Nearly Daffodil Time

The daffodils are nearly out on the allotment, hurrah! I might well pop in again this Thursday to see how they’re doing – it will be great once we can start having fresh flowers in the house. Plus other, later daffodils are also beginning to come up so that’s good too.

Whilst there, K dug up the potato bed and I trimmed all the way round the allotment so it all looks a bit neater now, which is good news. I also hoed the beds and soft fruit area, which is much easier now the autumn raspberries are cut down, LOL!

K also shaped one of our older blackcurrant bushes to give it a bit of air and encourage growth:

We’ll do the other older one next week. Here are the spare canes, which we won’t plant as we don’t have much space at the moment:

So our harvest today is the usual sprouts and potatoes, but they’re always welcome!

And here are the sprout leaves, which we’ll use as compost:

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke

Raspberry Riot

Did a quick hoe-round at the allotment today, though the snow yesterday and the day before appears to have beaten the weeds down, hurrah! There is exciting news about the daffodils as they’re now starting to form actual flower buds, well gosh:

The rhubarb is also looking very pretty, and we’re hoping it might gain some friends at some point!

Our main job of today though has been starting to cut down the autumn raspberry canes to the ground. They’re really easy to cut with secateurs though they’re so long that you have to be a bit careful that you don’t take your eye out when you’re disposing of them! Also heavy duty gloves are vital … We’ve done just under half the bed so will carry on next week. It’ll certainly make it a lot easier to weed. The canes we cut down today will be added to our garden waste bin at home – thank goodness we remembered to bring one of our green bags.

A very small harvest today – just sprouts! – and there haven’t been so many of these as we harvested last year. Though, to be fair, we didn’t plant as many either!

Have a great weekend!

Anne Brooke

 

Daffodils and dianthus

A bit chilly on the allotment today, but the soil was warm enough – so I did a spot of hoeing here and there. Nothing serious though.

The daffodil shoots are really going for it now! Here there are in the early daffodil section:

And here are one or two coming up in one of the other beds too:

I also took a picture of the dianthus today as – though it’s not doing anything – I really LOVE the green cushion shape it makes. It’s just so comforting! I actually want to cuddle it, but I do appreciate that would look odd … Even for me.

So, not much of a harvest today – K dug up half the lettuce, and there are sprouts for tomorrow’s lunch – with more of these to come for Christmas, hurrah!

Have a fabulous weekend, all.

Anne Brooke

The autumnal allotment

We seem to have more autumn leaves across the allotment this year than ever before – here they are on the soft fruit area!

All very beautiful and at least that saves mulching the fruit, LOL! Meanwhile the Brussels sprouts are doing okay. I didn’t bother putting any slug doom on them this week as they looked okay really.

The lettuce is still doing us proud – though I’ve taken out the remains of the red lettuce now, this green variety looks unstoppable.

However, the leeks seem to have hit some kind of glass ceiling and haven’t grown any bigger for ages, we don’t think. All very odd.

Anyway, I actually went round and did a spot of hoeing though there’s really not a lot to get rid of – apart from in the sprout cages, but I won’t bother weeding those until we actually get in to harvest the sprouts.

Talking of harvest, this week’s is lettuce and a couple of the (small but tasty) leeks:

AND – BIG drumroll at this point!!! – the yacon (Peruvian ground apple) which K has taken up now. It’s produced far more of a crop than last year (hurrah!) and also has some small tubers which we can use to grow plants for next year. So thrilled about this one, as you don’t even have to cook it and it tastes great. The longer you leave it (within reason) the sweeter it gets. A wildcard substitute for potato, yum!

Have a great Sunday!

Anne Brooke Books

The Day of the Dahlias

It’s astonishing how well the dahlias are now doing, and there are even more buds to come – should the weather be kind.

Not only that, but the asters look very pretty too:

However, it’s still definitely autumn so everything is winding down – though I don’t think the courgette has yet got that message as it’s still producing fruits, and I harvested 3 of them today – more to come!

Anyway, I did a hoe round and also cleared the weeds on the paths, while K sorted out compost and tidied round the autumn raspberries bed – which are also on the way out in terms of produce, sadly.

Here is the harvest, which includes, a beetroot, courgettes, autumn raspberries, lettuce, echinacea, marigolds, coreopsis, asters and dahlias.

Here are the vases at home – I’ve tried to keep to a colour theme this time, and I think it works.

Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

 

Autumn Flowers and Woodchip Paths

A lovely couple of hours at the allotment in glorious weather this morning – it really makes up for yesterday’s almost permanent rain – though then again the rain means I don’t have to water anything this weekend. Anyway, I did a hoe round, and K has taken some wood chips someone kindly donated to the allotments and put them down on our most weed-filled paths (on top of new black sheeting of course). I think they look lovely and we hope it will keep the weeds down for a while.

The asters are also looking brilliant. The first one is Harrington’s Pink – and it smells of pineapples so I love it! K isn’t so sure, LOL.

I can’t remember what this smaller pink aster is but it’s great as a vase filler:

The dahlias and marigolds are also continuing to do well:

Plus I’ve finally planted the last tranche of daffodil bulbs so that’s all our early autumn planting done, hurrah! Next stop is the tulips in November, but we’d best buy some of those first.

We’re really pleased with the lettuces and have harvested a couple of the bigger green ones too. They should definitely keep us going through the winter.

Meanwhile the Peruvian Ground Apple (AKA Yakon) looks extremely happy at the moment so I hope we’re going to get a good crop from it.

Here’s this week’s harvest, which includes autumn raspberries, beetroot, courgettes, lettuce, coreopsis, marigolds, penstemons, asters, dianthus and dahlias:

And here are the flowers at home. I’m particularly proud of those Harrington’s Pink asters!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Anne Brooke Books

Runner Bean Riot

Oo-err, we can’t get to the allotment for one week and the runner beans have gone mad! This is the trug I normally get everything in but not today …

The courgettes aren’t that far behind either and definitely have marrow aspirations:

I think courgette/marrow soup is definitely on the menu for us! Mind you, the beetroot are going for it too:

That should last us the week for sure. Flowers are doing well, and the gladioli and echinacea have bounced back:

And here are the sunflowers, getting even taller!

Dahlias are doing well as well, and are still blackfly-free, hurrah!

We’ve also got some crocosmia growing, though I had thought I’d taken them all home last year – obviously not! I shall have to have another go to get them home when they’ve finished flowering this year:

Here is the harvest, which consists of gladioli, sweet peas, sweet williams, geums, dahlias, echinacea, coreopsis and marigolds.

And here is the total harvest – also including some autumn raspberries!

Whilst there today, K watered and I hoed, but there honestly aren’t too many weeds anyway, hurrah! We also did some composting using stuff from home, and took down the pea frames. I managed to get a splinter in my finger in the middle of doing that (ow! ow!) but thankfully K is a GENIUS at getting splinters out of fingers and managed to rescue me, phew. Heaven alone knows how he does it but it’s wonderful.

Here are the vases at home:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Anne Brooke Books