The year 2018 is here, a new year, a new start!
Took down all decorations at the weekend, the holiday season is finished, then went to the allotment to see how the vegetables were growing and then to a garden centre.
The theme of this Weekly Photo Challenge is Growth.
Growth in the allotment: broad bean, garlic and celery.
Growth in the Garden Centre:
Growth at home:
This year didn’t spend enough time on the allotment. After nearly one month when we visited it again, it was covered with grass and the first frost had frozen the runner bean and shark fin melon.
Worked very hard last two weekends on digging and tidying up, today finally put the broad bean and garlic in. Hope it is not too late, and they are strong enough to grow in such cold weather.
We were away for about three weeks between April and May, a lot of works were left far behind in the allotment. As Marilyn moved away and two ladies , our left side neighbour don’t come as often as they used to, paths and our plot are covered with tall grass. Weeds always grow better than vegetables! It doesn’t look good. Have been working hard to catch up – cut the grass and dig…
Summary what we have harvested so far:
Garlic: sowed in last autumn / winter. At the early April the leaves were green and looked healthy. When we were back in May , the leaves changed to yellow. They got fungal disease, probably called Onion white rot because of dry weather in the spring. Almost all bulbs are rotten, just a few are eatable. Only stir fried once flower stalks.
Broad beans: sowed in last autumn, got black bean aphid after flowering. Luckily most of pods already formed. So it is not bad.
Strawberry: didn’t cover it with netting, eaten by birds and slugs and only had left over from them.
Garlic chives: for some reasons it doesn’t grow well this year, still very yellow…
Progress: Gradually moved sweet corns, tomatoes, courgette, shark fin melon etc from the green house to the allotment between May and June. Looking forward to another harvest.
Been away for two and a half weeks, the plants in the allotment became yellow due to lack of rain, but weeds grow well.
On Friday afternoon, I watered garlic chives, garlic and strawberries. So tired, leave leek and broadbean to JQ (my husband). He did watering today and I did weeding. It was cold and windy.
Our right side neighbor, Marilyn and Tom have given up their plot because of Tom’s health problem. They had the allotment for twenties years! They both gave us lots of help when we first started. Marilyn used to have a notebook at the hand and do planning and drawing. When we asked Tom questions, he always pointed us to Marilyn. They will be missed!
Today met the new tenant. The two ladies on the left side came as well. They were chatting as they were digging and weeding as usual.
We need to work harder to catch up!
It’s very warm this weekend, today 28℃ shown on my car dashboard!
On Saturday morning we bought two bags of multipurpose compost and one bag of farmyard manure. Replaced the soil in the greenhouse with them, and then put the peper plants in.
Went to the allotment in the afternoon. Having been very busy, we haven’t done anything yet this year , no digging and weeding. The soil was very dry because it didn’t rain for a long time. Council switched on the tap on the 1st April. The plants desperate need watering. Due to the council No hosepipe policy, we had to use buckets to water them. My husband did all watering job, about 30 buckets of water!
The garlic and garlic chives are growing well. We cut some garlic chives and cooked dinner with it. Delicious….
