Can you dig it?

Apologies for 90s throwback reference. But I am a very happy lady. The plot is (almost) all dug over. With the help of Tom the majority has been dug and weeded. The herb/ rhubarb bed needs complete clearing of creeping buttercup which is living up well to its name. And the 'extra bit' by the water butt needs a bit of an overhaul and some thought on what would survive in such an over shadowed and out of the way place.

Thankfully for our insides there weren't that many Jerusalem artichokes coming from the remaining plants. A row of tubers were replanted by the wall and the section by the compost bins was sown with garlic. Shallots went in edging the wall border by the water butt. I did have onion sets too but as space was limited I concentrated on harder to find and more expensive alliums. I might pop them in the garden and see what happens. I have also read that you can grow onions in seed trays for planting out later so I might try that later.

A few patches show signs of self seeding/ overwintering eg chard/ beetroot. If we dug them up by accident the protocol was to apologise to the plant, replant it and hope for the best.   On the whole though I decided not to trust Tom with handweeding the patch as a) it's not a very fun job and b) I wasn't sure he would no pull out the good seedling but leave the weeds. So I still have to do this. Fun.

The weather has been lovely - dry but cold for the year. I don't mind the cold as once your are digging you warm up pretty fast. However the cold does mean we haven't spread out the manure or compost yet as it would not only keep the moisture in (good) but also trap the cold in (bad). I'll just have to wait until a warm midday to try to capture some of the sun's warmth in the soil.

Next steps are to:
- cover the earth with cardboard/ carpet/ manure/ compost.
- Dig potato trenches
- Chit potatoes
- Sow broad beans for succession
- Repot the blueberry shrubs at home
- Sow onion sets into trays
- Give carrots another go but in pots to avoid the troubles with growing in soil. Try coloured varieties.

The hungry gap comes late

The recent (ongoing) weather has been a disaster for the crops this year - yields are down YOY and the cupboard is bare. There is little hope of anything else coming off the plot in the near future - the beans have not survived brutal slug attack and the Brussel sprout/ curly green kale plug plants were devoured by snails in our garden.

The beetroots are looking ok though so will plant more of them (much to Tom's disgust) and I will try the supermarket salad trick again. Basically buy a tray of supermarket living salad, separate out into plantlets and replant in real soil with a decent spacing.  Surround by copper barbed wire to deter snails (I may be over-reacting here) and wait for your instant salad to grow.

With my brother-in-law over at the weekend I didn't get much allotment time but I did hear tales of prolific tomato and cucumber plants in greenhouses in Germany. No such luck here. Even friends who grew tomatoes under cover have reported that plants didn't really flower enough for a good crop.  I have a measly couple of chili peppers on the grafted pepper plant I bought last year from Hampton Court flower show. Clearly, I will have to find an alternative source for this year's chili jelly.

What I do have in abundance are weeds. They are knee high now and a source for shame when I viewed them on Sunday on a flying visit to pick 1.4kg of raspberries.  Luckily I have the weekend free so I will rip up the worst offenders to compost them and reveal the brave remaining plantlets still in the allotment.  Perhaps I will also have to resort to larger ready to pick (almost) plants to at least give me a reason to visit the plot.

I did harvest a handful of blueberries which was fun but perhaps not the best yield from 2 bushes. No sign of currants (red or black) or gooseberries though being overwhelmed by raspberries may have cramped their style - must move them this Autumn.  The good old Jerusalem artichokes seem to be ok though I will cut back the grapes to allow the torrential rains to get to the roots as it would be ironic if this year of all years they suffered from drought (as my container potatoes seemed to).

According to gardenorganic.co.uk these are things I could be sowing now:

Swiss chard

until mid August, or end of August undercover. To brighten up your winter plot, try Rainbow chard. Stems can be orange, yellow, red, bright pink or even white!

Peas	maincrop, mangetout and sugarsnap until end of July

Pak choi

until end August

Kohl rabi

until August. Try Azure Star, striking blue/purple ‘bulbs’ with white, mild flavoured  flesh

Calabrese

until end July

Beetroot

early and maincrop; until July. Try 'Boltardy', good resistance to bolting, with fine   texture and flavour

So mainly leafy things and brassicas - roll on Autumn and the new crops on the block.