July already, and all's going well!

Welcome back to our allotment retreat, where all is coming along lovely. Pictures for this weeks update were taken on the 28th June so are all fairly current. This beautiful Marrow flower greeted me, and doesn't it look healthy. We now have 2 of these planted up and both are looking great. The second plant was planted slightly differently, on the advice of Bill: I dug a hole about 18" deep, and filled with alternate layers of soil/garden compost/grass clippings. The idea is that the layers will heat up as they rot down, creating a hot base for the marrow to grow in. Sounds good to me !

I recently moved our Rhubarb Crown(v.Victoria) from a "Path" area to its new how in the newly created fruit bed. Although not showing in this picture, the crown has already sent up new shoots, indicating to us that it is happy in it's new site. At least now it won't get trampled underfoot so often! In all, we now have 3 good crowns on the go, 2 back at Reads Retreat, and this one at the plot. Yummy, looking forward to bountiful supplies of jams and crumbles.


We're amazed on a daily basis at the growth rate of the various climbers planted up at the plot. We were a tad worried a month ago as the growth rate was so slow. The plants we had started at home and later transplanted on the plot had all died off, leaving us the only option of planting seed straight into the ground. Our fears that have been allayed, the only problem now is remembering what we planted where! There's a mixture of Runners(v.Scarlet Emperor), Beans(v.Borlotti), French Beans(v.Blue Lake), and Climbing Purple Podded Beans. We'll have to wait and see!

Our planting's of Chard(v.Zilver) are all growing well, so well in fact that they will have to be thinned out soon. At least that will give us some young leaves for the kitchen! Elsewhere on the plot we have more greens planted in the form of Spinach & Curly Kale, and we're trying to think of what to grow next. Land is becoming free as we take harvests of new potato's, and we don't like to see ground go to waste.


Final pic for today's quick update shows the view looking back over the plot. Bottom left is our First Earlies(v.Rocket) bed, and as of yesterday, this space is now clear as we have harvested a bounty of spuds from there. See separate post for details.
All in all, it's looking lovely, though still plenty of work to do.

We hope you'll join us again soon for more news from the plot.
Till then, enjoy your gardens and plots. Take care,

TTFN.