End of August Allotment Tales

There was a cooler feel in the air on Thursday morning with the first rain in what seems like weeks – heavy showers, though too short to make much of an impact on the dry soil.
We harvested tatties. Nadine, which gave us a great crop of large, clean-skinned potatoes from just 3 shaws. We selected 5 (plus 2 spares) for the Caley/FEDAGA “Grow and Show Together” Autumn Show to be held at Saughton Park on the 6th and 7th September. We’ll keep them in a cool, dark space (on a velvet cushion!) till then.

Nadine

We also dug another of our earlies – Sharpes Express, though these were less impressive in terms of quantity and resembled a Moomintroll family in shape.

Just some of the produce on Open Day

With the Autumn Show in mind, we’ve left the carrots and beetroot in the ground for another week, but have selected some fine-looking onions, ready to be primped for the show. Unfortunately, the peas and beans won’t be held back – though the upside is that we had plenty for our Open Day on Sunday, along with redcurrants and plums, which just keep on coming! The apples are ripening well too.  Our Autumn raspberries are out now and we’re still getting a few treasured handfuls of blueberries and brambles.

We weeded amongst the pollinators today, finding enough rogue chives to bunch up in the process. Before heading home, we decided to pull up the mint and sage. These have become quite woody and are rambling unchecked. They’re also affected by powdery mildew, so good to re-think this patch of ground.

This is a busy time in the Allotment’s calendar. We just hosted the Caley’s Harvesting, Storing and Showing workshop. And on Sunday, George Anderson lead a Summer Fruit Pruning workshop and the following week we’ll be participating in the Caley/ FEDAGA Autumn Show. Lots of fruit and veg to either pick for stalls or hold back for showing.

George’s Workshop: This went well, with over 20 participants from allotment sites across the city and from across the water in Fife. We were so lucky with the weather, bright and breezy with very little rain. Everyone appreciated George’s informal but very informative masterclass. The workshop was packed full of handy hints for pruning apples, plums and currants – with the focus on building confidence to have a go, rather than letting trees get out of hand from fear of doing “the wrong thing”. It was great to meet fellow allotmenteers and gardeners, share experiences, ask questions and to leave feeling inspired and enthusiastic – pruning demystified!

Jobs for next week: Finish the pruning tasks from George’s Workshop; harvest and prepare fruit and veg for the Autumn Show; weed and possibly water; mow the grass.