I had thought that the roses on the plot would be the first to bloom. However the one rose that a mama h filched and planted in the garden has bloomed. Lovely bright pink thing, that I actually missed and didn’t realise was there. No idea what it is called!
Tootled down today to see if the waters had subsided. Easily four or five inches around the potato mounds. Stated to ebb away; but if there is more, there will be soggy spuds.
With the relative dry; temperatures in the Wendy and poly have crept towards 30-40 degrees. The California wonder sweet pepper has started to flower; though it is still quite tiny.
You can see the two nagas in the first pic in the Wendy. The second has the chocolate and orange habaneros.
Slightly slimed Dorset naga, so had to add a few more blue pellets of doom.
With the warm weather window, the last remaining Superhots and experimental chillies are starting to get a wiggle on. Serrano has certainly shot up. It’s still quite wiry, and not as leafy as I would have expected by now. It may not look as though much has started to develop; but there are small changes. I do think though, that this could also be the tomato feed kicking in.
In the poly, the early jalepeno, pretty purple rainbow, hot patio sizzle and hot Thai are still being nursed from
Slug damage. The pretty purple has certainly got more leafier. Will wait til that one is a bit more solid before transplanting.
One things for certain, the poly tunnel is gonna be tight for space.
There is something in the air; that is for sure. Whilst William Shakespeare 2000 grows into a what is five headed hydra, the other roses are starting to slowly bloom into life. The more established roses have grown leafy, waking from their winter and spring slumber to start throwing out buds.
Last autumn, seven mystery roses were sunk. Mystery in that they were not labeled, therefore these are the lost label roses. Compared to the more established roses, these are smaller; but have definitely started to settle down. One of the roses has got a single solitary bloom.
There are two climbing roses, one is called golden showers; I forget what the other is called. But these are now also starting to send out buds.
Have removed the fleece from over the potatoes. If it does frost between now and the end of the month, will have to recover. Above is the one mound of red duke of york, These are first earlies, so could be up as early as next month. They have been in for about eight to nine weeks, I think. I had been expected a few more clumps of leafy foliage. I can’t imagine that the other two mounds so expertly sunk by the artist in residence will have failed. He’ll be gutted if they have! We want a success, so A)he comes back again B) he sees that his handiwork paid off. I do want to see the red potatoes come out, they are being played with this year, for the very first time.
The vast majority of the other spuds are up. Am yet to see any Maris Piper though. Lady balfour, international kidney and King Edwards, have certainly sent up green leafy shoots. I can only imagine that the seed potatoes are perhaps struggling to grow through the heavy clay. The very name of international kidney makes me laugh. These were not planted in trenches, but sunk with a bulb planter. So it will be interesting to see how these will progress.
Today was the day that the tomatoes were turfed out of their transparent box in the poly tunnel. They have been sat there for a while making the transition. To be honest, think it was bit too hot for them, a few of the leaves have been scorched no matter how much I watered them. At forty degrees in the poly tunnel, I can understand wanting to get out.They were also getting tall, not gangly, but ready to make an exit.
So today there were meant to be fifteen plants, planted out. I managed fourteen, as one of them is actually quite tiny. Looks a bit developmentally delayed, compared to the rest of it’s peer group. Last year, all of the tomatoes were in raised beds. This year, with the extra space, with the exception of four, out in open group. Dotted in the corners of large beds, in project othello, largely. Quite an assortment really varieties, we have black cherry, alisa craig however you want to spell it, money maker, gardeners delight and yellow stuffer. I did look at the number that I planted out today, and surveying the space; felt a pang to sow some more. We shall see, I know that they grow reasonably quick anyway. Have bulb planted them in and watered.
The project has grown over the the last five months.
And so I had an idea to make it a prettier.
Took me a while to figure out how to do it.
Thread your bead onto a crochet hook, and under a stitch on your left needle.
Pull the stitch through, and placed on your needle; you can stitch as normal.
Woke up early-for a Saturday-with the prime mission being to sink Gladiolus. The box of which, was nearly as big as me, there were certainly a couple of hundred them. Yes, I know that’s a lot, so a few were given away to plot neighbours. Have opted for a mix of colours, but there were some purple ones in there as I specifically wanted these. There were also some giant gladiolus too. It was nice to see that some of the corns sunk last year, are sending up shoots for this year. Last years crop was something of a fluke, so am hoping this year will be just as good.
This took up a great deal of time, though there were moments where I did get slightly bored and had to focus on something else for a few moments. This meant digging up docks that had somewhat pervaded the shallot bed. Pulling out and bashing clumps, whilst trying not to decapitate the purple stemmed shallots that actually looked a bit on the small side.
The sinking of the gladiolus didn’t take too long, provided that there were these momentary pit stops with other tasks. Even fed the roses today. Have never done this before, usually just leave them to it. However, now that the ones on the plot are fairly established, thought it was worth a shot.
Then I caught side of the tomatoes. Dare I sink these? Well, at home there were the climbing french beans and the squashes. Ma wanted her window sill back, so the squashes have come out. They’ve had a day or two in the sun, not exactly hardened off, but the weather is relatively mild at the moment. This is way earlier than I have ever thrown them out. And once more, not in raised beds. Blue pellets of doom have been scattered, along with experimental cabbage collars to even more preventative. I don’t hold out much hope here.
The climbing french beans had to be sunk. Cobra and blue lake, were sunk with a bulb planter; whilst clinging to their paper pots. The running beans, are somewhat pitiful looking. Enorma, has failed me once again. There are some additional sowings of scarlet emperor somewhere, that will be planted out at some point.
I had to go, before the sun got to my head. Plus I was hungry by two, and had been floating around a very long time.
This is a baby watermelon. It’s tiny. And it’s an experiment.
So it may not make it through the growing season.
A sweet crimson one at that.
Very little, very precious.
One hell of an experiment.
Argh allotment challenge-the finale
I must confess that the twitterverse had already told me the winner before I watched it. So in actually watching it, I wanted to see how this all actually ends.
For me this has been a game show. A competition. Devoid of education, it informed somewhat; but was designed primarily to entertain. If there are to factual lessons learned from this; create a documentary over the course of a year and show real allotments and real work. When the show says it has recruited them most talented, I’m not ensure that this accurate.
So this week, contestants had to grow a melon and a cob of corn. Neither of these are easy. So to use as a gameshow task was going to be iffy.
The winners never actually won a best in show for for growing. Anyone else confused by that? How does that qualify a winner?
More grafted veg too with the melon plants. One even planted out side by way of experiment. Experiment. A word not oft used in this show.
Paid particular attention to the sweetcorn as I currently have a whole batch sown awaiting germination. Not that I am coddling them though. And there is baby watermelon on the window sill. How did they get six per plant?! It saddened me that two early ripeners were thrown onto a compost pile.
Jim has scared the life outta me though. To keep saying that they are high maintenance. Nothing encouraging there then.
Kate and Eleanor tipified that not all gardening is successful, and this was realistic. That is what happens.
Dahlias, have tried these and failed repeatedly. Not sure how hanging baskets fit in with allotments either. And it is a hanging basket and not a hanging design. No idea how these contain rhythm and design. It is not a brass band.
Flower faff went on far too long.
Then came the eat. A gift basket. Three preserves and a secret. And education, with good experimentation and adventure. Something that was missing all the eat through uptil now. Proper adventure and enthusiasm. Shame as dimi and rupert got chastised for experimenting.
And this is where the winners stole the show, but only just. That double dose of delicious clinched it for them and blew the rest of out the water.
My congratulations to the winners 🙂
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