Allotment Corner

Saturday morning and I finally got myself to the allotment for the first time in a month.  I was desperate to get there, but just didn't seem to be able to negotiate the time this week as a few unexpected things happened which kept me close to home.

I was expecting it to be a bit overgrown and it was a little, but it was mostly a bit of a tangled mess as I hadn't tied up my tomato plants well enough and they were sprawling all over where they were planted.  It took a while to untangle them and reduce the foliage so that the sun could get to the fruit and they weren't competing for nutrients.  I'd lost quite a few tomatoes due to their becoming overripe and splitting which was a shame.

There were four huge marrows (large courgettes) to harvest, one from each plant which I expected to be honest.  I'm hoping now I've removed them that the plants will start growing more small fruit again.  Not sure what I'm going to do with these monsters, but I'll think of something.  Any suggestions welcome.  There were a couple of cucumbers, some tomatoes, quite a lot of rhubarb, and some beans to harvest too.
 
I was pleased to see that there were a few cobs of sweetcorn on my plants, lots of small cucumbers growing, and the living salad that I had planted before going away had established well and should give us lots of lovely curly salad in late summer/autumn.

In my rush to get there, I forgot to take my camera so I couldn't take any pictures save for these of the produce when I got home, but will be returning later this week and will take some then.

 

 

I also tided around a bit, removing any bindweed, nettles, comfrey and brambles that were starting to encroach again and gave most of the plot a good water.

Going away in August is really the worst time for any allotmenteer.  I have a friend whose husband will never go away in August for that reason and possibly because the airports are madly busy, but with it constituting most of the school holidays, we don't have a lot of room for maneouver.  Hopefully though there is still a month or so of warmish weather and growing time left to make up for it.