6/12/25 - Raspberries Delivered, Planted and a Harvest
Good morning allotmenteers of the world. Thank you very much for dropping by on my most recent allotment diary entry, for a catch up on what I've been up to this week. It's been another wet week, but temperatures on the whole remain quite reasonable for the time of year. Things are still growing well undercover, and some of the plot is still plagued by whitefly which shows that we haven't yet had a good run of frost.
The big news for this week was the arrival of our bare root raspberry canes from Root Plants. 5 Canes of Autumn fruiting Polka variety. They have travelled from their home in the north of the country down to their new home here in Herefordshire. This time of year, the canes are in their dormant phase, so don't actually produce any growth. To give them the best chance in the spring, they go into the ground now so they have the winter to bed themselves in.
In recent posts, you will have read and seen the bed that I have prepared for these canes. Obviously, they will be semi-permanent, probably staying in place for several years to come. My plot has quite a bit of bindweed on it at times, although I do find it easy to keep on top of. At least, much easier than many people would actually have you think that it is. But, to help prevent not only bindweed, but any sort of other growth strangling the plants, I've put down a weed membrane, and using the blow torch, burnt holes in the membrane for the canes to poke through.
Elsewhere on the plot, I spent a bit of time watering in the undercover areas before taking this weeks harvest. We're close to finishing the harvest of outdoor carrots from the bathtub, another week and they will be done which means I will be able to give the bed a good weed, add some fresh compost to top it up and then let it settle down over the rest of the winter. Parsnips are still plentiful so a few of those came home with me ready for Sunday dinner. The outdoor lettuce is also still doing well, albeit a little small, but a couple of small ones also found themselves in the harvest box. Finally, another Chinese cabbage from the small polytunnel has come how, destined for a stir fry on Monday/Tuesday no doubt.
During the rest of the visit, I had a little tidy up and weeding around the swede. They haven't really lived up to expectations. They had fantastic green growth, but ultimately I think the lack of water over the summer has kept the root very small. The next dry day we have there are a bunch of jobs that I want to get on top of. I think the time has come to take out the Swiss chard. Also in the same bed are some leeks which went in right at the end of the season, but have really struggled to take compared to other leeks that were planted in a different bed at the same time. I might cut my losses and get that bed harvested, fed and then put down for winter.
In a similar way, the swede that are left in the ground can probably come out, or at least the ones that are of little use. The remainder of that bed has the parsnips in, so it will stay open until early next year at least, when the parsnip harvest is finished.
A quick peak at the red cabbage has also shown that growth seems of have stalled somewhat. This might be due to light, but also could be down to temperatures decreasing slightly. I still remain hopeful though that one of them will still come good in a couple of weeks, for Christmas dinner.
One big job for this winter is also to see if I can improve on my water harvesting to fill the IBC tank. At the moment, it relies on a small collection area of the small shed, and a makeshift black plastic lit on the tank itself. I think it can be improved significantly and I have considered building some sort of shelter with corrugated metal that stretches from the compost bins, over the top of the shed and over the IBC tank itself. That would more than double, possibly triple the collection area for water. But it doesn't stop there. I'm also looking at ways of collecting water off the large polytunnel too.
It's also looking a possibility that I will have a decision to make on the pond too. We've recently had an insurance renewal through for the allotment site, and part of the conditions of the new policy now state that if a plot holder has a pond on their plot, that it must now be fenced off to the minimum height of 1 meter. As you may have seen from previous photos, there are bigger potholes in our roads that fill with water than my small pond, so it's a bit annoying. Thanks to that, there are decisions to be made fairly imminently. I think to have a fence around a pond that is taller than the ponds length and width combined will look really stupid. So, the pond will have to go. Or, I could extend the pond to take up a much larger area around the flowerbed, even the flower bed as a whole. Then, a surrounding fence may not look so out of place.
That's it for now. The rain is hitting the back windows at home, so at the moment, there is little chance of a plot visit today and therefor, that will need to wait until next week. Until next time, happy growing!
