Weekend Update

Saturday 9th June 2018

Committee Meeting on Spencer Road today and I moved a load more slabs and kerb stones plus items that will be useful from Spencer Road to Mill Green 



Sweetcorn beds uncovered de slugged and a sprinkle of environmental pellets applied in readiness for tomorrows plot visit 

Sunday 10th June 2018

Lark sweetcorn planted 

Normally the corns would be twice this size and look much more robust, It looks to be another disappointing year for sweetcorn at the moment, I've never known Lark sweetcorn to grow so slowly as it has the last two years. It wasn't just me that noticed it last year, I don't know if its the crazy weather we have been having the seeds or what?  

Cucumbers 

Really happy with the development of the Cucumbers that were donated to me by John, my Marketmore had germination problems and I have sown a load more seed and I also only got three Burpless germinate this year. Hopefully the re sown seed with germinate and flourish and I can set up a couple more frames for them to grow up on the new plot and get a later and longer harvest.  

Courgettes

Not planned this year, another gift from John as he had great germination rates and an excess, but they appear to be doing well at the moment. 

Raspberries

Will soon need some ties back to the wall  

Tomatoes & Radish 

Tomatoes are not doing as well as those in the back garden in the compost, so I gave then some comfrey tea to buck them up a bit, some coffee grounds and other fertilisers are in order as this bed was fallow last year and had a layer of spent MPC and coir added as a soil conditioner. In hindsight I should have applied to chicken pellets and or Blood fish and Bone as I didn't get any manure this year.

Two strips of Thompson & Morgan French Breakfast radishes seed tapes were sowed last week, one either side of the bed. That on the left was a pack with weed supressing technology and that on the right was a year older with a sow by date of 2017 and was just a standard tape. It look like the weed supressing tape is supressing germination as none were showing on the left where as many have germinated on the right  

Trees 

I've been saving the small Coke bottles, I cut the bottom off then puncture all around it and the cap and use the bulb planter to make a hole for it to go into. This enables me to water at depth within the bucket as trying to water from the top with coir is not very effective. I fill another bottle with sand to use as a plug to stop slugs taking up residence and evaporation 

Soft Bricks

The sand laid in metal trays in the greenhouse had dried sufficiently that a huge number of soft bricks could be made using milk bottles. The sand from another three old ones that had weathered and cracked were emptied into the trays to dry to fill another empty bottle next visit.  I find these so useful for holding down weed membrane and netting. 

Community Spirit 

A big thank you to Wally, John for helping with clearing the weeds for one of our new plot holders who was making great progress clearing her plot until she managed to get second degree burns on the hands and arms. She can't work her plot at the moment due to risk of infection, and as the Allotment Managers are due to visit we didn't want to give them any excuse to serve her with a non cultivation notice. Thanks to Keith for lending me his strimmer and offering some weed membrane, all you guys Rock!