Today is the first time this year we've come back from the allotment weighed down with produce. It was especially pleasing as our friends came along for the walk and fresh air and went home with a bag of new potatoes, raspberries and lettuce for their tea!
Things still appear to be about 2-3 weeks behind where I'd expect them to be but most plants are now strong and healthy and looking like giving a decent crop. I picked the first handful of French beans today and the runners have loads of pretty red flowers for the bees to pollinate. The courgettes are just starting to bear fruit and we shouldn't need to visit the greengrocer for potatoes or onions again for a long time!
Most exciting for me, the first of my Mammoth pumpkins has set fruit. I have a number of different squashes growing but this is the one that I'm focussing my attentions on. It will have little culinary value, save for supplying a few gallons of pumpkin soup over the winter, with the main aim being to grow as big a pumpkin as I can. I will nurture this first fruit, allow a second to form as a back-up, and then pinch out any further female flowers so the plant can focus its efforts on producing me a whopper! It will be fed weekly with seaweed extract and organic tomato food and be ready for picking some time in early October. I'm not setting any real targets for size, other than I want to carry it off the plot with the help of a wheelbarrow!
Tomorrow I'll be back to the plot to start planting some of the winter veggies. It seems bizarre to be thinking of winter already but they need to go in now to have sufficient time to establish. Musselburgh leeks and some of my sprouts will go in where the broad beans have finished and the Purple Spouting Broccoli will take over from the onions and garlic.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
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