I’ve just sown Florence fennel, half a dozen varieties of lettuce and two plants new to me – Kailan, a kind of Chinese sprouting broccoli and Celtuse, an heirloom lettuce whose stems, when it bolts, are edible.
Lettuce seedlings sown tightly together before being pricked out
I’ve also sown some Palla Rossa chicory and some frizzy endive, called Wallone.
They pair up well with the lettuce to provide colourful leaves for winter salads.
The mizuna I was given has flowered as has the rocket – it’s too hot for them and they should be sown earlier or later in the cooler months so they don’t bolt, flower and run to seed – so I’m growing some more in modules to plant out at the end of August.
Some more dwarf green beans are on the go, again in modules, for a late crop which will probably need fleecing in October.
The carrots I sowed in spring have done well – no sign of carrot fly.
Carrot thinings with some of my glorious sweet peas from saved seed – best year ever for them
They’re cheek by jowl with my Chicken Thigh Shallots (cuisse de poulet is the variety I grew from seed) which so far show no signs of white onion rot!! Fingers crossed that continues.
I also interplanted my red cabbage with carrots and the white kale has a line of beetroot between the rows.
Alex and I weeded them today.
We also built a structure for the Crown Prince squash on the compost heap!
That was fun.
We filled up a “new” compost bin I scrounged for free off a village Facebook page.
There were two but I gave the other to Alex as she said she needed one.
Tomorrow Mum’s gardener, Sarah is coming.
I was going to ask her to help me plant my new Myoga plant but I think I will pot it on first and wait until it gets a bit bigger and tougher before finding it’s forever home!
By the way I picked some kale for supper as we had the covers back while we were weeding.
I’m not sure what I’ll make with it yet.
But a white cannelini bean and white kale stew/soup is crying out to be made.
And finally today I saw a tiny iridescent turquoise beetle while I was pruning back the silver birch.
We also see greater spotted and green woodpeckers, the swallows have fledged and are fattening themselves up for their epic journey back to South Africa and Jonathan who mows the lawns and cuts the hedges took this photograph of a White Admiral in our garden!
I’m growing winter squash on top of one of the compost heaps.
The two Crown Prince plants seem to love the protected, sunny site with unlimited access to rich nutrients.
I’m growing my other smaller squash (Hokkaido) up a trellis – also an experiment.
Two failed but there are six or seven more that have thrived despite being rolled on by pheasants trying to make shallow scrapes in the soil to nest.
My courgettes are just beginning to fruit – they take a good month to get established once they’ve been planted out but should now romp away.
The unknown variety of dwarf green beans are in flower so I have high hopes of harvesting them soon.
I’m looking forward to my favourite green bean and cashew curry for lunch!
I’ve mounded up my potatoes (Sarpo Mira, Sarpo Axona, Charlotte and Pink Fir Apple) with extra compost to stop light getting to the tubers and turning them green – I took Charles Dowding’s advice and just tipped a two litre pot filled with homemade rough compost over the base of the haulms or stems of each plant.
They should be ready in a month or so.
Finally we’ve been eating the artichokes dipped in olive oil and vinegar dressing.
That’s what an old Norfolk boy, Pinky, told me when I got my first allotment fifteen years ago.
The white kale – from seed sent to me by my old friends Loz and Kirsten – is doing really well
Today Alex and I weeded the white kale and red cabbage – interplanted with carrots and beetroot.
We also hoed the other beds.
The Hokkaido squash are looking good, as are the leeks edging the bed.
I love using my oscillating copper hoe – it only disturbs the top couple of centimetres of soil and introduces a bit of air to the mix.
We planted out seven lemon crystal cucumber plants.
A jostaberry, which I bought for a couple of quid at East Anglian Potato Day back in February, is now in residence at the bottom of the garden.
It’s a cross between gooseberry and blackcurrant.
I can’t wait to try it.
I pruned my outdoor tomatoes which again has given the plants some more air and space around them.
The tomatoes like the protected site between the warm brick wall and the flowering asparagus
Good I think.
Congestion and overcrowding are not a good thing as they encourage disease.
Crimson flowered broad beans are not very productive – only three or four per pod – but they’re extremely tasty
I’ve harvested all my broad beans and have cut the plants down at the base – leaving the nitrogen bearing roots in the ground.
The coriander plants have also been pulled up – they’re drying indoors with the seeds on.
I’d like to save them as they’re a brilliant variety that are slow to bolt.
I had to pull up a few young sprouting broccoli that were badly stunted by aphids.
The other brassica cage after we’d pulled up the diseased PSB. We left the self sown rocket.
I washed the less affected ones with water gently rubbing off the grey woolly insects.
So today was a very productive day of tidying, tending, staking and tieing in wayward young plants to give them their best chance of success.
The next couple of days I’ll be sowing florence fennel, endive, chicory, lettuce and a late row of parsnips.
I’ll also be planting out some large well developed Swiss chard seedlings, hoping they don’t get decimated by whatever attacked the last lot I put in when they were much smaller.
Then I remembered my friend Di, who took over my allotment when I left Trowse, grows them every year from seed I gave her.
So I asked her to return the favour.
Nearly all of them germinated and I now have 20 planted out round four bamboo tepees I constructed today.
I’ll eat some fresh, the rest will be dried and saved for winter soups and stews.
Di has also brought me a shoot of my favourite perennial flower, Cephalaria gigantea, which I had planted at the gates to my old allotment from seed I collected at my previous garden in Rougham.
The giant yellow scabious will grow to at least eight feet tall and hopefully self seed at the back of one of our borders.
