The allotment team enjoying the benefits of warmth and less wind.

Members of the allotment team are still enjoying warm days for working on the allotment. Everything is burgeoning and the quality is amazing because of the heat and lack of rain and wind.

The strawberries are over so the old leaves and most of the runners were cut off, leaving only enough to grow on as new plants. A good watering and feed will get them into good heart for next year.  The early sown peas are finished but there are still some to come because of succession planting.

They had the first proper pick of the carrots and they were an excellent size and quality. Putting an enviromesh cover over them from the moment of sowing pays dividends in preventing carrot root fly.

The autumn raspberries were netted today with the fruit beginning to ripen on the canes which were cut down to 40cm in the spring to give an earlier crop. This is coinciding with the summer ones this year but you can never have too many raspberries so not a problem.

There is a good apple crop on the way but since the apples are on a restricted rootstock, not too many are left to ripen on the trees. It is better to have fewer big apples than a lot of small ones so where there were two apples growing from a bud, one was removed and where there were three, one was removed, as well as any damaged ones. Doing this means the tree doesn’t exhaust its energy in ripening too much fruit and reduces the chances of getting into a two-yearly fruiting cycle.  The same applies to plum trees so the fruit was thinned out on the Victoria plum. The other plum variety – Denniston’s Superb is looking poorly and has little fruit this year.

Just look at these Tayberries – the best ever crop.

Open Day Sunday 25 August 2pm-4pm. George Anderson will be there to give a workshop on summer pruning of fruit and we’ll dig up the potatoes in the Biochar trial and see if the results match those for the cabbages. All offers of help including home baking welcome. There will be a plant stall for any unwanted plants plus produce such as jam.

Dalkeith Show dates Saturday 7th September 1pm-4.30pm and Sunday 8 September 12 noon – 4.30pm in the Dalkeith Schools Campus, Thornybank, Dalkeith.
(FEDAGA show will not take place this year due to lack of support.)
Jobs for next week: Keep up with the weeding; Watering including the autumn raspberries; Picking the ripe fruit and veg.