Status Updatus

much belated -
bad whitefly on the brassicas - sprayed them with washingup liquid a couple of times which does some good but they're pretty bad. Romanescos show no signs of any heads despite being 'october to november' and they have some weird looking twisted leafs which is not a great sign.

Parsnips are a mixed bag - some enourmous ones like badgers, some puny little ones. Some signs of carrot fly but it's pretty limited.

French beans came to an end a couple of weeks ago but had yielded very well for a late sowing, and we got a decent crop of bortlottos which unfortunately appears to be going mouldy.

Harvested a few cabbages, although the red cabbages are stiull very small, spinach coming through thick and fast (and a bit weedy), Radishes are a waste of time because we don't really eat them, turnips look quite cute and leeks are beginning to look convincing.

2010 sowings:
Garlic - row of Albegisnian or something (roadside) and purple moldovan (compost heap side) and broad beans (aquadulce) given to use by bill/neil/whatever he's called.
Tried to light a fire. Failed. Repeatedly.

Update

Dug up some parsnips - the foliage looks a bit sorry for itself but the roots were massive. Cut a cabbage, and x-ed the stalk to see if anything grows as a result. Late green beans are delivering in ok numbers but not massive, no signs of the romanescos delivering heads yet although they are pretty solid plants - we took the covers off the brassicas last week - there are some white flies buzzing around the brassicas but they are fairly few. One fennel left, it's quite big. Had 3 decent fennel already. Leeks a bit rusty, which might be a bit of a concern. What's left of the Cherokees look like they'll be good for planting next year, lots of borlottos still on the vine but a lot of the ones we picked already seem to have been too early so I'm leaving them for now. Picked all the Squash, cucumbers still doing ok - picked three in the last couple of days, two left.

Toed

Squash

.

Sowed some pak choi at home

Celeriac:

Took on a new bit of allotment, nexct door to the first bit:
Yesterday, yinyangs, cherokees, beetroot:
Today, Borlottos:

Update

Dug out the last of the peas,
some of the new sowings are showing through.
harvested a couple of cabbages, and a squash.
Beans still thriving.

Planted/Harvested

Planted:
Some Turnips, a few different types of radish, some kale, some spring cabbages, 3 types of spinach. gogogogo late season veg.
Harvested:
Peas (almost ended), Cherokees (blasting still), Giant Radishes, the last of the carrots (now pretty eaten for the most part)

More work

Leeks - planted the second set of leeks out, they're pretty small, as are the first lot. Looking around the site, there are some pretty large ones which are full leeks, as well as some smaller efven than ours.
Cherokees - yields are very good at the mo, even though plants look spindly, Runners are pretty disappointing yields and Borlottos look to be doing ok. Picked some Yin Yangs that have dried out.
Squash doing well - the first ones look done but we're leaving them on the vine for now.
Cucumbers good, although pollinating them in the ghouse is a bit tricky.
Tomatoes yielding very well.
Carrots later ones looking a bit eaten (carrot fly?) , beetroots doing well, several out recently.
Courgettes look to be tailing off.
Picked a Parsnip as a test - small but good. Several have a speckled pattern on the leaves.
Cabbages look like they're doing ok but a bit eaten maybe.
Some Pink Fir Apples in store were a bit squishy, but the rest look ok.
Weeded around the Spinach which is still very small but alive.Late French Beans look ok although germination was a little spotty. The various other things sown of late (radishes? Pak Choi? Not sure what else) failed.
Peas have been very strong, but are coming to an end it looks.

Catchup

Went away for a week, now we're back:
Harvesting:
Cherokee Beans - got a few two days ago and a decent serving yesterday
Runner Beans - smallish numbers, but there seem to be relatively few runner bean plants, and a lot of borlotto plants for some reason.
Peas - second generation of peas has started out in force, high volumes, little pea moth.
Potatoes - Newspaper said to harvest all potatoes before rain and slugs get at them, so I dug up some PFAs yesterday - huge yields or huge potatoes, also digging out roosters at mum's - moderate sizes and ok yields.
Tomatoes- first of the tomatoes being harvested. The non-marmandes appear to be doing v poorly, perhaps because we were less successful in pinching out the offshoots.
Carrots - still harvesting, very mixed sizes and success rates, some forking but not much.

elsewhere: squash are massive, but apparently the longer you can leave them on the vine the better, parsnips still big, second crack at broad beans failed with what looks like bad rust, leeks a little small, tbh, salad at home pretty poor, cucumbers coming through, but not in huge numbers, cabbages doing okish but in a lull, PSB looking pretty healthy, fennel ok, i think that's it.

Kinda lost track...

recent work:
planted leeks, topped and tailed, into holes
dug up most of the rattes - a pretty loaded trugfull,
planted some spinach in the space from the rattes
the new green beans are beginning to show

the squash are running rampant, at home and at the allotment,
tomatoes have had to have some emergency extra supports, and the cucumbers too
had a few runner beans, but still a problem with too much leaf, too little flower. Sounds like it might need more potassium-based feed.
the yinyangs are doing well - pretty heavy yields, but there's been some (slug?) damage.
Cabbages look like they're getting a bit slugged too, and we caught some caterpillars in the third bed (with non-stitched up cover). We haven't reloaded to beer traps in quite a while.
Dug up the caullis which had gone kinda funny.
The cherokees are doing well, at last.

Recent work - planted a late set of green beans, dug up some duff peas and broad beans. Sowed some fennel, two types of kale, oversized radishes.

The beans are very bushy but with few flowers - looks like i might have over fed them - can't really recall, but i gave them some tomato feed today. Cut some leaves off the cabbages in the most congested bed. Tomatoes are doing ok - big but not colouring up yet. We tried to pollinate the cucumbers by hand but they're stuck in an inaccessible corner of the greenhouse.


First carrots harvested:
Squash forming:

Emptying beds, filling beds.

Parsnips currently almost forcing their way out of cover.

Dug up the red onions. They're a bit disappointing with the majority bolted, and not many grown very large.
Harvested some of the yinyang beans. They're doing well.
Scrubbed the second stand of peas .These yielded very few peas in all.

Planted a bed of late dwarf french beans, as per instructions, in place of the first early potatoes.

The Ratte potatoes look like they're ready to come up. Bit of a problem since we've got a large amount of the BdeFs left.
At home, decided the shallots were dry, so sorted them out. They amount to a decent bag of good ones, two plaits (see below), plus a handful of damaged ones for urgent use. By and large, the bigger shallots (whoch came i think from the covered market) may as well be onions, and the yield from shallots is much more than the equivalent onions.

Back to the allotment

Harvested: 1 Cabbage, 1 Caulliflower (bit dodgy looking), some broad beans (yields on the last plants very low), 1 Carrot (not quite ready yet).

Cherokee beans looking like they're finally getting their act together.

Brief catchup

Some more Braod beans harvested - the later plants have not yielded nearly so many broad beans, and many of them are a bit warped. Cut ~1/3 of the plants down to the ground; they are resprouting and apparently there's a chance we might get a second tier of beans later.

Scrubbed the first generation of peas. Missed a decent chunk of the peas so they are now a bit on the big side. Also a fair few with pea moth inside. Yuk.

Picked some of the German Radish pods. Taste like radish. Go figure.

General weeding and maintenance.

Parsnips;
Beanframe

The allotment is ok, ticking over well. Lots of weeding to do obv.

harvested the remainder of the Bell d' Fontenay potatoes, also some broad beans, peas and weird german radish thingys:

This is a squash growing up the side of the bean frame:



The squashhouse is still going ballistic, although one of the lids turned out to be not so well attached

Lotta shallots

Harvested shallots. This is approx 40% of them.

Also, forgot mum had a harvest of broad beans in the week + did some watering.

Did a bunch of weeding today, planted the remainder of the beans

While you were out...

Squash house, aka the jungle:Greenhouse, aka the other jungle:
Tomatoes:
Bean Frame:
Carrots in front, Parsnips second:
Parsnips:
Outdoor Squash:



And today's crop:
Pointed Cabbage, Caulliflower, Beetroot, Peas, Broad beans Shallots