After midsummer

A long visit on Sunday full of hard work on a hot hillside.

I harvested all the broad beans, pulled up the plants and filled the space with tomato and cucumber plants kindly donated by a friend. Several pak choi plants came up as well to make room for yet more tomatoes.

I got lots of seed recently from the Real Seed Catalogue, inspired by a reference to cima di rapa in the Guardian, and most of it bore the instruction to sow after midsummer, for an allegedly cooler growing period to reduce the chance of bolting. I'm not sure this is very likely, with temperatures this week forecast to be in the high twenties. However, I sowed more pak choi, mizuna and some Pe Tsai or Chinese winter cabbage. I must get some chard seed sown somewhere too. Another round of lettuce and rocket seeds went in in various odd corners. I then discovered that the marker pen for plant labels has gone astray, so will need to try to remember tonight where I put everything.

The mange tout, doing well, now have twiggy sticks to scramble over, and some of the beans and one courgette plant are in flower. I also thinned and re-spaced the leek plants - I hope they make it through the dry weather. At home there are still squash plants waiting to go in, and next weekend I really must sow carrots and beets.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of providing picnic food based on my own horticultural efforts: potato salad with homegrown dill and chives, and a tian of pak choi and broad beans. Highly satisfying.

A visitor

I was away over the weekend, so have made a couple of quick visits this week to water and pick things. The broad beans have been excellent; I left the mizuna too long before picking, however, and it's a bit leathery. The pak choi and tatsoi are very tasty and I've ordered more seed to sow for a September crop.

I've had a visitor at the plot, one that has dug three holes in the unplanted end of the courgette bed. Going by the size of the holes, I'm inclined to think it was a fox. There is still a lot of scrubby land at the top end of the site that might house some foxes, despite the best efforts of the men labouring up there in orange "community payback" jerkins.

The runner and french beans are climbing the poles now, and the seeds I sowed directly into the ground have put up leaves too. Still no flowers on the potatoes. The mange tout are doing well, and I need to take some twigs up for them later this week. I plan to plant the carrots and beetroot seed at the weekend, put some more salad seed in odd corners, and do some weeding.

Fruits and labours

Two visits this weekend, plus a few during the week, have got the allotment to a point where I can almost feel pleased with it. All the raised bed kits are in, there is black plastic or weed suppressing fabric down everywhere, and some of it is even covered in bark chippings. The area round the six small beds actually looks quite nice.


I ran out of weed control fabric and was forced to improvise with flattened-out bark and compost bags, which did most of the rest of the site. There was much hard work scraping weeds off a patch of ground that I fear I have cleared twice already. The weeds were mainly nettles, thistles and dandelions; a couple of very unwelcome bits of bindweed; and the ubiquitous scarlet pimpernel, speedwell and the purple flower that I think is some sort of vetch.

The courgette plants are in, although they need staking, and I also planted the two tiny corn plants and the chili plant that was a birthday present. The courgette plants looked thoroughly collapsed in Sunday's heat but have reasonably good roots, so I think will be all right. I have limited hope of sweetcorn from two plants, however.

I cut some pak choi and mizuna; most of the pak choi has bolted in the hot weather. I also picked broad beans and made the unpleasant discovery of blackfly on the broad beans, so took internet advice and sprayed with soapy water. The beans are settling in well now and some are even climbing the poles, and there are lots of mange tout seedlings.
Still no flowers on the potatoes, however, and some variety of beast had been at my one ripe strawberry. The final bed is for sowing carrots and beetroot. I went mad yesterday evening on a seed website and now have lots of green leafy things I can sow for an autumn or winter harvest; there are also 24 purple sprouting broccoli seedlings at home, some of which will have to be given away if they all make it.

Neither damn'd nor elusive

Extensive research (thirty seconds on Google Images) has helped me identify the tiny red wildflowers on my plot. They are, rather pleasingly, scarlet pimpernel, pictured left. Unlike their namesake, they are easy to find due to ubiquity.

I've made several visits this week, mostly to water everything as it has been hot and dry. I also weeded the leek bed; there are a handful of leeks that will need augmenting with some bought plants. The broad beans are continuing to develop pods. I have a few strawberries, now sitting on a mulch of straw. The potatoes look like they are developing flower buds, and the salad greens all look fairly healthy. Only the French and runner beans still look feeble. We are forecast a wet weekend, so perhaps that might help. The mange tout are just starting to grow; I hope the slugs don't feast on them over the weekend. Definite signs of growth from the lollo rosso and mesclun, too.

There's been an outbreak of friendliness and encouragement from my neighbours, too, although still no sign of previously virtuous Mr Next Door; the grass is now waist high at the end of his plot, and the rest of it is thick with rather pretty wildflowers.

How many beans make five?

Here is my first harvest, a handful of tiny broad beans. Each pod is about three inches long, with the beans about a third of an inch in size. I should have let them grow, but couldn't resist sampling a few. The pods smelled wonderfully fresh and green, and the beans were delicious even in a homeopathic dose.

Over the weekend I watered, weeded, put down weed control fabric between the raised beds, and dug out around half of the patch for the next raised bed. Making a quick visit after work today I was encouraged by a neighbour who informed me that I was doing really well. It doesn't entirely feel like it, with half of the patch covered in black plastic. But the potatoes still look healthy, the salad is doing well with rocket, lollo rosso and mesclun all coming up, and about six of the climbing bean plants seem to have taken.

It was my birthday yesterday and I did well for plants: a gooseberry bush, a habanero chilli plant, and some basil, now protected by a copper ring on the garden table. The courgette plants are doing well, I think I can put the corn in soon, but I think I'll have to buy some plants to get tomatoes this year - the seedlings are still only an inch or so long.