Flighty's plot

this week, 7th  – 13th August 2023, with the theme of soil health.

The British contemporary artist John Lines has painted many wonderful pictures of allotments and these are two of them.

That’s all today except to say have a good weekend, and take care!

saw several damp and dull days, and yesterday it was wet and windy although nowhere near as bad as it was forecast to be thankfully.

The days I have been to the plot I’ve been mostly continuing to harvest blackberries, carrots, potatoes and runner beans.

The first sweetcorn Golden Bantam plants are now reaching 6 feet/1.8 metres and the male flowers, tassels, are appearing at the tops of the plants.

 

It’s been ideal conditions for blight but thankfully there’s been no sign of it so far, and I’ve been checking the potatoes and tomatoes every visit.

Some of the white cosmos have a touch of pink or red around the yellow centre and a slight blush to the petals.

Next week I’ll be mostly lifting all the onions Sturon to bring home to dry before tidying them up to store for use over the coming months.

Have a good week, and take care!

and the main emphasis for allotmenteers is now on cutting, harvesting, lifting and picking flowers,  fruit and vegetables.

This weekend I’ve bought home the first climbing beans ( both runner beans variety unknown and French beans Algarve), more big juicy blackberries,  several carrots Short n Sweet, the few onions Sturon which hardly grew, potatoes first earlies Pentland Javelin and second earlies Charlotte and even a few raspberries.

I’ve been given some dwarf French beans, a small cucumber and a handful of small, cherry tomatoes.

Plot neighbour Fran gave me a small cabbage and said to help myself to a few beetroot, a couple of courgettes, a lettuce and some radishes. We’ve been picking ripe plums from the long, untended adjacent plot.

This will all hopefully continue throughout next month and into September, and should include sweetcorn cobs.

This year I grew the nasturtium variety Jewel which I’ve not been impressed with so I’ll revert to Tom Thumb which I generally grow.

Have a good week and take care!

how quickly the comfrey plants regrow and flower after I’ve cut them back to ground level.  I’ve already done this twice this year and it won’t be long before I’ll be doing it again.

When in flower they’re always buzzing with bees making them a doubly useful plant for the plot.

 

The cosmos have been flowering well all summer and I’m pleased to see that most of the plants are only around 2 ft/60 cm tall. They’re a mix of varieties, including Gazebo and Sonata, with pink, red and white single flowers.  There are also a few rather pretty bi-coloured ones.

 

They’re a flower I really like with the added bonus that they attract plenty of bees and butterflies.

It’s seems rather early but yesterday I started collecting cosmos seeds to sort and save for next year.

 

Have a good weekend, and take care!

I’m usually plot pottering but last week was noticeably cool so I spent several mornings plotting.  I went all round the edges cutting, dead-heading, hoeing, pruning and weeding. It was worth doing as it all looks better than it generally does at this time of year.  Yesterday from lunch-time onwards it rained, gentle and steady, right through into the night.

The clump of crocosmia is bigger than ever with it’s green sword-like leaves and the flowers a deeper orange-red than they usually are.

I’ve started picking the first few ripe backberries which seems very early. I remember as a child that we did that over the August Bank Holiday and into September.

Mum always made plenty of apple and blackberry crumbles as it was a favourite pudding of dad and myself, eaten with cream, custard or vanilla ice-cream.

 

Here’s another knee-high sunflower Musicbox.

Have a good week, and take care!

The first double row of carrots Short n Sweet are showing plenty of leaves but I couldn’t see any carrot tops so on Tuesday I had a look just under the surface and pulled one up.

 

 

 

It’s only about 3 in/7.5 cm long but is as good as any I’ve grown, so I hope that the rest will be as good.

 

The first sunflower to bloom, which I showed here recently, is now triple headed and also has two more flower buds on seperate stems just below these three flowers. It certainly looks a bit different as these views from either side show.

This morning I was over by the shrubs and trees along the northern fence-line and could hear a bird softly chirping but couldn’t see it until it moved and revealed itself as a young wren, presumably calling for its mother. It’s only the second wren I’ve seen on the site.

On the plot today there were a surprising number of Gatekeeper butterflies flitting around.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

It rained most of Friday for the first time in ages, which was gentle and steady so it soaked into the ground rather than running off.

Yesterday was windy which wasn’t welcome, especially as it was gusting to well over 40 mph at times during the afternoon.

Thankfully this morning when I looked round everything was okay.  I sowed yet more dwarf French beans Nassau and Sprite, one short row of each.  One or two of the earlier sown ones are now flowering but I’ll have to wait for the pods to appear to ascertain which variety they are.  They’ll be easy to tell apart as Nassau are a flat podded variety and Sprite pencil podded.

I was surprised to see green tomatoes forming on one of the plants but I’m not sure if they’re Gardener’s Delight or Golden Sunrise.

Again it’ll be easy to tell once they ripen as the former are red and the latter golden yellow.

 

I forget to mention recently that I saw two Marbled White butterflies on the adjacent, untended plot and got a good look at one which settled for a minute or two.

During the week I saw a Comma on the ground among the potato foliage and today  there was this Gatekeeper flitting around the cosmos.

Have a good week, and take care!