Beautiful though they are even green, they’re not ripening!

I really should look up and check what varieties I planted!

Sungold for me next year I think. Someone on our site has plenty of outdoor tomatoes that are already ripened!

Growing Claytonia from seed.
Claytonia is part of my winter plan this year. It said to plant in August so I’ve put some in pots a few days ago.
It’s starting to come up already! I am pleased!

The corn salad Vit I planted at the same time isn’t showing yet!

Claytonia is also known as Winter Purslane or Miner’s lettuce.

It’s in a cold frame – with slug pellets too. The weather has been awful this year!

I saw on the weather forecast last night that this summer has been the dullest for many years! It’s always interesting to hear the weather report look back over the summer and see what records have been broken this year.
This years June was the wettest for 100 years – and the other summer months were also real soakers. After the early drought warnings and hosepipe bans though it was probably needed though – that doesn’t help if you wanted to enjoy the sunshine.

This year has been a real trial on the allotment. The weather has kept many people away, but has encouraged both slugs and weeds to grow massively. Currently there are several very soggy areas on the site highlighting just how much rain we’ve had recently. It’s been good for the frogs though as several have been seen from this years baby ones to large older frogs!

It’s the last day of summer as I write this and my raspberries look like they’ve been affected by the cold and the greenhouse was 9’C last night. This is shockingly for August but fits in with the rest of the years weather.

Within an hour though the temperature soared as the clear sky allowed the sun to shine brightly!
But by the time I’d got round to take these photos it looks like rain once again!

Claytonia seeds from kings seeds

If our project gets enough votes we’ll win £10k which we can spend on getting composting toilets on the site!

Vote now – you do have to regsister but it’s quick and easy!

Please vote for Diane on the Team Green Britain site

An allotment needs time and love. Without attention it’ll run wild away from you and be almost impossible to keep sweet.
The decision to take on an allotment needs to be considered carefully. Do you have time to lavish upon your plot when you first get it? They’re invariably a mess by the time they get allocated to someone new, so need extra time and care.
Can you spare the hours during the summer when long hours in sunshine need to be endured to weed, water and pick your harvest?
Tending your allotment needs to be done like a relationship. You’d not expect to spend just an hour a month with a loved one and to have a good relationship, so why expect an allotment to be easier?

Your loved ones might feel jealous of your allotment. The time that you devote to it might be the cause of a rift in your personal relationships. Something will have to give and invariably it’s the allotment. Unless of course you can persuade your partner that helping you on your allotment plot is good for them. If you can’t then every minute you spend on your plot pulling out weeds will be the cause of disharmony.

If you have young children then who’ll look after them whilst you’re working on your plot? You might think you can entertain them on your plot – and you might be able to once you’ve spent a few hundred hours making it child safe and removing the hazards of allotments; Unless you do though every second on your plot will be spent admonishing them for pulling up the plants whilst they admire the weeds. Lock up the pesticides, weedkillers and sharp tools too! And whatever you do don’t let them wonder off your plot on to someone else’s where you’ll find them munching on freshly picked prize peas.

Ideally your life can squeeze in a few hours a week on an allotment without making anyone feel jealous or insecure. How many allotments have been listed on divorce papers?

Question:

It’s July and I’ve just spent a couple of weeks clearing a new allotment site. I’ve got a couple of small beds ready to plant. Should I cover them or is it worth trying to grow something?

Answer:
Get on and plant something! If you don’t plant in it, then nature will!
There are tons of things you can be planting now! If you have a garden centre nearby you could go and get some plug plants to go out – if they’re selling it then it can be planted out now!
Seeds are cheap and you can get crops from lettuces, radishes, spring onions, salad leaves, spinach, beetroot and much more! Even peas can be planted now!

Don’t leave the soil empty – get growing! Once you see shoots coming up you’ll be so glad you did! Once you eat crops you’ve grown you’ll be hooked too!

If you don’t plant then what will you do with the space? Just cover it? It’s easier to let crops cover it – a densely sown patch of lettuce leaves or radishes will suppress weeds too and they’re edible! Consider a green manure if you’re still not convinced anything will grow in time.
It will though! July is a good time to be planting lots of things!

Avoid plants named for the Isle of Wight… As the soil there is very chalky and if they’ve been grown there then they are unlikely to do well in your soil.

Garlic like Lautrec Wight won’t do well on an acid soil.

The best varieties for acid soil are thought to be Thermidrome and Germidour.

This month has already been soaking wet. We were grateful here for a sunny weekend as the bees arrived on our allotment. They seem to have settled in already and have been out foraging and returning to their new hive laden with pollen!

The allotment is looking good at the moment, we have a new person just signed up and hope to get another person signed up to a quarter plot soon as well.
I’ve started a second solarisation compost bag – this time with grass cuttings and cardboard. It’ll be interesting to see how this one competes with my wheelie bin attempt at this composting method.

My potatoes that were being eaten have had slug pellets put around. I’ve never seen such devastation on spuds from slugs! Apparently they’re particularly fond of maris piper which explains why they’ve been singled out.

Someone on our allotment who was keen to get hold of straw has placed straw all around his greenhouse as a mulch. He’s going to add some ammonium sulphate and then some more straw.

This site also mentions this method – it’s to encourage the straw to rot down.

Using urine on them will help them break down quicker too – the urine contains plenty of nitrogen which works with the carbon in the straw to break it down.

I’ve mentioned on a forum that slugs have been eating my potato tops. Someone said they didn’t think slugs did this! Well take it from me they do!

In fact don’t just take my word for it, but look at the photos I’ve taken.

interestingly they’re on the maris piper potatoes most. I’ve got two lots of Maris Pipers and the second lot I put in are worst affected. There are also some first earlies affected – Sharps express.
I’ve never been troubled by slugs eating potato tops before – although it might be that I’ve just never picked a variety they found so delicious! It’s interesting to see how they can devastate plants – when a few yards away courgettes are sat there untouched!

I should go and save the plants and sprinkle some pellets round but it’s absolutely peeing it down right now!

The white one looks like Deroceras agreste,the orange Arion subfuscus says Dr Noble who very kindly offered to look at photos of the slugs on my allotment.

Got to be closer to actually digging some up.


Whilst you can count in weeks you’re best waiting until they have flowered and the flowers are starting to finish.
You can always have a test scrape around carefully with your fingers and see what you can find. If you only find tiny ones then leave them a bit longer.

Generally main crop spuds are ready in August or September.

Remember that 2012 has been a strange year weatherwise (And we’re only at July) so things aren’t going quite as they would do normally. Be patient.

First earlies can be ready in 12-13 weeks – they are meant to be quite small.

Pick your potatoes just before you want to eat them – vital for getting the best flavour from first earlies – or new potatoes as they are known!

If you get a poor crop then you can blame it on several things. There are several pests that attack potatoes – slugs will eat tubers. This year we have had lots of potato foliage eaten – we think by slugs as we have seen slugs on plants.

Putting a fork through a spud when you are digging them up is annoying.

When harvesting main crop pick a nice day and leave them to dry in the sun. This hardens the skins a bit and makes them store better.

Storing – empty out periodically and remove any soft or manky ones.