14/6/26 - Shed Smells Like Garlic
Good evening allotment diary reader. I trust that this finds you well, and if you are a fellow grower or allotment holder, that you have been treated to a great weekend of weather to help you get all those little allotment jobs done.
This weekend saw the end of my recent period of annual leave, and it's back to work for me tomorrow, but that was no reason not to put in the usual few hours over the weekend, needed to look after and maintain my space. My last couple of posts have covered what else I have been up to this week, but to round things off, read on!
As the start of summer really kicks in, so does the start of the main crop harvests. Things have started off well this year, with an excellent harvest of strawberries and the lettuce crops all starting to appear on the plate. In recent weeks, we've also harvested the broad beans for this year and started taking pak choi and beetroot from various beds around the plot. Quite early on in their development, the garlic harvest was affected by rust. It's in the soil around these parts, and no matter which bed I use, it seems to get effected, but in good news, it still allows us to take an annual garlic harvest. This weekend, I notices the stems of the garlic plants were starting to lean over, and looking past the rust, noticed that the leaves were also starting to turn yellow. I took this as being a sign that there was no further growth to be had. A couple of days earlier, I pulled up one bulb to see what it was like, and though slightly smaller than expected, the bulb was well formed and had split into cloves. Rather than run the risk of any further damage to the crop, or any sort of rot setting in, I harvested this years garlic. On the whole, it's pretty good though the trend of slightly smaller bulbs continued through all the plants.
All the bulbs have been brought home and have now been strung up to dry in our shed at home. It's now safe to say that our shed stinks! Once fully dried up, I'll give them all a trim and either plaid them all up or cut the stems off and store the bulbs in a tray. So this has now cleared the first full bed of the year. It feels really early to be in this position already, but that's what's happened. Off the top of my head, I think the plan is for some red cabbage plants to go into this bed. For the time being though, I have given it a good weed and raked the soil over. Before the next crop goes in, I'll add some more manure or compost onto the bed and make sure it's fully recovered before the next planting happens.
Elsewhere this weekend, I have been keeping an eye on the onions. Some other plot holders on our site have already started making preparations to harvest their onions by bending or kinking over the stems of the foliage to start the die back process. Other growers have also had signs of bolting with scapes forming. I don't think my onions will bolt this year as they have all been grown from seed, but the ailsa craig variety do seem to have been more susceptible to allium leaf minor resulting in quite deformed leaves. The Bedfordshire champ variety seems to be doing well though, even if the mole squad has been having a poke about them! The bulbs themselves though seem to be doing OK, but during the next week, I may look at starting to harvest the ailsa craig bulbs to try and save them from any significant damage.
Sticking with the harvesting, this years peas are now producing a gradual harvest every few days though I am resisting temptation to harvest them too early, waiting until not only for the pod to swell, but also until the peas can be seen clearly pushing the side of the pod as they swell. Of the harvest taken so far, there have been one or two pods with a pea moth grub in them, but nothing too bad at all. For these, it will just be a case of just keeping on with the picking every few days. We are due some welcome rain later in the coming week, but the forecast after that is for the weather to start to turn quite warm again. Peas don't really enjoy hot weather, so it will be a bit of a race between waiting for them to be the right size, harvesting them and having the crop be affected by the hot temperatures.
One of my objectives for the allotment this year was to introduce a lot more companion planting into many of the beds. This was to bring more colour onto the plot as it's amazing how quick you get bored of everything being green, to attract more pollinators and to also aid the in perpetual battle against aphids and bugs. The purpose of many of the companion plants is to either attract the pests towards them themselves, leaving the crop plants alone, or, to deter pests from the area where the flowers are planted. In a small success for the objective, this week I have noticed an increasing amount of blackfly being attracted to these sacrificial companion plants (usually the dahlias or calendula) and not having them on the neighbouring crops.
In past years, black fly have caused a great deal of damage to my sweetcorn harvest, getting stuck into the cobs right at the earliest phase of their development and though I haven't planted any companion plants next to the main bed of sweet corn, there are some growing nearby. I hope that they do the job!
The last job for the weekend was to do some work in the communal areas of the plot where I started clearing nettles and brambles from our boundary fence. I only managed to do about 30 meters in the time I had as I only had a pair of garden shears to do the job. Nevertheless, I still managed to fill a bulk builders bag. The coming week, there are a few jobs to do on the plot, mostly weeding and harvesting peas, but I will also look at carrying on clearing along the fence line and the usual mowing.
A brief update for the final part of the weekend. It is all systems go at the moment and I am loving every minute of it! So, until next time, be good!