Sunshine and Roses

What a glorious weekend of sunshine we are having! Fresh from a lovely day at the Glyndebourne opera yesterday, we allocated this morning to all things allotment. And the roses are certainly loving that sunshine:

In fact it’s been a whole week of sunshine so I popped in on Wednesday evening as well to do some all-essential watering.

Here is the evening view across our allotment:

And here is the view from the bench where I had a nice sit down after the watering was done:

Whilst I was there on Wednesday, I also planted a couple of dianthus to replace the now sadly-defunct new alstroemerias:

I was also pleased to notice that the beetroot are fighting back pretty well and look set to survive, and the courgette is also doing its best and even has some fruit forming:

Anyway, back to today, the sweet peas are doing okay:

And the gerbera in the perennial bed are forming flowers:

The French beans are happy:

And the peas are growing tall enough to need more string:

We have also planted some of my stepfather’s runner bean seeds which he gave us several years ago – he died in 2020 (non-Covid), so you can see how old they must be! – not sure they’ll come up now, but you never know:

Our neighbour at home very kindly let us have the last of his mulch that he wasn’t intending to use so we have put some of that on the rhubarb which definitely need a boost as they’ve not been great this year. Hopefully, it will cheer them up for next year!

Meanwhile, in the fruit cage, it’s all action! We have gooseberries:

And haskap berries:

And loads of redcurrants:

Lots of fruit cropping to be done at some point soon then! Here is this week’s harvest of those beautiful roses (the scent is lovely):

And here are the roses at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

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Sunflowers and Soft Fruit

The sunflowers are still looking amazing on the allotment and EVEN taller than they were last week!

We have harvested as many runner and French beans as we could, although sadly a lot are now infested with black fly so I left those ones well alone. I sprayed the whole lot in the hope that I might beat them back!

So a harvest today of sunflowers, gladioli, the first of the asters (yay!), one sweet pea and a few rudbeckia. Plus potatoes, the beans and the smallest autumn raspberry harvest EVER, LOL!

Here are the flowers at home:

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Gnome Award!

We have sadly had to cancel our annual Allotment Show due to Covid, but the lovely Committee decided to give out some funny awards to the plots just to keep us entertained, and here is ours!!

Honestly I’m so proud, LOL!!! I at least am now wearing my medal all the time!

Anyway, not much time for the allotment over these last couple of weeks as I’ve been super-busy with my new part-time Body Shop role, but K has kept everything going and here is this week’s harvest, which includes gladioli, a sunflower (which was damaged by the gales we’ve had …), beetroot, potatoes, runner beans and French beans:

And here is the vase at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke Body Shop Consultant

First runner beans and late leeks

We have the first of the runner bean harvest today, so that’s great news.

And we have also planted some late leeks to fill up a bed – it’s so strange that you have to plant them in holes that you then don’t fill in with earth. Just water them and you’re done. No idea why but it works for leeks!

The late planting of mangetouts is now tall enough for us to put up a structure for them to grow on.

Meanwhile the beetroot is growing well …

… as is the yakon next to it:

We’re also really pleased with the Brussels sprouts as they seem to be growing away happily too, which is certainly different from the failures of the last two years!

The sunflowers actually have buds forming which is very exciting!

And, astonishingly, the birds have left us enough blackcurrants for another crumble – which is unheard of. The birds must be super-lazy this year. Here is the harvest, consisting of the blackcurrants, mangetouts, runner beans, gladioli, carnations, echinacea, rudbeckia, alstroemeria and sweet peas:

Here are the vases at home:

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke Body Shop Consultant

Getting the Beans In

This week is the week to get the beans in on the allotment so we’ve put in runner beans (at the front of the picture) and French climbing beans (at the back of the picture):

K did a brilliant job getting the supports in. We had a few plants of both types left over so we gave the French beans to a fellow allotmenteer (thank you, Helen!) and left the others near the gate for anyone who wants them.

Another allotmenteer was kind enough to give us some of her spare purple sprouting broccoli plants (thank you, Nicola!), which we’ve never grown before. We’ve added these under the netting next to one of the sprout areas:

It was also time to dig up the tulip bulbs, which I’ve now done. It was pretty hard as the ground was so dry but I think I have most of them. I’ve put them in an old bird food bucket and will take them home for planting in the garden in November, as usual. We’ll buy new bulbs for the allotment next year:

Whilst digging them up, I forgot to wear gloves (silly me!) and so managed to scrape the skin off my palm (ouch! ouch!) when using the trowel. Sigh! Oh, and I also tried to tidy up the communal shed but realised as I was just getting going that there is a new wasps’ nest in there (yikes!) so put everything down and backed away very slowly and carefully before they got really angry! K has now put a big post with the word WASPS on it leaning against the door, which he had to write with his finger and some dirt as we didn’t have any other way of doing it! That definitely deserves a medal or two, LOL. We have wasp killer products at home so will try to get back and sort it out at some point.

In better news, our first couple of sweet pea flowers are out, hurrah!! SO thrilled by this!

Anyway, here is the harvest this week – which consists of rhubarb, carnations, verbascums, 2 sweet peas and one sprig of Peruvian lilies, which is great. No proper lilies yet though, sob.

Here are the vases at home:

Have a great weekend, everyone! And don’t forget – today is World Gin Day – cheers!

Anne Brooke Books

After the Frost

There’s a lot of post-frost (and wind!) damage at the allotment this week – but no more than we expect for this time of year. The dahlias are definitely over:

And the yacon (on the left of the below shot) is done, though it doesn’t affect the harvest – in fact when the leaves are dead like this, you know the harvest is ready!

We have also taken down the runner beans which have been over for a couple of weeks at least:

Which means that the leeks below them have a chance of grabbing some more sunshine – should there be any!

I also took a picture of the asparagus ‘trees’ as they look so pretty right now:

And there are still some cabbages to enjoy, hurrah!

No flowers in this week’s harvest – just onions and beetroots, but we’re pretty pleased with that anyway.

Have a great weekend!

Anne Brooke Books

Allotment Break-in

I’m very sorry to have to tell you that our allotments suffered a break-in this week, with the perimeter fence broken in a couple of places, the main gate damaged, and thefts carried out at several sheds. Such an awful thing to happen. Our own shed was broken into, but nothing taken as we don’t have anything worth stealing.

K mended the shed today – amazingly our now curved padlock still works as it’s actually much tougher than the shed itself!

In happier news, we still have an alstroemeria in bloom:

However, most of the rest of the flowers are now over, so I spent some time cutting back and composting while K was mending the shed. I did feel a lot better after the tidy up as it feels I’ve done something positive to prepare for next season after the communal break-in.

On similar lines, K has dug out the potato bed, rescuing the last of the potatoes – and it’s now ready for us to plant daffodils next time we’re there, hurrah!

I’m also happy to say that our chrysanthemums are on the way though not quite there yet:

Meanwhile we know it’s a very rainy autumn due to the sheer amount of mushrooms everywhere!

Our cabbages are doing well:

And we’ve rediscovered the leeks which have been lurking under the runner beans for ages, quietly waiting to see the sun again …

Sadly though, our Brussels sprouts are experiencing their second year of failure (sob!) – maybe next time we should plant them out in May rather than waiting for them to get bigger at home … Oh well.

Here is the week’s harvest, which includes alstroemeria, a few pelargoniums, a handful of autumn raspberries (though I ditched them at home due to the amount of insects in them, yuk!) one cabbage, the potatoes, beetroot and a couple of stray runner beans:

Here is the vase at home:

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Shallots and Asters

There are loads of shallots on the allotment at the moment – which is the first year we’ve grown them. The strange thing is they just sit on the top of the soil, seemingly attached to nothing at all, and you pick up the ones you like the look of. All very strange.

The cabbages are also doing well – the joy of them is that they last such a long time once you harvest them – with us, one lasts all week!

The lettuces are getting past their best though – K harvested one and by the time he picked off the slimy outer leaves, it was tiny!

Meanwhile, the autumn asters continue to shine and keep our vases going. They are just amazing – I think these blue ones are Little Harlow Carr, but I’m not sure.

Here is today’s harvest, which consists of asters, some sunflowers, a few sweet peas and pelargoniums, one alstroemeria, that little lettuce, one beetroot, runner beans, those shallots (just below the trug handle) and a bowl of gorgeous autumn raspberries – which are truly the gift that keeps on giving and which I shall add to this weekend’s apple crumble, yum!

Here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone – stay out of the rain!

Anne Brooke Books

Asters and Tatties

It’s the turn of the asters to shine today on the autumn allotment – we really know summer is over now as they’re such an autumn flower! K has dug up the last of the potatoes (tatties), so we have an empty bed to do something with:

It’s been a hot week so the allotment is very dry and we’ve given it a good water today – the rubbish bin water butt is proving very useful indeed. Here are the beans looking very dry and definitely past their best:

And even the currant bushes and autumn raspberries are struggling in the heat:

Here is today’s harvest which consists of beans, potatoes, one beetroot, the asters, a few sad-looking gladioli, one or two sunflowers, the autumn raspberries and a scattering of sweet peas, pelargoniums and carnations.

We have also taken the tulip bulbs (in the round, green basket) so I can plant these at home in November (when the threat of tulip rot will have passed). We will get fresh ones for the allotment as usual.

Here are the vases:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

The Allotment Working Party & BBQ

Perfect weather for the allotment working party & BBQ today – though maybe a little too hot when it came to moving the hedge cuttings to a bonfire area, LOL! Still, after a good two hours’ slog, the joy comes with a lovely BBQ and beer, hurrah!

Seriously though, we had a fabulous time and many thanks to the allotment committee for organising us all. Meanwhile, back on our own allotment, we have the first of the asters:

And the sunflowers look amazing – particularly when a gorgeous yellow butterfly landed on one of them:

The one pink dahlia in bloom this week also looks quite cute:

The lettuces are doing well and – so far! – aren’t getting eaten by the slugs which is great news. I’m not even putting slug doom pellets on them any more and still they survive …

However, the news with the sweetcorn isn’t so good, I’m afraid – even though we’ve netted them and they should be ready to harvest, some evil creature has still eaten the lot. Oh well …

Today’s harvest is potatoes, beetroot, a lettuce, a cabbage, French beans and runner beans, gladioli, sunflowers, the asters, a few sweet peas, carnations and pelargoniums, plus the autumn raspberries:

Here are the flowers at home. I think the asters really make a difference to a vase, and I’ve put the sunflowers in with those from last week, which are still going strong!

Have a good Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books