Growth spurt

I managed to get a good six hours on the plot today, weeding, strimming and planting. The raised beds continue to do well, as do the courgettes, herbs, beans and brassica, but the onions are taking a long time to recover from the intense warmth and lack of water over the last few weeks, and many of the raspberries have dried up in the heat. The potatoes look fantastic though, and today I was able to harvest lettuce, French beans, beetroot, potatoes (early crop), courgette, some raspberries and gooseberries.

Whilst Plot 129 warmly welcomes most wildlife (the lavender for the bees seems to have gone down very well) an unwanted recent visitor has been digging holes everywhere, and has also dug up about half the carrots in the raised bed. Badgers do dig up carrots looking for carrot fly larvae, but the carrots didn't show any sign of badger investigations. Tempting though it is to blame Plot 129's black-and-white nemesis, the jury is still out on the culprit...

Carrot devastation

 In other wildlife news, I was very happy to see many more butterflies on the plot today than I've seen in ages. The most apparent species were Red Admirals, with Cabbage Whites an unsurprising second.

Jerusalem artichoke

The five Jerusalem artichoke corms that I purchased this spring have yielded just the one plant, leaving me with half an unplanted bed. With various seed packets due to expire this year, I thought I'd experiment with planting squash a little late in the spare ground. Fingers crossed they sprout! I've also filled in the bean beds with a mixture of nearly-expired left-over bean and pea seeds, in case they are still viable, and filled in the dead onion areas with a new sowing of mixed raddishes.

The lovely colours of Chard

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Bergamot

Sunflowers, with my neighbour's beans (much better than mine!) in the background

Lettuce profusion

July Heatwave

It's been three weeks since I was able to visit the plot properly, and during this time the UK has been experiencing a lengthy heatwave. I suspected that a barren, dried-up wasteland awaited me, but much to my surprise many plants have coped extremely well - none more so than those in the raised beds, despite my fears that they would have been amongst the first areas to dry out. The beds were filled with a mixture of soil and heavy recycled compost, and it seems as though this was an ideal mixture for retaining the water. The lettuce looked fantastic, and I was able to pick my first crop of baby beetroot from one of the beds.

Beetroot, purple raddish and yellow courgette

The ground-level hyssop-edged bed, planted with cabbages and cauliflower, also seem to have thrived in the heat, as have the sweetcorn, beans and herbs (especially the mint, pictured left). The courgette plants look healthy, although they probably needed more water to fruit successfully - I was able to pick a couple of courgettes, and there are plenty more coming. The onions seem to have struggled with the dry spell, however, not competing well with the weeds for water, and the potatoes are showing signs of wilting too.

As you probably know, there's no water source at the allotments, other than the river, and what we can collect in water butts from shed roofs. I've also sunk an old, cracked water butt to create a mini well, which is great for the spring but absolutely no use at this time of year, when the water table drops. This may have been a blessing in disguise, however, as we've recently had news that diesel has leaked into the groundwater from a nearby building site, and elevated levels of hydrocarbons have been found in the wells. The building site has kindly put in a tap for us with mains water so that we're not reliant on ground water, and I'm happy to report that the tap has been sited exactly opposite the entrance to plot 129! so I spent a happy and soggy hour or two collecting buckets of lovely fresh water and liberally watering all the surviving plants!

Clematis

Cut-and-come-again lettuce, looking wonderful despite the intense heat

The very surprising raised beds

Shallots, with yellow courgettes to the rear