Good potato crop on the Allotment

Posted September 14, 2020

Catch up with latest activity from the Caley Demonstration Allotment. Our Allotment Volunteer Team are working within the current Scottish Government Covid-19 restrictions and, following the update last week, will have no more than six people from 2 households working on the allotment at any one time. Despite the restrictions they are still managing to get lots of work done and they keep the Caley Allotment looking brilliant.

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Thursday was a good day for getting the rest of the potatoes out and what a crop there was! Below is a picture showing our harvest from 1 row [3 tubers] of ‘Arran Victory’ (on the right) and 2 rows [6 tubers] of ‘Pink Fir Apple’. They were laid out to dry off before bagging up for storing in the shed. The ‘Discovery’ apple which is the earliest one for us is now beginning to be ready and we picked almost a full bucketful of them along with a couple of kilos of ‘James Grieve’. There are broad beans aplenty and the autumn rasps are in full flow too. We even have some blueberries left.

The broad bean plants which were bought by mail order were planted out. They are still somewhat spindly, but they will harden up and the aim is to have a winter supply of broad beans – we shall see! The courgettes are slowing down and the carrots which were sown a few weeks ago have shown no signs of germination unfortunately, but there are still some from a successful sowing much earlier. A green manure mix was sown in some of the empty beds to improve the fertility and keep the weeds down over winter.

Broadbeans

It is good to see the swedes holding their own after the destruction of the earlier planting and the slug attack on the second go. Second time round they were given a garlic infused watering so we shall do more of this if that is working.

Jobs for next week