Completely cabbaged....

.....the cabbage plot that is. Full of em.

Today, despite the forecast for rain, I managed to get up to the plot for a few hours and removed the netting from my cabbage patch now that the cabbages are large enough (I hope) to survive attacks by those pesky birds.

The first produce is now coming off my plot as well. After the carrots from earlier this week I've harvested the first of my Swiss chard, and also a handful of peas. I tried some raw on the plot and they are absolutely cracking!!!



The tomato plants have also managed to produce a lone tomato.




I'm hoping for a somewhat larger crop than this so that I can go in for some hot chutney action later in the year.

Finally, my spuds, fennel, spinach, and Swiss chard are all showing signs of yellow leaves which according to my good friend Dr Hessayon is a sign of Magnesium deficiency. A quick trip to the garden center and they've now been sprayed with Epsom Salts which will either cure them, or make them regular ;-)

Hux's DMZ and agent orange

After a week away the plot was getting overgrown with weeds so today I took the morning off to create a DMZ between my plot and the disabled one next to it. This should provide a barrier to Charlie (the weeds) and stop them running rampant all over my plot. It is the strip about 3 ft wide to the left of the coldframe below.




I also spent some time thinning out the carrot bed which I should have done a lot earlier in the bed. The idea is you plant loads of seeds, see what comes up, then thin out to leave a few with plenty of room around them. I neglected to do this which meant that the carrots got very chummy with each other as shown below.



By the time I had finished, the bed looked pretty well decimated, but the carrots that were left now have space to grow a bit. The ones I pulled out got split between myself and the lab at work as there were several pounds of reasonable sized carrots in there.



The leeks which had been growing in the coldframe (the second batch) had reached the limit that the seed tray would let them reach so I planted these out in the original leek bed. After a couple of weeks I can then replant them as per the instructions on the packet (you drop them in holes so the bottom half remains white and the top stays green). The large leeks below are the original ones, but there are now several rows of the much smaller ones if you look closely.



The dwarf beans are now at last starting to grow after sitting idle for the past couple of months.


The peas next to them are also making some cracking progress.



And finally the tomatoes have perked up and now look a lot healthier.

Bill n Ben go postal on weed

Another scorcher and I laid into the weeds down the side of my plot where they have been making sterling progress on slowly encroaching on my beds. A solid three hour session has seen them pretty well decimated now and should give the beds a bit more of a chance.

I also planted out the second lot of cauliflowers into the bed that the caterpillars have enjoyed so much. To defeat the little blighters I constructed a cage out of netting (blatantly plagiarised off pauls plot next door apart from the fact he used semi-skimmed coke cans and I prefer full fat).



Hopefully this should allow me to get at least one cauliflower out of the two dozen I planted originally. The cabbage bed I did the same thing on is looking better as it now has cabbages with leaves on in it.


The carrots have turned into triffids with the hot weather !!!


And the spinach, swiss chard and fennel, feeling left behind by their carroty chums have suddenly put on a spurt.


Even the leeks which made a very poor showing earlier in the year, have started to put in an appearance. (You still need to look closely though).


And finally, the plot as it stands today.

Hux gets his nets on.......

.... it's a comfort thing ;-)

A quick trip to the allotment tooled up with miscellaneous netting. Large grade stuff covered the poles I put in for the peas to climb up. This saves me putting loads of bamboo poles in for the plants to wind up and lets them just get on with it. Much smaller stuff was draped over what is left of the cabbage patch and pinned down to prevent birds getting back in and finishing off what they missed the first time around.

The cauliflower bed is pretty much gone so I didn't even bother netting that. Next weekend I'll put out what is left in the cold frame with some netting on top in the hopes of getting at least some plants out of it.

I also tasted the first of my produce when I pulled up a couple of carrots to see how they were doing. Top carroty taste I have to say!!

The heat defeated me after an hour or so despite my distinctly unfashionably big floppy hat (£7 in Tescos to you sir) , so I beat a hasty retreat. The weeds live to fight another day.

The path to enlightenment........

...... or leeks..... one of the two.

The weather we should have had over the bank holiday turned up a week later than it should have and it's another scorcher today. A big push forward on the plot to take care of the weeds that I've so far been unable to tame. I took them all down to ground level with a scythe and a rather vicious looking hand-axe/fork and laid weed matting and then wood chips over the lot. Although the roots are still in there, the fact that no light can get to them should ensure they die off. Result !

Path straight on to the leek bed at the end of the plot.


Area opposite the cold frame. This is my area for drinking tea, listening to the Archers, and snaffling custard creams. In time it may have a shed on it.



The broccoli bed has been performing very poorly so I pulled all the plants up as a dead loss and dug in a load of soil improver. I then planted a row each of swedes, courgettes, and cauliflowers to see what I can get to grow.

The cabbage bed has obviously been watching the cauliflower bed as it has been decimated by birds.


The birds were obviously young as they didn't touch the sprouts on the left hand side of the plot and they also left tiny bottles of WKD and a small hoody with "Bovvered?" on the front ;-)

Eventually the heat beat me and I had to retire home, but the heavy work of weeding and barrowing woodchips is at least done. Back up there tomorrow weather permitting.

Jack Frost returns

Yep... end of May so what do we get? Frost! A mad dash up to the plot as soon as the weatherman dropped this little gem on Tuesday to batten down the hatches on the cold frame and make sure everything inside got a good watering to get through the next couple of days with the lid down.

Friday saw my return to the plot to open the cold frame again and try to get the rather shriveled plants in there back to life. Another good watering for everything including the rest of the plot which was looking a bit parched.

The cauliflowers I planted out a couple of weeks ago have been decimated by pesky caterpillars (I know it was them as one was still on there tucking in to his tea). I think there's a couple of these plants still in the cold frame in reserve so will have to see how to protect them from these pesky blighters.

The weeds are also coming on a treat so Saturday will be trying to attack them and put weed matting and wood chips on to keep em down.