Vinny's Allotment Plot

Back at plot for a couple of hours today. I sowed the spring cabbage a few days ago so shoud be popping up soon . Strange that my sprng cabbage are just maturing now as I am sowing for next years crop.
Took my hedge shears with me and after eating the few strawberries that were left I gave them a hair cut taking off all the foliage. This is supposed to envigorate them and they will produce useable runners to save. Whilst i had the hedge shears I gave my leaf celery and a single psb a hair cut as well.

I watered greenhouse tomatoes and Gigantes beans with a few other plants receiving water from my IBC tank. Because water is precious I now only water stuff soon after transplanting but once they are established I stop watering. 

I harvested two bushes worth of gooseberries leaving one green and one red still to harvest. Broad beans were ready so I got a boiling of those. The same with the first of my courgettes (took 5). I know I am a bit late but now they have started fruiting they should produce well.
The blue debri netting I put over my spring cabbage has done the trick of keeping the pigeons off it but as an added bonus has kept the cabbage white butterflies off them as well. I harvested one nice cabbage and put a cross in stem so it will keep cropping.
I fear the next glut will be the three different types of Frenchies which are in full flower now.
Onions are keeling over now and will soon be harvested as well.

Back on site this morning! (Thank goodness as it's chucking it down now!)

Decided to lift a double row of onions and replant area with brassicas. The onions came up easy enough and I decided to beef up the area with compost from the dalek. I struggled carrying a spade full of compost at a time then trying to chop up  compost in dalek to drop down so I could collect it from bottom.

After covering the 2 foot wide bed I then lightly forked the surface and finished up by bashing the lumps with the rake, followed by raking level....ish!
I then planted two staggered rows of what I think are PSB plantlets but they could be cauli's or calabrese as the pigeons decimated the seed packets at the end of rows in seedbed. Theer was a purple tinge to the stems of some so I am assuming they were PSB?
I then rigged up a Heath Robinson tent affair with a lump of debri netting and some wire mesh to hopefully to keep the pigeons off them until they get established. I spent some time munching raspberries and gooseberries to keep me fortified while I was there.

I have rainbow chard in modules at home to go in another onion bed once they get a bit bigger (the chard that is, as the onions are huge considering they are planted close together.)
I am trying to plan ahead for follow on crops as I hate to see bare soil. Looking ahead I also have cauli's and calbrese to plant out, the Spring cabbage has just germinated, I have elephant garlic and will be purchasing various autumn planted onion sets. The broad beans seeds are ready to go in later as well.

As always I finished up by doing a load of hand weeding which is a neverending pain of  job!

Today I uploaded a short 'walk over' of the plot. You will have to excuse the weeds and the wind noise at times, but in the words of someone famous "It is what it is"

https://youtu.be/bH7hKUOrjb4

I watched it Your onions and leeks look great. I won't show you mine.

I watched it Your onions and leeks look great. I won't show you mine.

Do you remember the onions from January?

https://youtu.be/NTVFL0mUfPo

It looked really good except, for me, the sound was a bit out of sync with the video.

It looked really good except, for me, the sound was a bit out of sync with the video.

That would be the pregnant pauses where I forgot what and where I had sown/planted stuff ? Also I was sometimes prattling on about summat that didn't bear direct  relation to where I was pointing the phone!

Thanks for the tour Vinny

Had look at both Vinny, brilliant to see the changing seasons.

Went to plot today, as I do most days!  Lifted a bed of onions then tipped a bag of grass clippings over bed to act as a mulch until I decide what to put in it? Probably brassicas of some description?

The toms were looking very bedraggled as it had been about three days since I visited!  I gave them a good watering and think they should pick up ok. I also watered the Gigantes beans which it was nice to see had some bees working the flowers! 

Cut myself a cabbage, cuting a cross in the stem to see if I can get a few small cabbage heads growing which are just a nice size for a meal for one. 

The dwarf Frenchies are now in full growth and I gathered a tray full of beans.

The courgettes are doing well, both green and yellow and I gathered what was available before they grew massive and turned into marows! 
Tried to add an attachment but got an error message saying 'Site could not be reached'?
After doing a bit of hand weeding and sowed a row of spinach I set off for home with my spoils from the plot!

Not a bad haul for today and I could have had added  lettuce, garlic and  broad beans, but left them for another day. Onion bhaji's here I come!