Getting the allotment ready for open day?

The Thursday before the open day and it was another warm and sunny day, just the right weather for digging up the potatoes.The shaws were cut down 3 weeks ago – earlier than usual because of the blight but cutting them down and leaving the potatoes in the ground for a couple of weeks hardens up the skins and so better for storage. We left them to dry off in the sun for a couple of hours before bagging them up and they will be kept in the dark now to prevent them going green.

The picture shows the variation in crop for 4 different varieties – Casablanca, Red Duke of York, Charlotte and Yukon Gold. Three or four tubers were planted of each variety so overall we got a reasonable crop considering the growing season was cut short. The main crop is still to be dug up and usually gives the largest number.  The garlic was dug up too and hung up to dry on the fruit cage and we spent the rest of the time doing a final weeding, grass cutting and tidyup.

Jobs for next week:  Plant the bulbs! (Didnt get round to it this week). Cut the old leaves off the fruited strawberries. Pot on some strawberry runners for new plants. Give everything a final feed for the year

Hope to see you all on Sunday:  2pm to 4:30 at the allotment!