Well the weather has pretty much put paid to any work on the allotment for the last couple of weeks. I did manage a couple of hours down there last Sunday but even then the ground was pretty saturated. With the persistent rain Thursday and Friday, and the deluge Saturday night I didn't even bother today - which is just a well as it's near enough rained one hour on, one hour off since 11.00 this morning.
With no real work possible on the allotment I've turned my attention to other things. Having taken the day off a week ago Friday I cleared the green house of plants and things likely to be damaged by the sulphur candles, then fumigated it. According to the manufacturers instructions I should have used 4 candles but money's tight so I made do with 2.
Of course this meant that last Saturday I had to move everything back, in the process discovering that we had mice in my shed - the seed potatoes have thus been moved back to the greenhouse which I know is now mouse resistant.
I then decided to turn the raised bed inside over, leading to the discovery that it had been thoroughly infiltrated by new root growth from next door's silver birch. This led to a three hour digging escapade whilst I removed them and dropped some paving slabs in on their edge to divert growth around the bed. If I get a problem this year then I'm just going to have to use a concrete jacket.
Having nicely turned the bed over an leveled in out I took the opportunity to sow some of the carrot seed I'd saved. If it germinates I'll at least know its viable even if I don't get any decent carrots.
That was about it for last weekend. Yesterday I was working on the car, installing a new set of Turbo hoses and do the well overdue 6000 mile oil change. This morning I dropped down to the parents-in-law allotment and harvested a few more sprouts, the last but one brussel top, and the first of the purple sprouting. Next week will be the last of the sprouts and brussel tops. All in all a good result.
With the persistent rain I moved back into the greenhouse this afternoon. My onion sets are starting to sprout so I've planted them all into cell trays. This should enable them all to start developing roots. I'll transplant them into their growing positions when the weather warms up a little more.
With temperatures creeping up now, it hasn't been below 44f in the greenhouse for two weeks overnight, and with day temperatures picking up to the mid 60's (Fahrenheit), I've decided to try growing some onion from seed. I've got both Brunswick and Bedfordshire Champion, acquired as part of a job lot we brought last year, so I've sown about 20 seeds of each in 9cm pots with 2litre bottle propagators. I've also sown my F1 tumbler tomatoes in the same way. All I have to do now is wait and hope they germinate.
Whilst doing all this I noticed that the Lilies, I'd moved into the greenhouse last November to overwinter, had started to sprout. Their previous location, under the staging was no longer suitable, so I decide to move them out onto the back edge of the raised bed, so they can take advantage of the warming rays of the sun - when it decides to show itself.
Anyway the planter I planted three years ago with my bargain 50p for 3 bulbs end of season clearance Asiatic lillies was covered in shoots, with tiny lily bulbs pushing out of the compost. I decided to do a little thinning only to discover lots of small white grubs. Lily beetle I thought, but I was wrong, as pointed out to me by a couple of the very generous contributors on the allotment forum. No I've got vine weevil - not sure which is worse. Any way if you're interested in knowing more about either pest you can do no worse than go to the following two sites
Lily Beetle http://www.rhs.org.uk/research/projects/lily_beetle.asp
Vine Weevil http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0600/vineweevil.asp
Anyway, back to my planter and to cut a long story short, I spent a couple of hours extracting all the myriad of lily bulbs from the soil, and as many vine weevil grubs as I could find, then repotted the largest of the bulbs in fresh soil in the planter. The rest I planted in 3 new 12" diameter tubs, and 7 margarine tubs - not a bad return on £1.50. Once I've acquire some more margarine tubs I'll tackle one of the other tubs which is also looking a little crowded.
Anyway you're interested in growing lilies I found a really good web site on the subject, called Mike's Backyard Garden. Well worth a look.
Hopefully the weather will improve during the week and I'll get a chance to get back to the long dig, otherwise the potatoes will be going in late this year.
1 comment:
with reference to your growing pile of weeds.
to save carting the weeds from my allotment i put them onto a weed drier. then in about 9 months time they are dead enough to put into the compost heap.
the weed drier is similar to 4 a poster bed, but smaller.
the bed which the weeds sit on is about four feet square & held about 9 inches off the ground with a post at each corner. i use concrete reinforcement mesh for the bed, but anything will do. the roof sits about three feet above the bed & overhangs the bed by about six inches all round. i use steel sheeting but again anything will do as long as it is waterproof.
you need to site the drier where is does not get any driving rain.
its a bit of a chore building it, but worth it in the long run.
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