Afternoon on the allotment

Got down to the plot just after midday today. Yesterday it was pretty heavy until mid-afternoon when it rained so I didn’t go down to the plot.

I did think of a cunning plan where I post in here everyday how warm and sunny it’s been here so everyone wants to move to Crewe and the house prices soar higher than London. I then sell up and move to sunny Spain. Oh well, just a thought.

Anyway today wasn’t too bad although I did put my waterproof in my pocket just in case. In the event, it didn’t rain.

First job was to harvest a few more tomatoes and all of the sweet peppers. It seems that the best of the sweet peppers start turning colour and some bug eats into them causing them to rot so I picked the lot.

The chilli peppers seem immune, can’t blame the bugs – I wouldn’t like to bite into one raw. Picked a load of those and my one, rather pathetic, pumpkin. Last year I had loads but this year just one 8″ diameter pumpkin.

I got a good portion of calabrese from the second flush on the plants and then a portion of runner beans and some of my climbing borlotti beans.

Nearly forgot, I also got about 10 of the small Red Egg aubergines and a couple of small black ones. We had some of the red aubergines in a risotto tonight for tea, not bad but they’re a bit strange being about the size of a bantam egg.

Back home with my booty for a cup of tea where Val was draining salted cucumbers, She’s trying storing them in salt, which we’ve not done before. If it works out she’ll be popping it up on the recipe section, no doubt. She’s going to put the small chilli peppers into jars of olive oil. We’ll give them to the relatives for Christmas – that should stop them bothering us for a year or two!

Back on the plot I creosoted the old shed roof that is going to be transformed into a compost heap since my palette heap is collapsing. While I was in the shed I found some teak oil. I knew I had some but it was under some bags. I really must tidy the that shed out. Put it onto the bench, gives a better finish over the Cuprinol.

Next I cleared the finished calabrese plants and a few other brassicas. We’ve a few reasonable cabbages that will be coming home shortly as well under the brassica netting but nothing decent in the cauliflower line.

Moved down to the bottom end of the plot to clear the patch where the raised bed is going. First rule with weeding is hoe them when they’re small and often. I’ve broken that rule so what a job. The crops might not have done so well this year but the weeds have done really well. Anyway the compost heap ended up four feet higher and the patch between the comfrey and the runner bean teepees is ready to dig over and put the raised bed on.

By now it was half past six and time to head home. Looking around some of the plots, well over half the area is paths with the raised beds set into them. No wonder they’re easy to look after.

It may well rain tomorrow but they’re threatening a nice day on Thursday so we’ll see what the day brings.