Morning Raid

Daughter Emma did an early morning weeding raid on my allotment for me and weeded around the paths and the square foot garden beds again this morning bless her. She did help herself to some raspberries for breakfast.

Urban Jungle at home

Tomatoes at home in Flower Buckets

I got the excess tomatoes brought back from the allotment into flower buckets and the urban jungle in the back garden whilst it was in the shade this morning.

Visited the allotment plot between 6:00 - 7:30pm to water inside and out and whilst there took a series of photos of the Westland Horticulture V Dalefoot Composts tomatoes and I have to say with two of the Dalefoot Compost tomatoes curling up their toes and the huge difference in the growth of the pairs of tomatoes Westland has won hands down so far, I really can't see the Dalefoot tomatoes catching up.

Update At the end of the challenge Westland won hands down for the size, amount of fruit and the general well being and healthy plants it produced. I will be using their tomato compost and feed again in 2024.

Westland V Dalefoot Tomato Compost Challenge.

Site Inspections

An early morning visit to the allotment as Jane came to do the plot inspections today.

With getting the tomatoes out and into the ground yesterday, I potted up a few more tomatoes and have taken the rest home to transplant in the back garden allowing me to organise the top level of the staging a little better, and have taken some photos of the eight pairs of tomatoes in the Westland Horticulture V Dalefoot Composts challenge or head to head, and I have to say the results so far are not what I was expecting.

In the past a couple of years ago when I did this head to head grow off, Dalefoot Compost produced much healthier looking plants than westland Compost and with the new Comfrey added to Dalefoots Tomato compost I was anticipating that once again Dalefoot would come out on top.

However I have to say that when I transplanted the seedlings into the two different composts they were more or less the same size, I selected plants from the various batches I grew that were as near the same size and shape to make the grow off as fair as possible.

As you will see the results so far is that not only are the westland plants more or less twice as large as the Dalefoot (Indeed one Dalefoot plant has curled up and died) but the westland plants now have flowers forming and I will start feeing with the westland BIG TOM feed.

Therein lies the problem, the Dalefoot is supposed to have enough feed in it that one should not need to feed the plants but if I don't feed them are they ever going to catch up with the westland plants?

So I have some seaweed feed, should I perhaps feed the Dalefoot with the sea weed or perhaps feed both sets of tomatoes with the westland BIG TOM Feed?

Please tell me what you think I should do to move this experiment forward?

Weeding Paths

A big thank you to my plot neighbour who lives on the 4th floor of the block behind my plot for taking some aerial photographs of my plot and our allotment site.

Mill Green Allotment Site

A couple of short visits in the last two days, Friday late afternoon to pot on some more tomatoes in the Westland Horticulture v Dalefoot Composts Tomato Compost challenge / head to head / Grow Off and Today when Daughter Emma and Husband Andy came to help by weeding around the beds and paths and of course bought cookies for the coffee break.

Pair No 1

Pair No 2

Pair No 3 and plant in Westland Horticulture compost looking much larger than the Dalefoot Composts counterpart at the moment.

Nice root system in the Westland Horticulture plant on the left.

Westland Horticulture plant slightly larger than the Dalefoot Composts counterpart at this stage.

Potting up of the pairs.

Last Thursdays Potting up of the pairs.

Andy and I cleared the debris and weeds and tomorrow I will cut out the roots of the tree and infill the area with the slabs I picked up from Freecycle. I need a little table there for putting out plants to harden off.

I took the debris netting off the strawberries and covered with some light mesh to stop the squirrels from nicking the strawberry plants.

Emma needs to find the larger loppers!

Emma has done a great job of pulling up lines of mare tail roots from the paths

So nice to see the weeds around the outside of the beds and the inside between the planting membrane and the timber frames gone.

Onions doing very nicely now. and Lazy Housewife runner beans growing taller since being transplanted.

So extent of weeding the paths and around the bed frames has got to the leaf cage that was topped up today b Andy after I cleared the mesh panels off the top of the existing pile in the cage.

Coffee and Cookie break

Taking Things Slow

OK so a few days at St Georges Hospital for tests and being prodded poked, cut, and sampled, radiated and scanned and so yesterday afternoon I hit the settee had a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon and this morning took things really slow, and then allowed myself just a short visit to the allotment this afternoon to water everything in the potting shed and pot on a few Mini Dwarf Tomatoes for the Westland Horticulture V Dalefoot Composts head to head Tomato Compost grow off into their final pots.

Potting Up pair 7 Tomatoes for the Westland Horticulture V Dalefoot Composts grow off or head to head. I fill the pot with compost using the same size vending machine cup so the tomatoes pop straight into the new pots

These tomatoes were very similar when potted up into the vending machine cups.

These tomatoes were very similar when potted up into the vending machine cups.

All these tomatoes were more or less the same size when they were potted into the vending machine cups filled with either Dalefoot Composts or Westland Horticulture Compost

Pair 4 

Each tomato was watered by the same amount from the top and then from the bottom saucer.

Water in the saucer filled to the same level in all the tomatoes potted up today.

Pots filled using a vending machine cup (now removed) to make the hole a perfect fit for the tomatoes from the vending machine cups.

Pair 6 Six potted up.

Pair 5 Potted up, and I can't help but notice that the tomatoes at the moment appear to have better growth in the Westland Horticulture compost, but its not over until the fat lady (are we allowed to say that anymore) Sings

At the end of the day the teller will be how healthy and how much fruit they bear at harvest.

I installed the terracotta wine bottle watering gizmo next to the melon that I have under glass in the grapevine bed. It was the only bending down that I allowed myself to do today, and my head did spin a little when I did it.

Lesson learnt I should have stayed on the settee this afternoon but the call of the allotment was irresistible! Tomorrow morning I'm having an electrocardiogram.

Allotment Site Reps Meeting

Allotment site reps meeting this morning and a couple of hours on the plot this afternoon. Enjoying the sunshine and the pebble pool watching the bees coming and having a drink and listening to the birds.

I find the allotment so good for my mental well being and Radio Static that is playing constantly in my left ear seems to become much quieter when I'm on the allotment plot.

I put on some sun block when I arrived, although I knew I would be spending time in the potting shed as well as outside.

Had a chat with a couple of plot neighbours as they walked by. Being on plot 1 everyone walks past, but these days they don't always notice me if I'm in the potting shed beavering away.

I harvested a couple of early rouge raspberries that are trying to escape their bed and coming up in the Square Foot Gardening Bed, and gave them to my plot neighbour that want some of that variety .

Washed all the self watering pop bottle propagators as I will be keeping these ones as since the love of my life departed we just don't go through as many pop bottles as we use too.

Potted up Micro Tom and Red Robin Tomatoes for the Westland Horticulture V Dalefoot Composts challenge or head to head I'm planning this year.

Solar Powered Battery Chargers doing their job for the DAB Radio in the Potting shed. I have two sets one in the radio and the other in the chargers.