I listened to the weather forecasters
last night
and boy am i glad i did
it was a southerly wind forecast so i
decided to
try and add some support to save the sunflowers
firstly, i put some braces across the
three plants.... two of those
from there, i added some guylines
and then i put a guyline between the
two rows of plants
final fixings was a strong guyline
into the prevailing wind
and this end is tethered to the Vegepod
and the second one that's all the way
back
and that's fixed to the concrete post
all looking good.... this one's drooped its
head a little bit
but I should say the plant is getting near
to maturity for the flower
i've just done the recce down the side
just to check for any damage
and it seems the worst victim is the sweetcorn
and i've just noticed just the one of
mine has gone over and so i'm going to
put a couple of
steel bars in and a rope around to
pull them back
well the severe gusts seem to have died
down a little
i've just checked on the onions over
there.... they are under some polycarb sheets
the airflow can get through to
them and them drying out nicely
so rather risk them getting wet...... any rain what is going to come in
i'm going to fetch them out..... top and tail
them, and put them in some
mesh drawing racks put them inside the
garden shed
well that didn't take too long, as you
can see from there i've left quite a
long neck on there
and that's purely to help drain any more
moisture
still left in onion. Point the neck down
and they will drain freely on their own.
That's two trays done, i've probably got one more tray left. These will be going into the garden shed
nice, dark, cool but dry in there
and we'll take them  as we require them
Now that we've tidied up the onions and
put them into store
that has freed up a bit of space down the
back.... it needs weeding first
but in its place i've got some Durham
Early cabbage that needs planting out
This has worked out just right really, so
once i take this down
and clear the weeds out, i've already got
some winter veg in here.i think that one's
called Tundra
the cabbage in the back and there's also
Calabrese there,
which needs heads cropping again
obviously it needs weeding, so I will tidy this up now
get the others planted out and i'll
probably put the cover over the complete bed
i just mentioned this while i'm in this
area of the allotment
These are the potatoes, the main crops. Sarpo Mira
and this bed here is a 6ft x 8ft
48 square feet
it's got 12x 30 litre containers inside
Most of you will be thinking about
lifting the main crops now... i'm just
showing you the way i actually support mine
this is this green plastic barrier netting which i know quite a lot of you use
and that just surrounds the whole bed
and i use these things called lamp pins
or line pins
i find if you put those about every two foot apart
it's more than enough to keep the net
upright and the density of the foliage
they support each other
The blue rope there I've added that on
recently because the storms we had the
storm Ellen and storm Francis I think it
was
and that gives it a bit of extra support
say in the middle i got my sunflowers
and they are still growing along
quite nicely
but the haulms on here are about five
foot high
and i've had no issue with them at all
it's supported quite well
in fact, the first and second early
potatoes in the
the bed over the back there, i think i
can show a bit of footage
they was planted 12 containers in half
the size
so it was 4ft x 6ft so
in fact i could probably get
24 containers in here
and the foliage pushes itself out and
does support itself just
make sure you get a surrounding all the around
So that's the bed weeded ready
if you are going to do weeding, do it thoroughly and get what roots out you can
don't just rip them out at soil level, because they'll be back in no time.
so i've got the bulb planter down there, and there's the cabbages there
Durham Earlies
not sure how many I will get in here now...
probably i'll put about 9 in.
We will see how it goes.  The sky has gone dark at the moment so it might be rain stop play soon
I managed to get 11 in altogether, a little bit closer than I normally plant them but
they'll be out early next year and this
bed will be designated for brassicas anyway
The ones on the end they're the three
they are a bit close to the other crops but
the Calabrese will be coming out in probably another four weeks
so those are in, I've added lime to the soil
and the planting hole, i'll just got to give them a watering in now.
i finished it off with the framework and
put some net over
The net is a bit too big really but
it'll do the job
the main objective is to keep the pigeons away
The brassica bed is gradually starting
to empty but
still fetching stuff out of this this is
a Greyhound cabbage and
rock solid.... tremendous!!!
With the prolonged rain we've had and the warm spells, the second crop and potatoes in these
containers the ones we do for christmas
have shot up surprisingly fast so i've
just topped the buckets up
i've just added a couple of two or three
hoops on the top with some netting over
just to protect them from any predators during the night
but the main thing is this time of year
now we need to keep
our eyes open and be well aware for the signs of blight
i guess most of you in the uk have
experienced the
effects of the storms Ellie and Francis
in the recent few weeks
it's well worth just checking in the
plot see if there's any plants
and that would have been affected and in
my case it's the brussels sprouts
it's a good time anyway just to check
that they need staking because once they
start putting growth on
it'll actually tilt and then it will
loosen the roots
so what i do i've got these metal poles
in
and i just pull them slightly..... nothing
too fierce because you want to risk snapping
and then add the cable tie around
so that's it tethered to the stake, say
nothing too tight
give you plenty of room to grow i'll
just carry on along the row
and do the rest of these
In the allotment greenhouse now and
picking some tomatoes again, these are these Super Mama
and i must say i'm really impressed with
these they're a lovely shape on them
and just move across to this side here
and there's some
gigantic ones here i think i'm going to
be picking these soon
firm and the other one i've just left
them on just to help the others ripen a bit but
impressed with the size!
i'm just picking a few of these sweet
peas off
these have flowed their hearts out all
through the year these have
These are Hilda's Mix  that I had from Andy and say i'm saving these
so they produce their full blooms again
next season
it's most noticeable this time of the
year especially morning
and late at night there's a definite nip
in the air
and to me that means we're about to
encounter a change of seasons
if you watch my channel on a regular
basis the name Dave Taylor will be
familiar with you.
he's the guy who finds these derelict allotment sites
and puts them back into work in order
in the October edition of the Kitchen Garden magazine
there's a feature on Dave
and he's actually got a site up and running fully,  and some pictures there
hopefully in the next week or two i'll
be paying him a visit
i'll be taking the camera with me
doing some filming and also hope to speak to a couple of plot holders on there
and they can share that experience
of how the site was reborn
in the meantime....i'm going to carry on picking some more sweet peas
so i'll see you in the next
one
all the best bye for now
you
