Other work, including a fair bit of travelling for Lynn has curtailed our efforts recently. However, the return of rain over the past few weeks (it must be the cricket season) has helped everything to keep growing.
Having finished in the office just before 6pm, there was time to go down to the allotment to check whether we have spuds for harvesting, and lo we do. The first Charlotte plant yielded 2.25 pounds of creamy white new potatoes.
First potato harvest
I spent a fair chunk of the day down at the allotment, complete with radio and packed lunch, working on the rabbit fence. I managed to get the fencing up all the way round and tied everything into the bottom guide wire. There is still more tidying up to be done, but at least the rabbits should now be safely kept out.
Earlier this week I dropped in to the allotment to do some watering and noticed that the newest sweet corn are being nibbled, so had to go back the following day put lemonade bottle cloches on them to give them some protection until they are a bit sturdier. I then noticed that the sweet peas are looking a bit ravaged, but I’m not sure that we can do much to protect them. Continue reading
Down to the allotment first thing. Lynn planted up the sweet pea “gateway”, whilst I planted out the last of the sweet corn and the courgettes. I also started to fig the trench for burying the rabbit fence, but this is going to be a long tough job as the ground is like iron.
The potatoes are now really starting to come on.
Potato fields of Cookham
On bank holiday Monday we went down to the allotment to start driving in the fence posts. This proved to be pretty difficult as we couldn’t hammer them in without digging holes first and the ground was very hard for digging. I did a quick run round the local hardware stores to see if I could get some sort of driving tool to help get the posts in and protect the tops, but couldn’t get anything.
The net result was only a few posts in (to a much shallower depth than we’d planned) and significant aches and pains. A very sore elbow was added to the stiff back and rumbling left knee.
Later in the week I went up to Princes Risborough to get more fence posts and to see if I could get some sort of fence hammering tool. I was offered a post driver (a huge metal cylinder that fits over the posts and acts like a man-powered pile driver. This was pretty expensive, but while I had to buy this, Briants will give a full refund on it once it is finished with, which is amazing service.
By the end of this week, the first of the promised rain arrived, accompanied by thunder. So it was down to the allotment with the post driver this morning and we succeeded in getting all the posts in – what a difference the correct tool makes! We were no doubt helped by a further batch of heavy overnight rain, which has also helped the spuds to shoot up.
The second long weekend in a row following Easter last week has allowed a bit of extra allotment time, despite the extra golfing commitments that come with bank holidays.
Friday was Royal Wedding day today, so we used our holiday to get down to the allotment to do the final earthing-up of the potatoes to continue our war against mice (Jeyes fluid today) and to plant out the next batches of sweet corn. The allotment is starting to look very good now and we are quite proud of where we have got to so far.
After the allotment, we went to the garden centre, where I Joined the garden club enabling us to buy the half price “giant cloche/mini poly tunnel”.
Yesterday we set off for Princes Risborough (http://www.briantsofrisborough.com/) to investigate fencing supplies and came back loaded with posts, wire fence, wire and staples.
Today we cracked on with potting-on the delicate plants, peppers, gherkins, tomatoes and aubergines. We now have window sills full of various sorts of plants and plenty hardening off on the patio. We have lots of marigolds and a few dahlias from the saved seed so are getting the raw material together for our floral gateway.