Mid-season update!
The potato bed. Or should I say, the nasturtium bed. The potatoes haven’t really done as well as other people’s have, but I’m used to that now with tatties. They’ll be dug up soon, which I suspect will nerf the nasturtiums. I plan to plant the winter brassicas here next.
Blight! (Chocolatey spots on the leaves below). But my back is gone, and it was too horrible and stormy on Sunday to go out and cut them back, so fingers crossed it doesn’t progress too far by next weekend. My lot were oddly late to get blight – the neighbours have all been decimated. Odd! I don’t think nasturtiums have a protective effect against blight lol.
The Sweetcorn and curcurbit bed. Sort of, except I have so many curcurbits now the are everywhere – end of the beds, next to the compost bins, among the permenant plants, and even in the disaster of the root bed. Very pleased with the sweetcorn though, especially as I’ve never grown them before – I was worred about them a few weeks ago but they are loving it now. The fluffy bits lower down on the plant are cobs forming (the fluffy bits at the top are the male parts).
The legume (beans and peas) bed. The pile of sweetpea, pea and mangetout at the back is being left since the sweetpeas look nice and the beans like them. I do not like peas or mangetout. I also do not like broad beans. However, my French beans (tiny things on the edges of the earth patch near the front) have turned up trumps – not only did I get enough beans to feed five people very easily from about seven plants, the older pods were not bitter and I *loved* eating them. Sold! I’ve planted more Frenchies direct in the bare soil you see and next year it’ll be a whole bed of Frenchies. You can’t see the chard around the pea frame but that’s growing very well also.
Brassica bed! Yes, I should have netted it. And I’ve lost the turnips – can’t tell the difference between radishes and turnips and can’t remember really where I planted each. The radishes had all bolted (didn’t really like them so won’t bother again) and anything that looked vaguely radishy/turnipy that hadn’t bolted has been left. Three brussels (Evesham?) doing well, three devastated (Bedford?). Caulis and cabbages a mixed bag of success and failure. We shall see if any bother to make it. Brocolli doesn’t seem to have bothered. Kale is a bit behind but not too damaged.
Onion and beetroot bed. Baby leeks at the front doing very well! Summer onions doing ok but already starting to turn and only golf ball sized, so I think it’s a small sized crop this year. Beetroot however is amazing, so far had a good 20 beets of the patch and probably have 60 still there. The golden variety is great in salad etc. but was slower than the red ones.
The disaster zone aka the root bed. I think about 3 carrots germinated. I chucked the remainder of a packet of Autumn King over the bed this weekend, probably about 500 seeds per metre squared lol – who knows. The couch grass at the end laughs at my attempt to squish it, so I planted three courgettes there. See if my greedy marrow makers will compete with the damned stuff. Over winter I’ll be cardboarding the bed properly. It’s supposed to be the potatoe bed next year but I don’t want to be digging it, so I think I’ll put something like brassicas there or something. They like firm soil. I also planted out chitted parsnips – last attempt!
The permanent bed. With added kale and curcurbits cos I ran out of space. I’m aware it just looks like a pile of green. This is an awful bed – the asparagus at the end shares it’s bed with couch grass, bindweed, horse tail and creeping buttercup. Basically if there is a list of Weeds You Do Not Want, those aer them. And asparagus hates being dug around. Raspberry bush keeps giving us four raspberries every few weeks, and the blackcurrant bush did fruit, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it so it didn’t get used, but the gooseberry hasn’t bothered. Baby gooseberry (I stuck a cutting in the ground) has rooted and grown though! One died, one is well on to becoming a bush 🙂
The wildlife/compost/comfrey area. With added curcurbits. The big leafy stuff on the left is comfrey, and excellent compost activator, the blue stuff is borage, also great in compost but the bees adore it. I pulled up a fair bit of it from the beds as although it’s great it’s also huge. Big yellow flower is a pot marigold, I let them flower here (they are *everywhere*) and the dainty yellowish flower under the borage is poached egg, attracts hoverflies. I planted a new French marigold at the front.
And this is why nasturtiums are good. Happy bees!
Random happy grasshopper! My wildlife area has wildlife 🙂
Obligatory progress shot of the most blowsey flowery colourful random plot on the allotments.
