Frosted but not unredeemable

I went down to the allotment today and the potatoes have been touched by the frost.  Some of the stems have turned black and they will die off.  There are a lot of stems and leaves that have not been caught and these will survive well.

My French beans were also caught and some of the leaves are turning black.  They will be fine though.  It means that the side shoots are more likely to grow now and take over from the main growing tip that got caught.

I hope there are no frosts this week.

Not very exciting but I planted out the sweet corn and the summer cauliflowers.  I had a small area next to the onions that I had left for the sweet corn and without any previous calculations twenty of them fitted just right into the space available.  I watered them in with comfrey liquid.  While I was there I had a look at the onions under the cloches.  They were doing remarkably well but a lot of weed had grown in between them.  I resolved to come back and deal with the weeds later.

The problem with summer cauliflowers is that they are very susceptible to cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae).  In fact summer  cauliflowers are more susceptible than most  to all the brassicae ailments.  The cabbage white caterpillars, that are little green jobs, get into the flowers of the cauliflower and are a devil of a job to get out when they are washed.   As I had such a poor survival rate of winter cauliflowers this year and subsequent poverty of cauliflowers, I resolved to plant some summer ones to compensate.  

I planted the cauliflowers about one foot apart and one foot from the previous row of summer flowering brocolli.  I only wanted one line of summer cauliflowers but it needed special protection

I had a small 5mm mesh net that would do the job really well but I was not sure whether it would cover the row completely.  The plastic piping supports were put in every two feet -I find that this is a convenient spacing that prevents the net sagging in the middle.  When I put the net over the supports, I found that it fitted very well and giving the cauliflowers enough room to develop free from cabbage white butterflies.  

I weeded and hoed the Early Onward peas then watered them.  They are about 6 inches tall now.  It was very dry and when I started hoeing I was creating clouds of soil dust.  Even when the soil was wetted there was still  a lot of dust.  Eventually I gave up the hoeing and did not do any more.  

I watered the dwarf French beans and the runner beans.  Now comes the worrying bit.  There is likely to be frosts this week on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  The beans may well survive this weather but they will probably be nipped back a bit.  I hope they are not too affected.  The potatoes are well up and the plants are developing well so they may well be affected by the frost too.  I will try to earth them up a little more tomorrow.  

I took the cloches off the onions and weeded around them carefully.  As I had disturbed them a little, I gave the onions a good dose of comfrey liquid.  The person that designed cloches that have the plastic stuck to the supports should be congratulated on producing something that is particularly difficult to use.  Getting the wire to stick into the ground with any kind of precision is futile and trying to prevent the plastic from sagging is equally as difficult.  However, I did eventually return the cloches to their original positions and moved on to weed the carrots.  

The carrots are under an enviromesh cover and this had to be moved back before I could weed.  It is easier than you think to do and I weeded carefully along the rows.  I watered on comfrey liquid and then recovered them.  

Afterwards, I went round generally watering things because of this very dry weather.  

Chilly December

I have just returned from holiday in Malta and Greece to a very cold England. The ground has been frozen for about two or three weeks now and little can be done in the allotment.

I went to the allotment yesterday with the intention of moving some of the black current bushes. Althought the top couple of centimetres were not frozen, below this was a thick layer of frost. Not the kind of ground to start planting into. The black currents will probably have to be moved in the spring if this weather continues.

Remarkably, I was able to get out some of the parsnips. They were excellent and shows you why thinning out is very important if you want big roots. I also got some carrots. I think that the ground was not so frozen here because of the horse muck I had put close to them.

Beetroot are very small but I harvested them in any case.

I took off some of the Brussel sprouts and I will prepare them today by peeling off the outer leaves. There are some plants that are producing large buds and some that are only producing small ones. I cannot remember the varieties that I planted so I will not be able to ensure I have large buds next year.

They did not burn down my shed on bonfire night which I am very greatful for. The committee put the bonfire closer to Tony's allotment and quite far away from my shed.

Someone however put a load of fireworks on my allotment right where I had planted broad beans. I am not happy. These are the fireworks you stick into the ground. Needless to say I will be asking the committee why they pick on my allotment to do these things without any consultation with me.