Allotment Garden: Allotment photographs for July 2017 second post.

Monday, 17 July 2017

Allotment photographs for July 2017 second post.

As I have quite a bit on the allotment at the moment I thought that I would divide this post into two. I got down to the first potato bed.
The black berries and loganberries are next alongside the mini swale path.

So the three sister and carrots bed.

Potatoes gone over.

and

Herbs down the path. Sage, lemon balm, mint, marjoram,
rosemary, hyssop, chives, garlic chives, fennel, chamomile, etc.

I have let the herbs grow over the path which is a bit irritating in the wet weather especially when I have my best trousers on. You might say that I shouldn't go down the allotment in my best trousers but I am not going to change just to water the tomatoes. I will let them flower because they seem to attract a lot of pollinating insects.

The loganberry and blackberry have thrown up a lot of
long stems.

The loganberries and blackberries have virtually finished fruiting and the old stems will be cut out and the new will be carefully tied in. I will be using the old stems on the new windrow compost heap. The canes will be cut into small -5cm -10cm pieces before adding to the compost. The new canes will fruit next year so I will give each cane about 6 inches of space above and below and then cut out all of the extra canes. If I try to tie in all the canes then they get even more crowded than they are now.

The shallots, red onions, elephant garlic and garlic have all
been harvested.

I have put the harvested alliums on the shed roof because it get really hot up there. It is in full sun for most of the day and if that doesn't dry them off, so that they store well, nothing will. The onions don't need the net now but I will leave it on until I harvest them. They are all bending over now. I will dry them on the roof of the shed then tie them in strings and hang them up in the little store shed. Where the garlic has been taken out I have planted four lines of celery and two of celeriac. The rest of the bed will be sown with clover as a green manure. I am going to scrape off the woody shreddings mulch and put it to one side. The whole bed will have a top dressing of compost so that I can empty the Dalek bins for space for the new windrow compost heap. The clover seed will be sown into the compost. I will not dig the bed. I have hoed it and this will be sufficient cultivation to allow the clover to thrive.

Celery and celeriac.

Oca under the King of the Pippins apple tree.

Last year the oca spread itself right over the path so I expect that it will again this year. I have some apples on the tree but not that many.

A few hanging baskets round the shed. Fan trained red
currant on the concrete reinforcing wire cropped well.

I water the pots and the hanging baskets but nothing else except the greenhouses and cold frames. You can see the shallots drying on the roof of the shed.

The birds are throwing all the mulch onto the path.

The summer raspberries have gone over now and the autumn ones are just starting to fruit. I will cut out the old canes and tie in the new ones for next year. I will cut up the old canes and put them on the new windrow compost heap. I have cropped the comfrey about three times this year and it is growing back strongly again. The hedge is looking much better this year and a lot of the big holes are being filled with new hawthorn stems.

Not sure what variety of apple this is but it does not keep
so I will be eating this straight from the tree.

This tree has thrown up some water shoots from the trunk which are more vertical than the old trunk. However, if I cut the top off down to the water shoot, I will be cutting off all these fruiting spurs. The strawberries have fruited well this year. I will probably move the bed though or make it much bigger planting new plants where the sweet peas are now.