End of June 2009

We have all been down to the allotment fairly regularly as the weather has been a lot better recently, its been warm and also given us lots of rain which the plants seem to love ! Everything has gone crazy. All of the courgette plants now have flowers on and we harvested the first two baby courgettes yesterday. We took down all the Aquadulce Claudia broad bean plants and this revealed a few Rooster potatoes near the surface so we harvested them too ! We then planted pumpkin (Spellbound) and Squash (Little Dumpling) in part of that space as the original sowings in used compost didn't come through. Must make a mental note not to reuse compost !

We have been collecting raspberries (from Dad's canes from Lauriston) for a while now and this weekend we collected all of Henry's redcurrants and made a rhubarb (Uncle Carl's), redcurrant and raspberry crumble which was very nice indeed !

The greenhouse is looking marvellous, all the tomatoes (apart from the Big Boy Beefsteak, as we had to regrow them a bit later), are on their 2nd truss of flowers and are needing tying to the canes regularly, the melons have taken off and are being tied to canes as well, and the 2 crystal lemon cucumber plants have flowers buds on them as of yesterday. The chillies are everywhere, and are still growing, I must feed the chillies, pepper plant (still small), and the tomatoes later today as it will be a week since they have been fed.

So all in all, everything is going well. The only upset I had was that the shallots seemed to be needing to be harvested so I pulled up 2 clumps yesterday only to find that they have white rot - what a disappointment. So they have had to go in the bin, I'll try and harvest the rest today and see how they are. Apparently you can't grow onions/shallots/leeks/garlic in the same spot for 8 years !!! Fingers crossed not all of them are affected.

Tuesday 16th June 2009

Mummy & Henry went down after school today and gave the greenhouse a good water. We picked a lettuce and also some spinach which Mummy used with the broad beans to make a broad bean, pea and spinach soup ! We tied the tomatoes to each cane and also the melon plants which seem to have grown alot over the past few days !

Sunday 14th June 2009

Uncle Carl came round this afternoon and brought Henry some runner bean plants for his patch which we put in. Then Uncle Carl taught Mummy how to pinch out the extra bits on the tomato plants to get them to grow upwards rather than like a bush. The first set of flowers are on nearly all of the plants now - just waiting to open !!!

Henry's patch which at the moment has a couple of sunflowers, some Cos & Lollo Rossa lettuce, parsnips, garlic and radish. And the other photo shows the 'Legumes' bed with broad beans, peas, Cos lettuce and climbing french beans. The Italian man in the next plot gave Henry the Cos lettuce :-)

More photos - early June 2009

The chillies at the front of the greenhouse with the Tom Thumb lettuce in front of that and the other corner of the greenhouse with the 2 melon plants and Lollo Rossa lettuce in front of them.

Photos - early June 2009

The back of the greenhouse showing the different tomatoes, Lollo Rossa lettuce, 2 seed trays with cauliflower and beetroot in, the pepper plant and the 2 cucumber plants

Early June 2009

Everything is coming on really well in the greenhouse, and we have started harvesting the broad beans, which taste so lovely. The trays we sowed the other week of cauliflower, beetroot, squash and pumpkin are all growing now so that is nice to see. Henry's redcurrants are definitely turning red now so he is very excited about that !

The pigeons have attacked our cabbage and broccoli but hopefully they will come good anyway, and the apples are growing nicely which Henry was also very excited about !