What I did today

Three hours in the allotment cheered me up no end, despite a nasty surprise at the end of it.


This is the corner of the onion bed - I ran out of canes so I used prunings instead. This bit of staghorn sumac wasn't quite dead!


I pulled up the onions. This took ages because the clay soil was very sticky and clumped onto the fork. And there were bindweed roots to remove. Some onions were beginning to rot - probably because it has been so wet. They are in the plastic planthouse to dry off. Not an impressive crop - I lost about a third of them and many that survived are very small. Might try a different variety and overwinter some.


The ex-onion bed is now a brassica bed. I weeded, forked in some blood, fish & bonemeal, trampled then planted some cauli (snowball), PSB and kale (Black Tuscany). They are planted a bit close together at the moment but will be thinned out eventually by selective cropping.


I thought I'd try out cabbage collars. The brassicas I already have in the allotment are fine, but the caulis I planted in containers in my back garden just over the hedge all suffered from cabbage root fly.


AN's lad's cucumber is doing well! I weeded under it for him - he's a bit too young to be sent on his own to look after it. I went back later and put straw under the fruits to keep them off the soil.


I planted out two-and-a-half rows of leeks in this space vacated by the Anyas then I filled the last half row with garlic.

Also, unsnapped by camera, I tidied up the strawberry bed by removing all the runners and doing a bit of weeding. I removed weeds that were "rounding off" the corners of the beds. Not precision work, but a very satisfying grab-handfuls-and-pull technique.


My Helpful Assistant points out that I need to get the strimmer out.


Hey! What's this netting for? Where'd my onions go? What am I going to roll in now?


That's right princess - stay on the path and I won't water your backside.


These are pretty - didn't weed them out.
The bindweed amongst the tatties was thinking about flowering but it's such a thug of a plant it had to go.

On the subject of tatties:

Oh no... surely not...

I think this is blight on the Mystery Spuds.
All haulms removed and binned. The desirees on the next bed seem to be fine but I will keep a very close watch on them. The next allotment along has lost all its tomatoes, probably to blight too.