim the comfrey plants which had got so big and flopped over. I normally trim these back in mid-late June using a sickle and spread the cuttings round the newly planted out squash plants - the cuttings act like a mulch but also quickly rot down to provide nutrients such as potassium for the plants. At this late stage, flower buds had turned into seed heads so rather than risk seeding my plot with comfrey, I have dumped them into a new pile. The result was the plot not looking anywhere as untidy as before, but for the horsetail taking over

With lifting up the last of the garlic in the bed nearest the track and the old butternut bed, I could get on with digging up the weeds. The track-side bed was surprisingly not too bad, and I needed to level off the mounds and fork over the compacted troughs. After digging out the weeds and raking over, I decided to sow dwarf French beans (Borlotti) I'm not bothered about a harvest and it is purely a green manure to keep the nutrients locked in to the soil. The soil was bone dry and how the garlic has survived is probably due to the mycorrhizal inoculation of the cloves last autumn. I'm really sold on it now and will implement it into my vegetable growing more often.

By late morning, the ground was already dry and you'd probably wouldn't have known it had been raining but for the small puddles on top of plastic sheeting. I made up a batch of weedkiller using glyphosate and Resolva weedkiller. Resolva contains diquat which is effective against ... horsetail! It is the ingredient in Kurtail (formerly Kibosh) which is the weedkiller that should only be available to professionals although it can be bought off e-bay (it is also very expensive, something like £42-£47 for 500ml - well out of range for my pocket) Diquat does have a nasty habit of not degrading so quickly which is why it is perfect for pathways and driveways to keep them weed free over a longer period. I just wanted to tackle the footpaths on the plot but I only had enough to do the bit near the trackside rather than whole plot. The first batch I tried earlier in the year has been surprisingly effective against most other weeds (no sign of dandelion or dock where I sprayed) and even some of the horsetail has been knocked back a bit so another dose might turn the tide on this horrible weed. The only problem I had was the stupid nozzle on the sprayer - no spray but a pathetic single jet ... like trying to cover weeds with a syringe. It took forever to do and probably not such an effective job of treating the plants.

The dried blood trial on potatoes is looking very good - 2 weeks ago I noticed the distinction between treated and non-treated especially the difference in leaf colour and height amongst the Vivaldi. Now the non-treated are dying back (naturally) and well into the yellowing stage whereas the treated row is still dark green and growing. I hadn't noticed much difference in the Charlottes and Inca Belle last time, but yesterday I could see the same thing happening with the leaf colour. Dried blood is being hailed as a high nitrogen fertilizer but considering I heavily dosed the non-treated row with chicken manure to compensate for that difference, I'm convinced the iron is having an effect.

With regards to the onions, the dried blood was a top dressing on half the rows after I had planted the sets. I was already late planting them but I can see that the treated half do appear to be bulking up quicker and leaves are still fully upright unlike the non-treated which are just starting to flop over. At least I can see the bulbs developing so I'm quietly hopeful that the potato yields will be equally impressive. Next year (providing I still have a plot), I aim to look into this further with another experiment planned.

I just had time to weed one of the smaller beds that had garlic in. The soil was surprisingly nice to work with (would have been better if less dry as the clods of clay were hard) and had few weeds but for some bindweed and horsetail. After levelling off, I started on a second bed but instead decided I ought to water the bed with the sown beans. I hooked up the hose pipe and thoroughly drenched the patch for a long time ... it looked soaking but I knew if I had pushed my finger into the soil it would barely be a quarter inch down. I decided to give the potatoes and onions another drenching in the hope it will bulk up the tubers and bulbs before the plants die back, plus the non-treated sweetcorn in case we do not get any more rain until next weekend.

As for the last of the garlic lifted, I'm really pleased with the Romanian Red - not one single loss and all bulbs were decent. Perhaps if we'd had more rain and a warmer spring, they might have bulked up a bit more. Even rust which is a big problem for garlic was only just showing on the leaves so quite resistant. The Czech garlic is a mix of 3 cultivars - Bjetin, Benatcan and Lukan - but I think the seller mixed them up. Still, what I think is the Lukan look quite good and surprising bigger bulbs than expected despite the weedy looking tops. The Tuscany and Chesnock Wight on the other hand were pathetic - I have now dropped them off my future garlic lists and going for the early maturing varieties instead (except for the Romanian Red being a late maturing bulb)