Monday, November 21

Overdue plot visit!

It’s almost a fortnight since we visited the plot. The gloomy weather hasn’t encouraged us, we’ve also had lots to do in the garden and seem to have busy doing other things too.

Encouraged by the appearance of the sun and the need to replenish our fresh vegetable stocks we decided to go allotmenting this weekend.

As always the first thing that has to be done when visiting the plot - that is after donning waterproof boots, a necessity at this time of year if we are to avoid soggy socks - is to wander around checking on what is growing or in need of most urgent attention.

The peas that we sowed in October have now germinated well - much better than they did earlier in the year. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see whether they make it through the winter. We’re not going to give them any special protection, just leaving them to fend for themselves  to find out just how hardy late sown peas are! 
The winter onions are growing well and some of the garlic is shooting. The varieties of garlic that are furthest on are Lautrec Wight, Edenrose, Germidour and Purple Wight. Albigensian Wight is just beginning to produce shoots but as yet there is no sign of the other varieties. I’ll update on how each variety is performing in the greenhouse in a later post. All was not completely well in the onion bed though as it wasn’t only the onions and garlic that were growing. Chickweed was beginning to stake a claim for soil domination. As onions don’t really enjoy competing with weeds I decided my priority task was to do a bit of weeding.
It hasn’t taken long for our soil to go from as dry as a desert to wet and sticky. We haven’t had a great amount of rain but enough to make weeding out chickweed a very yukky task as the state of my gardening gloves will prove. Anyway the job is done and the bed looks better for it.
While I was weeding Martyn was tidying up the plum tree that cracked under the weight of so many plums during summer. He's posted about it on his blog here.

There should no longer be any white butterflies about trying to find a suitable place to lay their eggs and the wood pigeons only tend to attack young plants so we also decided to take the insect netting off our brassicas. Last year we think that the damage to overwintering brassicas was down to the snow building up on the net which eventually collapsed onto the plants. If the snow had covered the plants naturally it would have built up gradually but we think the collapse of the netting meant the plants were in effect squashed by the sudden weight that dropped on top of them. Hopefully if it does snow heavily again this year the plants will have a better chance.
Our harvesting list is here but one rather amazing mini harvest was a handful of autumn raspberries. Very strange to pick fresh raspberries in the last half of November. 
If you want to know what we harvested - including our first parsnips and sprouts of the year the list is here

11 comments:

  1. Myb gloves have been looking like that for a couple of weeks now...and yet if you turn over a forkful of earth it is still dry underneath.

    I agree with you you the brassicas situation...lets hope it works.

    The raspberries look lovely...I am still spotting the odd one or two when I visit...we tend to just pick and eat though ...they never quite make it home!!

    Your plot is looking pretty good for the winter though...and I can't wait to find out how those peas get on!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll be amazed if we actually harvest peas from them Tanya

    ReplyDelete
  3. It'll be interesting to see how the peas do for you. I didn't make it down to the allotment this weekend, other things took priority so I need to make an extra effort to get down there this week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rats! I wish my Plum tree had had so many fruits on it that it collapsed. (You will recall perhaps that it succumbed to disease earlier this year). I reckon you're right about the snow thing too. Funnily enough, snow can often protect plants like a blanket - shielding them from piercing winds etc.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your soil sounds very much like ours. Nearly left my boot behind in some of it on Saturday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Are those spring cabbage I spy - looking very healthy and my favourite leafy veg I crave it sometimes. What variety of pea did you plant be interesting to see if they pull through.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your gardens are looking so good!

    ~Lynn

    ReplyDelete
  8. It certainly will, Jo.

    Yes I remember, Mark I guess next year will be a lean year though as it tends to go in cycles. Pity the trees can't take it in turns.

    It's very clayey (if that is a word), John.

    There are some spring cabbages Elaine - the peas were Meteor. According to the blurb it is ... Very good winter hardiness, even in exposed areas as a an autumn variety. We will see!

    Thanks Lynn

    What a strange comment Michael! If I'm a hippy I am in very good company!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Which variety of raspberry do you have?

    I put in 'Autumn Bliss' and 'Octavia in July.
    The Octavia haven't done much although the flavour is superb but the A. Bliss are STILL producing one or two edible berries.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The red ones are Joan J, BW. We have some yellow Autumn Gold which haven't done as well so next year we will replant them. Replanting worked wonders for Joan!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.