In time for Wimbledon!

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE WEATHER???!!!! Where is all this wind coming from?!

So far the lack of decent sunshine for any extended period of time and the below +20C temperature have done little good to most of our crops, which are way behind for this time of the year.

There are a few shiny winners however:

Number 1 prize is going to the strawberries, which timed their ripening perfectly in time for Wimbledon! And oh boy, are they sweet!

Number 2 prize is going to the potatoes! The earlies are starting to flower, which means that we will be lifting a few of them this week for a bbq for the first taster of the season. Fortunately, there’s been no sign of the potato blight yet.

Number 3 prize is going to the alliums, – red onions and garlic. These little fellows have been in the ground since winter and are soon to be harvested, which means no more herbicide- and insecticide-laden onion and garlic in our curries 🙂 .

The lot that is doing the worst this year:

Clematis : our efforts at growing clematis at the allotment against the shed, against the pergola or anywhere for that matter led to a complete failure so far! 🙁 In the past 3 years we planted at least 6 clematis in different places and at different times, and every one of them gets devoured by the snails! 🙁 The buggers don’t get bothered by any anti-snail pellets. The one clematis that did survive this spring and started developing flower buds got killed by some disease which made it all go brown from top to bottom, including flowers. The unanimous decision is to perhaps stop trying to grow clematis full stop, as it’s becoming a wasteful and costly exercise.

Brassicas : green cabbage, white cabbage, red cabbage, savoy, Brussels sprouts, curly kale, cauliflower, broccoli and sprouting broccoli. The seed germination was tampered from the very start by not enough heat in our conservatory. From then onwards they were far too slow to grow and once planted outside, they got attacked by pigeons before I got the netting on! A lesson for the future : never, ever, ever leave young brassicas uncovered. If they don’t get eaten by the birds – the cabbage butterfly will get to them sooner or later.

Peas and beans : not sure what happened here, but a lot of them did not even come out from seed to begin with. It may have been the fact that the seeds were more than 1 year old, or perhaps the cold weather on germination. Any young plants that made their way to the allotment eventually – got attacked by the mice. So, all in all we have zero French beans, a few late broad beans and only a handful of peas and mange tout.

Courgettes and squashes are rather late and gooseberries have dropped all their berries but one or two for unknown to me reason.

Considering how little time we have to tend to the allotment this year due to the house rebuild + the weather – there may be little else going into the ground between now and winter. Vegetable tagines of onion, courgette, pumpkin and potato will have to suffice in the cold winter months 🙂