Transplanting more seedlings

I have transplanted a lot of brassicae seedlings into pots and left them outside to harden off.  The one thing that I haven't got and really need is a big cold frame.  At the moment all the seedlings are on my patio.  Except for some of the lettuce, calabrese and leeks, I will probably give the rest away because there is nowhere on the allotment that I have space to plant them.

I watered yesterday but only those things that I thought would benefit from extra water.  I still haven't watered the potatoes although they do seem to wilt in the hot weather.  There are far too many to water with the watering can and we can't use hose pipes on the allotment site.

My first sweet pea flower came out yesterday.  It is in the "others" line,  an October sown one, and creamy white so it is Jilly.  It is not very good because when I brushed past it I broke it a little so now it is a little contorted.   It can flower away where it is until it forms pods and then I will take it off.  If you can get Jilly to flower really well it is a magnificent cream coloured flower.

The blackcurrants are beginning to change colour now and I will have to harvest them.  I have a special tool to take them off the branches so I will be using that in the next few days.  I am afraid that big bud mite  Cecidophyopsis ribis has severely affected most of the blackcurrants and I will have to take them all out and bury them after they have been cropped.  I will take off all the branches when I crop the currants and see if the new growth shows any sign of big bud mite.  If I can save them, I will because they are heavy croppers.  If not, I will have to replace them.  I will get Ben Hope because it is slightly resistant to big bud.


As my outdoor cucumbers have suffered due to the cold winds, I am going to pamper them a little.  It might set them back but I hope not.  I am going to dig them out, dig a shallow trench and fill it with grass mowings. I will cover the grass with soil and then put ring culture pots on the top of the mound.  I will fill the pots with compost and then plant the cucumbers in the pots.  Hopefully the grass mowings will heat up the soil and give the cucumbers a little more encouragement to grow.  This is more or less how the Victorians grew ridge cucumbers although they used cow muck to create the heat.  


I have some celeriac and lettuce that need to be put into this area of the allotment too.  The only other job that really needs to be done is to thin out the carrots.  I hate doing this until the thinnings can be used so I am waiting until they get a little bigger.  I have thinned out one row and I ate all the thinnings at the allotment when I was having my cup of tea.  I also weeded the carrots, however I noticed as I walked past yesterday that I have left one large stinging nettle Urtica Dioica.  How I missed it I don't know.  I will have to take off the net to take it out but I cannot leave it.  Maybe I will do this when I thin more of the carrots.  


Fred has given me some tomatoes.  They are a little ropey but they will probably produce some tomatoes.  I need to repot them using some of the home made compost. I have already done several.  Two are in home made compost at the allotment.  I put them next to the shed.  Another four beef steak tomatoes were taken home and put into the greenhouse.     


As it was growing over the pathway, I cropped the sweet cicely.  I put it into one of the big green butts to rot down into black liquid.  I will probably crop the comfrey in the next few weeks and put it with the sweet cicely.


So not much to do at the moment except watch to see that pests and diseases do not affect the plants.