Spent 4 hours weeding, planting, etc.

Planted out some more kohl rabis, cabbages, romanescos, some small and weedy looking PSB, fennel. Set more beer traps - Sainsbury basic bitter, hopefully will do better than the cider which has not captuared that many slugs.

Some of the cabbages look like they have been a bit eaten by slugs unfortunately.

High level weeding - round the outside of the allotment and inside too

Picked a lot of broad beans plus:
Potatoes - all of the charlotte and arran pilots, probably a mistake, and some belle de fontenays, which were very small despite the vegetation dying back quite a bit.
Garlic - also probably a bit too early despite the foliage dying off a bit - looks like the bulbing is only just starting and they're still small.
Shallots - much bigger under the ground than they look above ground.

Next!

Planted out a lot of beetroot, some large radishes and some kholrabi. Some weeding, small harvest of broad beans peas potatoes. Very dry so watered everything. Some nitrogen feeding.

Cabbage Jungle:
Kohl Rabi:
Shallots look like they might need picking:
Bean Frame:
Early potatoes. Looks like the plants are dying back a bit. Not sure whether to dig them up or to leave them:

More food

Dug up the Rockets - the plants were looking very thin and sorry for themselves; yield was pretty poor.

Also harvested peas, beans again.

Today's harvest

A bit unsure about the beans which have a lot of lower growth, but the shoots of which are still slender. Some of them are flowering at the base already, despite the lack of top growth.
Broad beans, new potatoes, peas and a few shallots picked as an experiment.
More than a decent portion of beans/potatoes.

More food

Harvested 1 potato's worth of new potatoes, some peas and the first of the broad beans. Ate the beans/peas with some rocket and parmesan/cheddar (depending on whether you can eat non-pasteurised things or not) and the potatoes boiled.
Very nice.

Squashouse turns out to be a Courgettehouse

hmmm.

one of the 'squashplants' in the the 'squashouse' has what is clearly a courgette growing on it.

First Harvest

Last weekend (10th?) picked some peas - 14 pods, enough for a spoonful for three people.
This weekend, picked 30 odd pods, enough for two portions.

Squashouse and Asparagoose

The text

Potatoes doing well - a couple of flowers on some of the earlies, very vigorous top growth, some weeds in growth, impossible to earth them up.

Cabbages/Romanescos doing ok, protected by cover/beertrap, coffee.
Caullies look ok, some v large (plant only) some smaller.
Kohl Rabis swelling a bit already. One got et by a slug. Kale looks poor.

Onions/Garlic/Shallots looking like they wont need long. A lot of the Onions have bolted.

Carrots and parsnips doing pretty well, Salsify, too. Carrots/Parsnips need thinning.

Peas are a bit odd. The first set planted out are yielding peas, although they haven't grown very high. The second plantings are still small, and the most recent planting (soaked overnight before planting) has yet to show. Broad Beans are maturing, but 1) chocolate spot on the leaves is worse, 2) blackfly is back, 3) relatively few of the flowers are surviving into beans.

Yinyangs looking good, some of the Cherokees are still alive, but not growing taller atm. Borlottos and runners looking a bit healthier. Planted 5xCherokee, Runner, Borlotto and 10x YY today as more backup. Squash planted on site ok but small; Celeriacs look sound.

At home, salad is starting to come through, the squash in the squashouse is growing at a great rate and the courgette looks ok. A couple of strawberries are nearly ready.

In the greenhouse, the first tomato flowers are out, the chillis/aubergines are still a bit on the small side and the cucumbers are still small.

Indoors we have ~80 Kohl Rabi plants in pots, Pak Choi, some more Cabbages, Caullis, Romanescos, Beetroots, radishes, that might be it.

Status Updatus

Catchup

never ending weeding - especially on the carrots/parsnips, both of which are doing pretty well, touch wood.

planted out 8xborlotto beans, 8x runner beans, quite a few yinyangs at the start of the week. Several of the earlier beans are looking a little healthier than previously (the first set clearly died, the second set suffered, then seem to have recovered). The cherokee beans didn't like hardening off nearly so much, so have been held back (and the previous plantings of them also look less good than the equivalent generation of borlotto/runners).

planted out some celeriacs, 2 squash and a courgette.

reset beer trap, and sealed up the cabbage-covers. Found first caterpillars earlier in the week.

Cabbages/Caullis are growing quite well, despite some obvious sluggage.

Potatoes seem to have had a bit of a spurt as a result of the recent rain

Broad Beans look like they hae chocolate spot - i think they might have been planted too densely, either way they're only growing beans on a small fraction of the total number of flowers that were produced.

In the greenhouse, planted cucumbers into growbags, sowed salad in the bed. The squash house is doing pretty well.

Had a bit of a furtle around the first earlies, and got three small potatoes, plus the first of the peas are out. Broad beans still too small.