Demonstration allotment week ending 17 August 2014

Posted August 14, 2014

The compost heap has been rotting down since the spring so we moved the material still to be transformed into the empty bin to loosen it up and help it rot down more quickly. The warm summer has helped to rot down the spring green waste quickly and we already have a good amount of compost waiting to be added to the beds later in the year. Both heaps have plastic covers to keep the rain from washing the goodness away.

All the onions are now lifted and drying so we can use the empty ground to sow a green manure to help fertility. Two green manures were sown, buckwheat and winter rye; both as ever netted against the pigeons and rabbits.

The winter brassicas are slow in getting going but big enough now to need good solid stakes to keep them upright in the winter gales so another job caught up with.

The warm summer has meant an earlier start and finish to some of what we grow. The broad beans are now over. The tops were added to the compost heap but the roots left in the ground since they fix nitrogen which you can see in the nodules on them. The dwarf French beans are just about finished but we still have the succession sowings of peas and the runner beans are in full flow. A week is a long time to a courgette so we acquired a couple of marrow-sized ones over the week. They were taken off so that should give a boost to the flowering and hopefully more small courgettes. Still picking lots of delicious and colourful fresh veg.