Tuesday, May 25, 2010

 

A scorcher!

The Pentecost holiday weekend was a scorcher! We had temperatures well in excess of the normal season temperatures, well into the high 20's. And me, perhaps rather zealously, had to do all my major planting this weekend. So I then spent hours watering everything. Still all is not lost, there is rain on the way today or tomorrow.
So every morning early I was down there in my wellies (pools of sweat forming inside them) digging, and planting:
- melons: 4 Gallia melons and 5 Charentais, plus I sowed some more seeds in between each plant. Hopefully they will take off well straight from the earth. radically, I decided not to plant them through plastic but through a thick bed of straw (discreetly taken from the racetrack so it does have some horse pee in it). I am hoping that will provide heat but not too much and protection.
- courgettes; again 3 green and a yellow, plus I sowed some summer squash, and some pumpkins in the same bed. The pumpkins are having trouble taking off, I will sow some more in place this week.
- peppers,
- aubergines
and finally the tomatoes: 6 Gardener's Delight, 3 Totem, 3 Pannovy, and about 4 each of Marmande and Ananas Beefsteaks, Moneymaker, and Tigerella. There are about 25 plants in all. And despite the heat they looked as happy as pigs in s....

Harvesting! A big bunch of rhubarb and at last the first strawberries. small and sweet, a bit of rain will really help the crop along.

So the allotment is looking terrific, not too many weeds, everything in full growth, onions and potatoes looking green and healthy. I had a firkle and the garlic is swelling beautifully underground, dead chuffed as it was only precariously over wintered. I guess the cold winter was good for it. It is starting only now to yellow off a bit, I am thinking that in 2 or 3 weeks it will be ready for harvest.
Left to do now: climbing beans, more pumpkins, leeks (when a bit of space is made for them), and some sowing for winter And the weeding, in earnest.

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