The Summer Allotments (June 2012)

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The Summer Allotments (June 2012)

This blog I hope will make up a little for my absence from GoY during the last couple of months! As many of you will know it has been because I found myself a new job – as a carer – of our 5 year old granddaughter! An 8 to 5 job 5 days a week! Monday, 3rd September, was the last day I had my job – till the end of October!

During the summer I’ve only been able to spend a few hours a week on our allotments! The bad weather has also impeded me on occasions as well. Nevertheless I’ve been able to get lots of photos

As I’ve so much to talk about (!) & so many photos I thought I’d divide this blog in 3 parts! So each part will be dedicated to one summer month – starting with June.

Broad Beans

We had two varieties of these beans; an unknown one Gerry brought down (He’d lost the packet!) as established plants from his greenhouse at home, I had also grown some in the greenhouse on the allotment called Aquadulce Claudia. I received my bean seeds in a swap organised on another gardening forum where I also post.

Here are both varieties, now with pods:

Aquadulce Claudia:

Unknown variety:

Here is a picture of both varieties showing the difference in colour between them:

Here is a picture of both varieties after I finished shucking them:

Cucumbers & Water Melons in the greenhouse border

At the end of May I decided to plant out a few Cucumber & water Melon plants in the greenhouse border.

Here is a photo of the very first fruit:

Garlic:

My Garlic was looking ever so good at the beginning of June:

By the end of the month they were looking very sad for themselves & were covered in Allium Rust. After a bit of “detective work” on the internet I discovered that they were alright as long as it hadn’t entered the bulbs

Gerry’s Brassicas

One day around the middle of June Gerry came down to the allotment with lots of Brassica plants – only he didn’t know WHAT TYPE OF BRASSICA they were!

I can’t tell the difference, at this stage, either!

Here they are again a couple of weeks later – with Pinto beans germinating amongst them as well! This view is taken from the opposite end of the bed from the picture above, you can already see the difference in the Brassicas!:

Pinto beans:

I’ve found that these beans give a very good crop so I’ve sown them in several beds at different times:

Pulses

Pinto, Garbanzo beans & Lentils

Why are the 3 types all planted together you ask? Well our granddaughter likes to prepare Real Food for her dolls’ picnic & my wife gives her a couple of handfuls of these pulses & some white rice. She insists on mixing them altogether with water! When she goes home I gather them all up & the next day take them down to the allotment & sow them!

These are not for harvesting really, except perhaps the beans, but for green manure which I’ll dig in later.

Lettuce ‘Paris Island Cos’:

I sowed some Lettuce seeds in the greenhouse in February but this photo is included here so that you can see the name of this variety & also realise I haven’t made a mistake with its name:

Here they are just before I planted them out in the plot (These seedlings may not be the result of the sowing in the photo above. I made a number of sowings & I may not have taken photos of each one, but they are the same variety):

After planting them out they were critically inspected by Mr Robin! I think they met with his approval as he didn’t scold me while I was taking his photo!

Onion from sets ‘Sturon’

During March my brother, Ken, spent a few weeks with us & he helped me on the allotments. He really was a Godsend as without his help during that month I would have fallen so far behind that little of what I grew would have been planted in time! He helped me plant these Onions, which came as sets:

A month later & you can see the progress they have made in 4 weeks!:

Early Potatoes

I planted 2 varieties of potatoes of early potatoes in a bed close to the greenhouse. Gerry, as is frequent with him, wasn’t sure of the name of the variety he bought at a garden centre. There was an offer in which you could fill a plastic flowerpot with as many seed potatoes as you could get in it – twice – as the offer was 2 pots for the price of one! Gerry thinks they may have been ‘Picasa’ but he wasn’t sure:

The two varieties in the same bed at beginning of June

The two varieties in the same bed at the end of the month:

‘Arran Pilot’ is in the rows on the left of the picture:

Potatoes King Edward:

Potatoes Rocket:

Potatoes Arran Pilot flowering

Potatoes can also be very pretty when flowering!

Pumpkins at top of plot:

A guy from across the central path in the allotments field gave me a couple of Pumpkin plants as he had more than enough. As I didn’t really have space elsewhere at that time I decided I’d put them at the top of Gerry’s allotment being the only space free as the rest of the allotment had been planted up by that time:

Sweetcorn ‘Swift F1’:

At the beginning of the month Gerry brought down, & planted out, a lot of Sweetcorn ‘Swift F1’ plants that he had been growing in his greenhouse at home:

Here they are at the end of the month &, in spite of the cold, wet month we had, they have grown tremendously!:

Sunflowers behind shed:

Gerry brought down a half bucket of Sunflower seeds saved from the plants on the allotment last year. His birds didn’t eat as much as he expected & it seems that even the wild birds didn’t eat as many as other years. So he had lots of seed left! I planted a few rows of them behind our shed & a few rows in another part of the allotment:

Sunflowers in another part of the allotment:

Sweetpeas ‘Royal Family’:

The Sweetpeas my brother planted out for me in March are now flowering:

Tomatoes & Marigolds:

I planted out these Tomato plants for Gerry at the end of May. As the year before we had lots of Marigolds & Tagetes growing amongst our tomatoes, to attract the White Fly, I repeated the idea this year using saved seed from last year only they turned out to be Tagetes when they flowered & not Marigolds!

Lavenders, Calendulas, Cosmos, China Pinks & Verbena bonariensis at top of Gerry’s plot:

View along plot from shed:

I’ll finish here this L-O-N-G blog of Gerry’s allotment during June with my traditional photo along the plot from the shed:

Thank you for bearing with me & I hope you found this blog interesting.

• 9 Sep, 2012
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