Vinny's Allotment Plot

Vinny I’m envious of your Mooli, this year mine’s bolted.

Vinny I’m envious of your Mooli, this year mine’s bolted.

I find mooli is very reliant on time of sowing? I'll have to check back when I sowed it, but I remember it is much later in season than most other veg? I like it because it is similar in taste to snowball turnips but you get much more 'bang for your buck' for a given space.

Vinny i sown mine on 3rd June the same day as my Snowball turnips.

Vinny i sown mine on 3rd June the same day as my Snowball turnips.

Just checked, I sowed mine on the 24th June. I remembered that back end of June to early July is ideal time to sow in my location.

Thanks Vinny I'll sow them later next year.

Couple of pleasant hours at the plot this morning even though the weather was freezing.

Hand weeded another bed and planted it up with strawberriea. It had elephat garlic in util recently so didn't want to put alliums in it.

Took the covers of  a larger bed which I had a good crop of onions from. Hand weeded and looosened the surface. Planted it up with a load of Durham Early deedlings I had sown  a pot  earlier in the year. I had loads of seedling so planted them reasonably close together so that every other one can be used for spring greens allowing the others to heart up. Once planted and watered in I covered them with glass until they are estblished then I may take off the glass and coverwith debri netting.
Watered the toms in greenhouse and tied in a grapevine, now that it has made its way indoors.Hoed off some of the paths which were looking tatty and left the weeds on the surface.
The only things left toplant up for this season are more strawberries, more Japanese onions, more spring cabbage and some normal garlic.The elephant garlic I planted isn'r showing through yeat but I am pleased with the Jaanese onion growth and the other bed of strawberries appear to be established.

I still have spuds to lift, loads of leeks,kale, swedes,mooli and one pumpkin to bring home at some time for the grandkids!

Well its been a while but I ventured back to the plot today to ow some Aquadulce broad beans under glass. First I had to harvest the leeks thatwere taking up space in the bed I wanted to use.
After lifting the leeks and hand weeding I tickled over the surface with the fork and raked it level. The seed packet supposedly had 50 seeds in it so I made eight rows of six seeds and dibbered each position.From then on it was a simple job to drop a seed at each station and push them a couple of inches into the soil with my finger.
Once that was done I covered the bed with glass frames.

I cleaned the leeks for my Daughter and put the roots and top of the leaves in the compost bin.

Is it really 2 moths since I as at the plot, the answer is NO as I have called in from time to time but just had a neb then left!

Todays weather was reasonably mild for the time of year with no wind or rain for a change!  I thought I would visit the plot mainly to plant out the Japanese onion sets that should have been planted a couple of months ago!  I had left them on the greenhouse bench under a missing pane of glass which allowed them to grow a few roots (purposely I might add) I was going to dig a bed over, but after a couple of spadefulls I realsed it was far too wet and claggy!
Luckily I had a couple of beds I had weeded in the autumn and tickled over with a fork. One of these diagonal beds was raked down and made a reasonable tilth. Into this  bed I planted brown & white onion sets intermittently.
After this I still had quite a few sprouted sets left so decided to pull up my sweetcorn from last year and tickle over the bed they were in.I then planted this bed up with onion sets, the only difference being I covered the bed with glass (solely because I had some and to experiment with covered and uncovered sets.)

My covered beds are doing well and the broad beans and spring cabbage are looking reasonably healthy! The elephant garlic is starting to show above ground as well.
The strawberries, both covered and uncovered aren't looking so good but I still have high hopes they will recover and do well. The Austurian tree cabbage is on its third year now and it's beauty to me is that the pigeons don't seem to bother it like other brassicas? (Fingers crossed)

Before I left I pruned the grapevine I have in a large container and only left the two vines that I have trained into the greenhouse! I had no secateurs handy so I used the hedge clippers for pruning!  I have high hopes I will get some grapes off this , this year.

I took quite few photographs so I will see how many the forum allows me to upload!

I called at the allotment on Wednesday because I was in the area and wanted to see what damage the storms had done. It appears I got aay reasonably lightly compared to other plot holders whose fences had blown down!
My gate was a bit mangled and one of the frames of glass I had covering my broad beans had been blown off and smashed over my elephant garlic. Luckily I had a spare and after fitting it I put two large fenceposts on top of frames to hopefully hold them down!
Next time I am there I will gather up the glass and puti in my bin at home.

Shame about the broken glass but it could have been a lot worse.