Dahlias Galore

It’s definitely a win for the dahlias today as you can see from this picture of our perennial bed, though the roses are also still in abundance. It’s interesting that the pink dahlias last so much longer in the vase than the yellow ones, and also interesting that I have obviously chosen the same kind of colour palate for both dahlias and roses – pink and yellow!

One of our lettuces has definitely died this week, LOL! Though the other two are just about surviving:

Our two unexpected pea plants continue to grow so I have now tied both these up with string.

But the winning vegetable of the week continues to be our French climbing beans – another good harvest today though not as much as last week:

Whilst there, we took the protection off both our Brussels sprouts beds in order to give them a thorough weeding – the weeds everywhere have been a nightmare this year! And K also strimmed along the edge of the plot too, to make it look neater.

Here is this week’s harvest, which consists of dahlias, roses, alstroemeria, one freesia, sweet peas, a few gerberas, plus soft fruit, one beetroot, one lettuce and French climbing beans.

And here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Beans and Beetroot

The French climbing beans are still doing brilliantly with more flowers on there as well, so a good harvest though not quite as enormous as last week:

The lettuces are hanging on in there though getting a little past their best now. Still, there’s enough lettuce from one of these to keep us going for a week:

And we have our first decent sized crop of beetroot which is great news! The type we grow isn’t the usual red one as I don’t like the stains, so this one is stain-free – sorry I can’t remember the name but they’re readily available if you want beetroot without the mess!

The perennial bed is looking good too, with more roses and dahlias, and even some of our new alstroemerias in bloom (just peeking out at the left of the picture).

We put a lot of weed-killer down on the paths between beds this week as it’s all been getting rather out of hand, so we’re hoping that next week it will look a lot clearer. So, here is the harvest, which consists of alstroemerias, dahlias, roses, gerberas, sweet peas, one lettuce, one beetroot, a lot of shallots (which keep for months in the garage), soft fruit and French climbing beans.

And here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

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Lilies and climbing beans

I’m finally back on the allotment after three weekends away due to ill health, so I spent a lot of time beating down the weeds today, LOL! Still, after yesterday, at least we didn’t need to water. The lilies are looking amazing:

And the sweet peas are hanging on in there:

But just look at our perennial bed! It’s a riot of roses (second bloom of those this year), dahlias and gerberas:

However, the outright winner in terms of how much crop there is has to be awarded to the French climbing beans! There’s a veritable glut which we are freezing – see later pics!

Mind you, there are a lot of courgettes too – so we’ll make and freeze soup with them:

And we FINALLY have some growth from our peas – though we’re unsure whether we’ll actually get a crop from those now as it’s very late in the season:

And the lettuces are going crazy:

This week, there is just SO MUCH harvest that I have had to take two pictures of it! We have one lettuce, 5 huge courgettes, lilies galore, dahlias, roses, gerberas and sweet peas, plus a few mangetouts, those French climbing beans and some soft fruit (hidden by the beans!) Here they are:

And here are the gorgeous flowers at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Bumper Harvest

I’m afraid I’ve been unwell for a couple of weeks so have been unable to get to the allotment – am hoping that next weekend I’ll be well enough to get there and I’m certainly a lot better than I have been, which is good news. Anyway, my husband has been working hard in my absence and here are a couple of pictures for you.

This is last week’s harvest:

And here is this week’s harvest for you. As you can see, the French climbing beans and courgettes have been amazing, and the flowers are also wonderful. And the lettuce is great too. Plus plenty of soft fruit for a crumble.

Here are this week’s flowers at home:

Have a good weekend, everyone, and try to stay well!

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First lilies and first freesia

Good news on the allotment as the first lilies are in bloom!

I’m also pleased to say that we have one freesia now in bloom as well – tiny but perfectly formed and brilliantly scented:

In other flower news, the first dahlias are also out:

The alstroemerias are also doing well:

As are the sweet peas:

And just look at those gerberas – amazing!

The courgette also looks a lot happier though no fruits as yet:

And just look at the size of those lettuces!

Whilst there today, we gave everything a good water and weed as usual, and also collected some soft fruit. So here is our harvest of mangetouts, the first of the French climbing beans (hurrah!), one lettuce, assorted soft fruit, lilies, roses, one freesia, gerberas, alstroemerias and sweet peas:

And here are the vases at home. The scent is just lovely.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Brussels Sprouts and Sweet Peas

At last! We’ve finally planted the Brussels sprouts on the allotment – they’re not quite big enough really, but we hope they’ll be encouraged now they are actually in their two beds. We’ve had real problems getting them to grow properly in their pots (which is true for a lot of plants this year, I’m afraid) – and I think it’s probably due to the fact that we can’t get proper compost any more and have to make do with the pesky peat-free variety. Yes, I know that puts me in a minority of people who prefer peat and think if it’s properly managed, then it’s not an issue. I’m also not convinced about the environmentally friendly nature of the peat-free process, but as it’s all we can get these days, we don’t have a choice. Hey ho. Anyway, here are our two beds of sprouts:

As we had such a good rainfall at the beginning of the week, everything seems to have come on quite well since then. The courgette is looking good but no more fruits as yet:

The French climbing beans are looking healthy and even have flowers now!

The mangetouts are also growing very happily and needed yet more tying in with string. And they have a very small but perfectly formed crop too.

We are also pleased with how the lettuces are doing:

In terms of flower crops, the lilies are SO nearly there!

The gerberas are in full spate:

And the sweet peas are also blooming very well:

We also have a HECK of a lot of fruit in the fruit cage which we spent some time picking. There are haskap berries (similar to blueberries), blackcurrants and red currants, plus a few tayberries too. So here is the harvest of soft fruit, a handful of mangetouts, roses, gerberas, sweet peas, one carnation and one stem from the alstroemerias:

And here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone, and welcome to July!

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Sunny days at the allotment

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.

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The First Summer Roses

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!

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Goodbye to the Dahlias and Clearing the Shed

This week’s double frosts have certainly done their worst for the dahlias:

And the yakons too have come to an end – though the good news with them is the frost simply indicates that they’re ready for cropping so we have collected a good harvest from them:

Strangely though, our gladioli bed doesn’t appear to have got the memo about the frost so we still have a flower stem!

We have spent most of the summer being utterly unable to enter our shed (oh the shame of it!) due to the amount of stuff – mainly discarded netting – in there. So today we’ve made a good start on it as you can see – and we can actually get inside now!

As it’s November, it’s now okay to plant tulips (as if you plant them earlier you’re in danger of losing them all to tulip rot) so that’s what I have done today:

Once under the ground, we covered them with netting and sticks to stop the squirrels digging them all up again – which usually works:

Today, we have a decent harvest of sweet williams, that one gladioli, yakons, lettuces, beetroot and carrots:

Here is the vase at home:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Still blooming

An unexpected number of flowers in bloom for this time of year at the allotment today. Yes, I expected the Sweet Williams to be still going strong as they are:

But I did think the dahlias would have finished due to the cold night we had on Thursday, but they are still there!

Even more astonishing, a couple of the gladioli have come back into bud and we were just about to take them out as they should be over!

All very strange, but very welcome. Assuming that next spring will still turn up when we assume it will, we planted the last of the daffodil bulbs in a spare bed:

I’m pleased to say the Brussel sprouts are getting larger which is good news, so should definitely be ready for Christmas, if not earlier:

However, proving that we did have the cold snap on Thursday, the yakons are slightly damaged by frost, but that’s not a problem as the produce is only ripe when the leaves have all turned yellow anyway.

Here is today’s harvest, which includes carrots, beetroots, two lettuces, Sweet Williams, alstroemerias, dahlias and a couple of carnations:

Here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely Sunday.

Anne Brooke Books