Not much to do at the allotment this week – we didn’t even do any hoeing as the frost this week has thankfully killed the weeds. We did, however, buy more tulips and plant them out so that’s the rest of that tulip bed now filled up. As you can see, I’ve gone for the orange look – it’s my favourite flower colour so I can’t wait to see the display next Spring.
There’s also a freesia still managing to survive the onset of winter, which is very heartening:
Whilst there, we cut down and composted the asparagus bed and plan to mulch it at some point ready for next year. We also added the gerberas to the compost as well.
I hope you have a lovely Remembrance Sunday. Lest we forget …
A week of utter sunshine and no rain at the allotment this week, so I popped up on Thursday afternoon to do the watering and here’s what I found:
The sweet peas were finally in flower!
There was a midweek harvest of roses and sweet peas, plus a couple of gerbera:
And a midweek vase moment!
Today, we have planted a couple more alstroemerias which my husband kindly picked up yesterday when I was visiting my mother.
The lilies are looking fabulous and finally coming into bud.
And there are yet more amazing roses.
Today, the asparagus bed has become a forest, but we will leave it like that until the plants actually go yellow so they can store up energy for next year’s crop – which we hope will be better than this year’s!
We also have the world’s smallest courgette – which, yes, is supposed to be yellow and round as that’s the type it is!
The French beans have now reached the top of their growing poles so we’ll probably have to trim them soon.
And the peas still seem fairly happy.
Much to our astonishment, the lettuces have actually got a big bigger.
We spent more time watering everything today, and we also dug up a half-bed of tulips which I have brought home to plant here in November. So just one bed of tulips to dig up now. We have also planted out the rest of the freesia bulbs in the gladioli/freesia bed and hope for some good things there at some point.
Here is today’s harvest of some redcurrants and a handful of haskap berries, plus sweet peas, carnations, alstroemerias, roses and one gerbera.
And here, once again, are the vases at home. This time, I have put most of the white roses (which appear to be more delicate than the other colours) straight into some floral foam to see if they last a bit longer.
In non-allotment news, I have now reached 90,000 words in my latest novel project so am surely somewhere on those final few laps now! Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.
Much to our delight, our roses have started to bloom this week, which is wonderful news.
And the flowers to one side of the perennial bed are doing well – I can’t quite remember what they are, possibly gerberas?
Sadly though, the alstroemerias I added to this bed are definitely on their way out which is a shame but they were quite dodgy when they first arrived with us, so I’m not entirely surprised. If I see any others on my way round the garden centres, I’ll grab them if they look any better though.
The peas have put on some height so we had to retie one of them in today:
And the French beans look quite happy too.
Husband put down some more weed suppressant fabric in the fruit cage, and I planted up some lettuces, and added another couple of rows of freesia bulbs into the freesia bed. Here are the lettuces:
We also took out one of the beds of daffodils to save for next year – in the hope that our Brussels sprouts might possibly arrive with us this week so we can plant them out at some point. Whilst we were doing that, we disturbed one of the mice that lives under that particular bed and it ran for cover towards our shed. So cute!
Everything is struggling a bit with the lack of rain but we watered as best we could and are hoping for the best. This week’s harvest is the last of the asparagus and some of those roses:
And here are the roses at home:
In non-allotment news, I have reached the 80,000 word marker of my current novel project, so am rather pleased with that. Still a fair amount of story to go, however. Have a lovely weekend, everyone!
The asparagus is looking good this week – definitely enough there for a couple of meals for us both.
The shallots are doing well:
And so we have planted some more. We did put netting over the bed after I took the photo to prevent the birds from pecking at them.
The French climbing beans are slowly getting there so we’ve tied up a couple of the taller ones with string.
And one of the peas has definitely grown taller so that’s good news – I tied that one up too just in case.
The beetroots are really struggling at the moment though, but at least they’re still just about there.
Meanwhile, the lilies are looking good though still no flower buds yet.
The roses are quite happy in the perennial bed.
And the dahlias have so far managed to avoid the slugs.
Whilst there, we did a thorough water of everything as there’s been no rain at all this week and the sun is quite hot – there’s no shade anywhere at the plot. And here is this week’s harvest – just asparagus this time.
We’ve added in the rest of the French beans to the bed now we’ve remembered to bring the sticks for them, so that’s another job done on this lovely sunny day:
I’ve also decided to plant freesias rather than more gladioli this year, so we’ve put in half a bed of those and will add the other half (there are 200 bulbs in total) in a couple of weeks’ time so we can get successional flowers.
This week, we also had three alstroemerias delivered so I have added these to the perennial bed. They don’t look much now, but the roots seem good so am hoping for great things later on:
Also in the perennial bed, the roses are getting bigger:
Elsewhere on the allotment, the lilies are very happy:
And even the sweet peas next to the shed are looking slightly healthier:
Astonishingly, our dahlias are starting to sprout too, so I have put slug doom down for them as otherwise they won’t be there next week!
I’m a little worried about the courgette we planted last week, but we’ve given it a good water (along with the rest of the plot) and I’ve put more slug doom down so we’re hoping for the best:
This week’s harvest is some asparagus to add to lunch tomorrow, and a few sticks of rhubarb for a crumble:
Last week, there were some lovely & caring people worried about my one lone pea plant, but all is now well as it has a couple of friends which have come to join it! It’s a shame that there’s nothing at all so far from the other peas we planted, but we live in hope.
In the fruit cage, we put down another strip of weed suppressing fabric, but will need to bring more from home to finish off the job. We were thrilled to see that the gooseberry plants both have fruit on them already! They’re always the first to produce any fruit (which is why we’ve lost all their crop in the past to the birds as we hadn’t got round to netting them) – and as they’re safely in the fruit cage this year, we hope they’ll be fine. It will take a while for them to be ripe enough to pick though.
We have now planted some of the French beans – but we ran out of useful sticks for them to climb up, so we’ll have to do the rest of them next week:
I also planted a courgette in one of the old daffodil beds – I lifted those bulbs first and put them in the shed for next year.
And a very poor harvest this week! It’s a shame about the lack of flowers – all our tulips peaked way too soon though they were a lovely bumper crop. We will have to think of getting some later season tulips for next year if we can. So here are some asparagus we found – am hoping for more next week though!
Today at the allotment we’ve planted the beetroot – which we only bought at a garden centre yesterday:
Meanwhile the peas that we planted a couple of weeks ago are showing signs of life:
The rhubarb is also doing okay and there’s definitely enough for another crumble there:
And the asparagus has also just realised it’s spring now!
We’re also pleased with how the shallots are getting on:
And, in the fruit cage, everything is looking leafy and there are more flowers now which is great news. We also put down another couple of strips of weed suppressing fabric so we’re gradually getting there on that project:
The roses are slowly coming into leaf more as well:
Sadly, there are no flowers today as I think the tulips have all peaked early this year! Still, we have a nice harvest of asparagus and rhubarb:
I hope you’ve all had a lovely Coronation weekend bank holiday – wasn’t it an amazing ceremony. I loved it all!
It’s been raining most of the weekend but we have somehow managed to visit the allotment during the forty-five minutes it actually didn’t rain so have been very lucky!
It’s good to see the remembrance wreath has gone up on the gate:
Here are some views over the plot to give you an idea of what’s going on:
K mended the netting over the newer bed of sprouts as it was a bit beaten down by the rain, and I took out some of the asparagus for compost as it was getting in the way of everything:
The Brussels sprout leaves are looking pretty chewed now but the actual sprouts seem to be fine, so that’s good news for winter harvests:
Meanwhile, the courgette plants is really on its way out and I’m not sure that many of the fruits will get any bigger but at least they are hanging on there:
The cosmos is also hanging on and still has new buds coming through:
It’s the perennial bed that’s having the most fun this autumn though and it still looks incredibly green, with more nasturtiums and roses on their way:
One of the white roses looks really incredible:
So, here is today’s harvest of Brussels sprouts, beetroot, one courgette, roses, gazanias, gerberas and dahlias:
The roses are looking good at the allotment this morning:
And we have our first sweet pea! Which I foolishly forgot to pick so must remember to prune it off next week!
The soft fruit cage is doing very well, with lots of blackcurrants, redcurrants, blueberries and also a few loganberries:
The mangetouts are doing well also, and the French climbing beans are slowly getting there though they are battling a black fly infestation which is a shame:
Here is our harvest of asparagus (probably the last cropping of the season), mangetouts, some French beans, roses and sweet williams:
And here are the vases at home. The roses are just amazing!
Have a lovely Sunday, everyone, and happy Fathers Day to all who celebrate it!
The Allotment Wife 