Allotment Crew

I have not been down the allotment much in the last couple of weeks due to the wet weather and being unable to get some cover to look after my wife as both my daughters were away together on a sister's long weekend holiday. 

My daughter Emma said, "I'm on an early shift on Thursday how would you like to meet me down the allotment after work", my answer was obviously "Yes" and so she and my son-in-law Andy met me down the allotment at 3:45pm for about an hour and a half of harvesting, weeding, laying woodchips and clearing foliage and cutting up and feeding to the Daleks. 

It's amazing how much you can get done when there are three of you working at the same time. With the clocks going back and the days getting shorter the opportunity for such visits will soon vanish, until late spring/summer.  

This is one of the 12 Cauliflower Depurple postiplugs from Suttons that I received back in June. This particular one the leaves had grown over the Cauliflower to protect it. I have the Cauliflower Depurple seeds in my seed box and will be growing these again next year, but if they get wiped out by another heatwave, I will have no hesitation in ordering in Suttons postiplugs again.

The other 11 are not getting protected and wrapped up by the leaves and are not quite as large as the one I harvested for Emma who cooked and had it as part of her evening meal and enjoyed the taste so much she is keen to harvest some more this Sunday.

I really can't complain about the Suttons Runner Beans "Best Of All" grown this year they have been really prolific and the more I harvested them the more they gave. At the moment they are 14% off at £2.99 for 45 bean seeds.

With the weather changing it was time to harvest and then strip the foliage back off the cantilever frame and chop it up and add to the Daleks. My neighbour and I have enough in a freezer, so my daughter is taking this last lot to her work to share with fellow nursery nurses.

Cleared Cantilever Runner Bean frame and Grapevine beds weeded and filled with woodchip. I'm thinking of making pockets in the woodchip and filling with compost next year and planting French beans either side of the vines.

View up the grapevine beds after weed clearing and wood chipping.

The Cabbages have done so well this year, next year some red ones for Andy. I must harvest the labels and see which varieties they were as I did sow a few varieties this year. Once I find out I will update this blog post with links back to their web pages.