We had a bit of a mini heatwave at the end of last week so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and got busy on all three plots. Trying to make up for last weeks lack of activity!
Plot One
I have finally managed to ‘hair-net’ the tayberries. I cobbled together a make shift fruit cage, yet again drawing from our large supply of twisted willow bean poles, some fruit netting and a few cane toppers, saves losing an eye!
I know it’s not pretty, but it still allows the bees to visit and most importantly it should keep that thuggish gang of magpies from devouring our precious crop of tayberries. I’m looking forward to enjoying them for breakfast with jumbo rolled oats and greek yoghurt. I hate disappointment!
YAY! The strawberries are beginning to ripen.
The Champion of England peas that I sowed in March, using seed that I saved from last years crop, continue to grow well.
I found another angelica plant at the garden centre, it was there all on its own, how could i resist….? so I planted that and we now have two.
Something has trudged through the wildflower garden trampling down the Nigella. I think it was that very annoying Mr Fox wearing hobnailed boots!
The orchard plot
We finally have a bench to sit and relax on. It came flat packed…
I looked at the Farrow and Ball colour charts, and after much deliberation, I made haste to Trade Paints and got busy with a paint brush. 8 hours later it was transformed.
I popped it into the back of my Mini, which is surprisingly spacious, and off we went to the allotment with instructions, bolts and a hex key. How hard could it be to assemble? Just 5 bits of wood and 10 bolts.
In fact one reviewer said:
‘Was able to assemble on my own, and I am a woman’
Honestly, unless that woman is an octopus it’s IMPOSSIBLE to assemble on your own! There were a couple of tense moments as the nearly assembled boltless bench collapsed, I’m not the most patient person, but we soon figured it out and here it is……
I continued to earth up the potatoes and I noticed that the Premiere potatoes, they are a first early variety, are starting to form flowers. Our first early potatoes should be ready to harvest from late June to mid July. We need to wait for the flower buds to open or to drop…. unless of course they are eaten by those pesky birds.
Plot Two
We have spent the majority of our time on plot two this week. It’s been slightly neglected recently and the weeds have returned with a vengeance. So I weeded and dug over the front two vegetable beds, removing the bolting parsley, now in it’s second year.
I constructed more ‘wig-wams’, 6 in total, 3 on each bed.
We planted sweet peas in one bed and more Champion of England Peas on the other bed.
Whilst at the garden centre I found this aquilegia, it’s called ‘Blue Winky’! Despite a rather silly name it’s gorgeous and goes so well with the lavender. So we planted it in the flower border replacing the dead white scabious.
We removed the ‘bolting’ leeks and prepared the vegetable bed ready for planting the courgette plants, they are ready to go in next week. I’m just hardening them off on my balcony.
Then we sat down to enjoy the glorious sunshine and came up with a final plan for the plot. It’s a rough copy…. it makes sense to us!
The top end of the plot has been a mess for the past year. We created a couple of compost mounds when we initially dug over the plot. There is also an old bath that we dug out from the middle of the plot, bits of old wood, bags of couch weed and bindweed roots and a real compost heap. One could say it’s a bit of an eye sore.
This photo doesn’t show the true horror
So the plan is to remove these two couch weed / bind weed ridden mounds and then to move the proper compost heap, currently in the top tight hand corner of the plot, to where these mounds are. We plan to construct three wooden compost bins to allow for proper compost turning and rotation. However, the most exciting news of all is there will room in the top left hand corner of the plot for a fruit tree. Not any old tree, but my absolute favourite eating apple tree, the discovery apple. I’ve bored everyone rigid with my longing for one of these trees, so I am absolutely thrilled we are going to get one. There are mid season apples trees close by so this solves the problem of having to get a second variety of apple tree for cross pollination purposes. Where we currently have our compost heap we plan to put up a shed.
So one thing is for sure, we certainly have our work cut out next week!
welovegrowingstuff 
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