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April Week Four Saturday 27th 2007 We headed down the allotment today with high expectations of ourselves, it was a beautiful day and there was lots still to do, so we rolled up our sleeves and prepared ourselves for a productive visit. Unfortunately the sun ranter dashed our hopes of doing any hard labour and the weeds which had suddenly sprung up all over the plot indicated that a decent weeding was in order before anything else. We set about the ground with hoes and rakes to complete this as our first job and manged to free the whole rear of the plot from every bit of unwanted plant life.  
'Earthed up spuds and BroadBean Flowers' On arrival we noticed that the soil wa not so dry as it had been in previous weeks, probably due to the rain we had a few nights previous which had obviously helped the soil to remain mostly moist until our arrival that day. However, despite this some of our plants were looking worse for wear. The runner beans we had planted last week as established plants wer just starting to wilt in the fierce sunshine and the brocoli from which we have been gathering a good harvest for the last couple of weeks had obviously decided enough was enough and has run to seed. 
'Last of the Brocolli' Our next (and what truned out to be the main) task of the day was to try and complete some easily accessible and removable netting to protect ur fruit crops. This was attempted last week but unfortunately was hampered by the purchase of an unsuitable form of netting and resulted in the begginings of a fruit cage which looked truly laughable. This time we were armed with some substantial flatpack netting and determined to get the job done. A frame to the rear of the fruit patch had already been constructed and so the purpose today was to attach some netting to the back of it which could be draped towards the front, completely convering the fruit and then be wound around a piece of wood to weight it to the floor an keep it taught. This also allows it to be wound up and back over the whole frame easily, making the whole fruit patch accessible once more. We did not have enough netting to cover the whole fruit patch but by the time we had finished attaching the netting to the rear of the frame and its winding ploe at the font we felt we had secured the most important parts of the patch from marauding winged nibblers. 
'Captured Strawberries' Afterwards we went back to any allotmenters favourite part of the day, harvesting. The Rhubarb obviously enjoying the early spring warmth had gone bazerk, and doubled its size again from the last time we had seen it. After picking the largest and thickest stems, ensuring to not allow the crown to be too exposed, we had about 30 sticks and thier leaves to deal with, which when we got home resulted in about 3 1/2 kilos of edible fruit. A final harvest was also made from the White Broccoli as most of the plants had decided to bolt, unfortunately despite a careful choice of only fresh looking stems from the plant as well as careful refrigeration and prompt usage, many of the cuttings we had taken to enjoy for our sunday lunch were ultimately brown and inedible. 
'Masses of masses of Rhubarb' During the weeding we noticed that many of our sowings made a few weeks before hand were beggining to show themselves, in particular the parsnips whch we though had all been unsucessful in germinating were beggining to break through the soil. The Radishes , mixed salads and brassicas were all flourishing under the horticultural fleece we had covered them with and suffered very little bird or slug damage, this result prompts us to consider using this to protect every possible directly sown crop in future years. We pulled a few overcrowded radishes just to firmly check on thier progress and were delighted to see healthy little roots which should be ready for picking very soon. 'Young Crops' Further seedlings basking in the warm weather were tiny beets, onions, carrots and chard, however we decided to make a few more sowings of varieties like parsnip, fennel and rocket on the plot before the day was out. Finally, once again on the topic of seedlings, a quick update on how some of our home sowings have gone. We have small forrets of leeks and tomatoes and have broccoli, cauliflower, celery and leggy runner beans all in various stages of hardening off. Many of the pumpkin and squash seedlings have already required repotting and are beggining to show thier first true leaves. After hardening off and as soon as soil and weather conditions are right we look forward to getting our nutrured little specimines in the ground and onto greater things. Please see full results in our seed and cultivation diary. 'Baby Seedlings' Following the disaster with the monolith last year resulting in acres of green tomatoes, we have also been able to revise and redesign the salvaged panels from it for use in housing this years tomatoes and chillies. We are only able to reclaim the use of two of the three panels due to some damage over the winter, but with a few bits of bolstering wood as well as a new perspective on how to orient and secure it to the ground we look foward to it being a useful warming tool for our nine varieties of toms, peppers and chillies. We will let you know how the renovation, relocation and restocking of this goes. |
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