Yesterday after a few days away from the allotment due to bad weather, I managed to get some seeds sown,
Summer Cabbage, Summer Cauli,s, Early sprouts, Late Sprouts, Calabrese, Kale, PSB, Tomatoe,s, Basil, Beetroot (in modules), Celeriac, Chilli,s Peppers, Sweet peppers,Courgettes, Pumpkins, Lettuce, Raddish, Spring onions.
Also made a start of planting out my onions, 150 seedlings, 150 sprouted sets, only managed 50 seedlings so will put he rest in during the course of next week (weather permitting).
Today I had a few hours planting the rest of the onion seedlings outside aprox 100 bedfordshire champ and 20 spanish salad onions. I,ve still got the onion sets to put out yet. Brought home a lovely bit of spring cabbage and my first spring cauli which i,m pleased with.
Bob what are the benfits of seedling onion v sets ? I have always used sets as I feel they may need a head start up here , there are about 20 odd in my raised bed that have all rooted and are shooting - they are covered over with a bit of clear plastic sheet though.
It will be alright in the end , if its not alright, it isn't the end . Quote from the proprietor of the The best exotic Marigold Hotel for the elderly and beautiful
We just can't grow greens, Bob. Caulis are no good, so small and the cabbages get attacked by what OH calls keel slugs. We cover them all up, but they are just ruined.
Annie wrote:Bob what are the benfits of seedling onion v sets ? I have always used sets as I feel they may need a head start up here , there are about 20 odd in my raised bed that have all rooted and are shooting - they are covered over with a bit of clear plastic sheet though.
Hi Annie, my own thoughts are that onions from seedlings seem to store a bit better and another advantage is that there are more varieties in seed form, and of course they work out cheaper per onion. I cant really comment if seeds without aditional heat and light would be succesfull at your location Annie, as you quite rightly state that seed onions need a fairly long growing season.
Spreckly wrote:We just can't grow greens, Bob. Caulis are no good, so small and the cabbages get attacked by what OH calls keel slugs. We cover them all up, but they are just ruined.
You have worked so very hard.
Thats a shame Spreckly, Although my cauli,s were not at their best 6 weeks ago, I gave them a foliage feed of comfry which kick started them off again, and they have come good. I usually plant my brassica,s on the beds that the previous season would have grown legumes as they would have helped fix the nitrogen that brassica,s enjoy. And I always lime the brassica beds as they dont do well in an acid soil and the extra lime helps stave away clubroot.
Managed to get a few hours on the allotment today before the showers set in. Got the rest of the onions planted up outside, also put up some canes for my french climbing beans and wax beans, i,m not growing runners this year as I much prefare the wax beans I grew for the first time last year. They also have the advantage that they dont go stringy like runners may do if left on the plant too long. Potatoes have just started showing so I have earthed them up a little to protect them from the frosts.
Took a first cut of comfry today to fill comfry barrel. I do the comfry thing a bit different to others. I have a barrel with a tap at the bottom, inside the barrel are some bricks to keep the comfry leaves off the barrel floor. I then fill it to the top with comfry pack it down tightly. I then place a round seive on top of comfry and weight it down with several bricks, finally the lid goes on to keep the rain out. The weight of the bricks starts forcing the extract out of the comfry and in two weeks or so there will be enough pure extract at the bottom of the barrel to run off via the tap into a bucket, this is then run through a filter (old pea steeping bag) and then finally stored in 2 ltr pop bottles. The advantage is that there is very little smell compared to the soak in a water method, also you can hold some back to use the following season while your comfry regrows. You also have the option of diluting at various strengths if needed although I tend to use 20:1 with good results.
Today got a bed of brassica,s which consisted of calabrese, summer cauli,s, summer cabbage, kale, sprouts and PSB, planted out and netted to protect them from ever increasing stoggie population. Things seem to be moving a little now the weather warming up if rather slowly the wall flowers are a nice splash of color to look at at tea breaks. Broad beans are on their way now and the 1st and 2nd early potato,s seem to have got over the touch of frost they receved a few weeks ago.
Brasicas planted out and watered in
Nets in place to kep the stoggies out.
Potatoes doing well after sharp frost a few weeks ago.
It will be alright in the end , if its not alright, it isn't the end . Quote from the proprietor of the The best exotic Marigold Hotel for the elderly and beautiful