It’s stayed pretty dry this week and air temperatures have certainly ramped up, hitting the mid 20’s on a couple of occasions. With very little breeze it’s actually been too hot to work on the plots at times.
I filled the water tanks for the first time this year and inadvertently promptly drained one of them again! Somehow I managed to create a siphon, no idea how, but probably something to do with the nozzle exploding off the hose when I turned it to on. I naturally got completely soaked. Fortunately it was an extremely hot day so I found it rather cooling. I filled the tank to the brim, turned the tap off, had lunch and on my return the water tank was emptier than when I started. Deep joy!
It’s been important to frequently water all the newly planted seedling during this dry spell to help them establish. Their root systems are not sufficiently developed yet so the plants are unable to draw water from lower down in the ground.
This week I planted a few Sutherland Kale plants on plot one. The rest of the brassica’s are still a little too small to sustain the potential slug and snail onslaught so I’m growing them on at home for another couple of weeks.
We also planted a couple of squash plants on the orchard plot. We planted them between the fruit trees to utilise that space.
A Waltham Butternut squash
And a Blue Banana Squash.
The second lot of parsnip seeds I sowed at the end of May are just beginning to germinate
Whilst the germination of the original parsnip seed sowing was extremely poor, just 12 seedlings from 130 seeds, the young plants we do have are doing quite well. Gladiator has proved to be much more successful than the Tender and True variety, at a ratio of 3:1
Everything seems to be flourishing. We picked our first strawberries of the year and it seems to be another bumper year.
The gooseberries are doing well, although we don’t seem to have a very large crop…..probably enough for one crumble. This may be because we failed to prune the bushes last year.
We have peas
The potatoes have gone completely bonkers. The Pink Fir Apple potatoes, a main crop, have grown very tall and beginning to form flowers.
The beautiful lilac flowers of the Charlotte potato
The globe artichokes are almost ready
The beetroot is also growing well, just hoping they haven’t been eaten below soil level.
The onions and shallots on the orchard plot
And finally, this year my leeks have been rather disappointing but thankfully fellow allotmenteer Barry has very kindly given us some of his. I shall be planting these in the next few days, of course leaving some room for the few Giant Bulgarian leeks that I have managed to salvage. Sal will be thrilled!
welovegrowingstuff 
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