Today is the first day that my Abel and Cole fruit and veg box comes with just fruit in it. From now on, the allotment will provide all our vegetables week to week. I did this last year, and I was able to be self sufficient on the vegetable front for the rest of the year!
Although I've not been updating this blog regularly, that doesn't mean I've not been down there - I've just not had enough time to be leisurely about it.
Right now it's the school holidays. That means that I have both more and less time at the same time! But this past weekend I had to see a client on the Saturday, so hubby and girls went off to Yorkshire to visit the in-laws without me. That gave me the freedom to spend 4 hours down at the allotment yesterday!
The results of that were that I completely cleared the mangetout and sugar snap peas bed and took down their climbing frame. I collected all the dried pods for next years seeds, and have so far dug over half of it. I'll be planting some green manure in there.
The blackberry bushes are bursting, and the red currants are still overloaded, despite harvesting about half of them a few weeks ago.
The poppies have died down, and their seed heads are ready to be removed (unless I want 8,000 plants growing in their stead next year!)
The french climbing beans are moving along nicely, I picked, blanched and froze all the ripe ones yesterday. And I also picked one corn cob to test. It was full of plump kernals, but it was white. It tasted lovely, but the cob was bendy when it was cooked. I am wondering what I've done wrong. After a bit of research I think a few of my other cobs are now past their prime as the kernels have started to deflate. Unfortunately taking a holiday in another country in the middle of summer can really damage your crops!
The brassicas are all getting along well, apart from the collection of rejects that I planted out to replaced the cauliflowers that bolted. They don't look like they are hurrying to grow, but they were surplus to requirements in the first place.
I have to admit to being disappointed with my butternuts - only one plant of four has a large fruit on it (or any fruit at all!). There are four good looking small sugar pumpkins, one turk's turban, one vegetable spaghetti, and it turns out that "random pumpkin" was a marrow. Bummer - now I have about four of those, and I am not a marrow fan! I have more vegetable spaghetti and marrow plants growing at home from the runners up pile.
So here is a few photos from the past month:
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