Allotment chores on a pleasant day.
A pleasant day to get on with the allotment chores. The strawberries are over so the netting was taken off and put over the area that had grown the shallots and has now been sown with buckwheat as a green manure. This should give the seed a chance to germinate without being eaten by the pigeons and pheasants.
The onions are a good size and they were eased out of the soil just a little to break the roots. This will encourage them to die down and begin the drying out process.
Last week the comfrey bed was very thoroughly weeded and cleared and the compost area tidied up. And weeding everywhere is a regular job.
We dug up the first of the potatoes today variety Sharpe’s Express and picked the first heads of the brokali – the cross between Chinese broccoli and calabrese. There are still plenty of broad beans and peas. The current row of peas for picking are sugarsnap.
There is plenty of fruit to pick. It is now a pleasure to pick the gooseberries now they are growing as cordons.
Picking the cordon gooseberries
There are also raspberries, brambles, loganberries and tayberries.
Saskatoon berries
The saskatoon has done very well since its move earlier in the year and for the first time has an excellent crop of berries. They look like blueberries but have a sharper taste.
Plenty of Discovery apples to come
Jobs for next week
- Tie in the new shoots of the soft fruit
- Cut off the old leaves on the strawberries and feed
- Feed all the fruit and veg
- Thin the apples
