Running away

Into the season for runner beans now and the more they're picked the more they'll produce: Much like sweet peas, once the seed starts to develop the plant stops producing more flowers and pods. Courgette plants behave similarly and one of them has now shut down because one of the fruits was allowed to develop to the size of a marrow. The dill is now flowering. All parts; leaves, flowers and seeds are great for the kitchen.

Big roots

Harvested some early parsnips that had self-seeded on a patch where the broad beans grew, which needed clearing to make way for some winter crops. Beetroot hasn't done brilliantly this year and there probably won't be enough for pickling, but there are always enough to brighten up a salad or stain a bowl of rice or couscous.

Little Roots

Harvested the first baby carrots, more climbing/french beans and some lettuce.

Plum Month

                                    Into August; plum month.

Big Green

Large gnarled beefsteak tomatoes need a few more weeks of sunshine to ripen and the plants need tying up to prevent them from collapsing.

Malus Domestica

Cox's Orange Pippin: Probably should have thinned the fruit out and watered more during the hot dry spells. Many of the branches are weighed down amongst the gooseberry bushes which could do with a prune now. Cox's are particularly susceptible to scab, mildew and canker and these ones are also susceptible to being nicked by passers-by.

orangepippin.com

Fruits of labour

 

So hot recently that crops and seedlings need a daily watering.

 

It's been a good year for gherkins, if watered regularly.

 Courgette plants are particularly hungry and thirsty.

First Runners

                                First crop of runner beans.

Hotter than July

 

 

Successional

A second sowing of climbing beans to replace those recently harvested.

Beanfeast

Redambergreen

Lots of redcurrants and gooseberries to harvest and the first of the cherry tomatoes.

Tassels No Hassle

Sweetcorn pollinated, white tassels and thin, thirsty cobs. The beans and squash amongst them have grown well.

Daucus carota

 

 Haven't seen a carrot look like this before; left in the ground from last year overwinter, it's put on a lot of growth above ground this year and is now in flower.

Potato Salad

 

                                    Just add mayonnaise

Soft fruit relay

As the strawberry season comes to an end there are blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries to harvest.

Trap crop

Flea beatles munch on radish leaves but leave the crop unaffected and are distracted from other crops.

Herbal essentials

                       Dill, parsley and coriander liking the hot weather.

Peas up

Dolphin's back

Delphinium: modern Latin, from Greek delphinion ‘larkspur’, from delphin ‘dolphin’ (because of the shape of the spur, thought to resemble a dolphin's back

Petroselinum crispum

500 a day

The start of the strawberry harvest; expecting to pick around 500 grams a day for the next two weeks.

Six of the best

 

Decorative and / or useful early spring flowers; bluebells, apple blossom, broad bean, angelica, tulip and comfrey.

Leek and potato

 

The nicest man on the allotment

 

 The nicest man on the allotment died last week. His once tidy plot is living on, unharvested brussels sprouts are flowering, the cardigan and cap wearing scarecrow works out his notice before retirement.

Donkey Rhubarb

In module we trust

Fire without smoke

           Meanwhile, a charcoal burner's been busy in a Dorset wood.

Beware the fires of March

There's always lots of woody waste at the allotment that won't compost or is best burned; prunings from fruit bushes, brassica, sweetcorn and sunflower stems, diseased material and old tomato vines. Allotment rules only permit bonfires between November and the end of March. After one of the wettest winters recorded, burning anything's been impossible until recently. Now everyone's at it.

Irritatingly, Plasticman - or The Fireman - as he shall be known, who has a plot 20 metres upwind, has a habit of burning plastic bags in an old bath. He sits there in his blue overalls right next to it. Instead of the not unpleasant waft of woodsmoke cut with a sharp sweet perfume from the Daphne odora bush against a background smell of earthy early spring, comes a toxic fume of pong. What's he like?

Intent to fruit

 One-year-old gooseberry bushes spring to life amongst the thorns.

 

 Plum blossom is the earliest of all.

Brassica oleracea italica

Sown last summer and protected from pigeons (and the snow that never came) beneath scaffolding netting, the purple sprouting broccoli has grown well and is ready to yield a first harvest.

 Just like the kale that it replaces as the green vegetable of the season, it responds well to being picked, produces new growth rapidly and is high in vitamin C content.

Dead easy to grow (even on a heavy clay soil), yummy with a bit of butter and a warm glow when you notice what it costs to buy.

Rework the plot

             Rhubarb springs back to life and promises an early crop.

                 Leeks planted last summer are still a bit thin.