More Weeding and Planting Out. Peas and Currants

After another wet week, Sunday was sunny and a very hot and humid 31 c.

We did lots more weeding and interplanted pak choi seedlings among the savoy cabbages and kale. The pak choi will have been harvested before the space is needed by the brassicas.  We finished planting the row of dwarf French beans.  We also planted out a few more runner bean and pea plants, and some butternut squash among the sweetcorn.

Suddenly there are lots of peas so we started to harvest them from the bottom of the plants. There are ripe currants too. We should pick them. There are still plenty of early onions, broad beans and early cabbages.  Some of the first early potatoes are in flower so we should have new potatoes very soon, and baby carrots.

It looks as if we will be able to get another half plot next door but one to ours.  If we do we could possibly grow enough potatoes and onions to last all year.

Brassicas, French Marigolds and Cabbage Whitefly. Astonishing Weed Growth

There has been a lot of heavy rain in the past week but it was dry on Sunday and most of Monday so we planted out our brassicas and added crushed egg shells to the planting holes to make the soil alkaline.  We planted out Brussels sprouts, savoy cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, purple sprouting and black Tuscan kale.  Some of the plants are probably a bit close to one another but we can thin these out later if the slugs don't do it for us first.  We planted some French marigolds around the brassica bed as they are supposed to deter cabbage whitefly which are quite a problem on our allotment.

We also started a row of dwarf French beans where we have lifted most of the first row of early onions.

Everything is growing very fast and the amount of weed growth over the past couple of weeks is unbelievable.  We did some serious weeding and strimming, and will need to prioritise this for a while.

There are quite a few nice looking blackcurrants, much better than last year, so the pruning was worth doing.  We netted them to keep the birds off.

Brassica Cage

It was a very wet weekend apart from Saturday afternoon when we were all on the plot to finish the brassica bed and make a new cage to keep the pigeons off.  The rain was badly needed.  The ground was very dry, even an arm's length down where we dug the holes for the alder poles we used to make the cage.  Brought crushed egg shells (a good source of lime) we have been collecting to put in the brassica planting holes but it was too wet on Sunday to plant anything out.

The purple sprouting is finished and has started to flower.  It was badly infested with literally thousands of cabbage whitefly so we pulled it all up and buried it deep in the compost heap.

Planted another row of beetroot where the purple sprouting was.

There is lots of weeding to do.

Harvested broad beans, green garlic, early cabbage and Japanese onions.  Also tried a few broad bean tops before the blackfly arrive.

Potato Feeding and Earthing Up. Beetroot. Early Onions

We have more or less caught up with what we should have done by the beginning of June.  Today we weeded the early potatoes, fed them with comfrey tea, earthed up the main crop and finally got around to planting a row of beetroot (Boltardy).

Some of the chitted sweetcorn seed we planted earlier in the week has come up already.  Once it is established we can plant out courgettes and marrows between the plants and maybe add some climbing beans if the corn looks like it is is going to be tall.  This is the 'Three Sisters' planting, a native American growing method.  The principle is that the corn provides support for the beans, the marrows and courgettes shade the soil and suppress weeds and the beans fix nitrogen which benefits the sweetcorn.

There are plenty of broad beans now so harvested the biggest ones from the bottom of the plants.  Also picked some spring cabbage leaves, some green garlic, an early onion and a few strawberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants.

Green Garlic. Planting Out Beans. Seed Sowing. Mulching

Over the past week we have planted out 12 climbing French beans, 18 runner beans, and a block of  72 chitted sweetcorn seeds, spaced 15" apart.

We sowed more red spring and silverskin onions, four rows of swede and a row of almost out of date perpetual spinach seed.  At home we planted some sunflower seeds saved from  last year, and another 36 dwarf beans as only a few have survived a snail attack.

The soft fruit bed is infested with bindweed, dock, couch grass and other hard to get rid of perennial weeds so we mulched it with black plastic, leaving just the fruit bushes poking out.

Tried some green garlic.  Mild, garlicky and very tasty.  You can eat the whole plant.  There are some baby broad beans and spring cabbage leaves.  All but the last row of potatoes have come up and there are flowers on the peas.