Garden Club

One of the many benefits of our village is the community spirit. The Horticultural Society - a rather grand name for a group of people who enjoy gardening - held one of their Garden Club meetings this evening, at the allotments. There are regular monthly meetings, (usually indoors!) which are very diverse, ranging from growing onions and leeks via raising chickens and pigs to talks by local garden designers. This time, it was allotment growing, which as everyone knows has been especially difficult this year, with lots of slugs, rain and caterpillars, and not nearly enough sun and warmth.

Some of the people - not all allotmenteers - who came to Garden Club







The London Shard

It was a lovely evening, but got dark too soon. We are close enough to London that the Shard is clearly visible as well as the Olympic Stadium from the site, but far enough into the country that we have none of the noise or metropolitan dirt. We had an interesting talk, and looked round several plots, each with different ideas. Some people had very narrow beds - you don't tread on the soil, but on the other hand there is a lot of hard construction, and a lot of ground is lost to paths. Some had divided their plots into 4 (as have I) for easy rotation of crops. Others had surrounded their plots with netting, to cut down on the wind and the pigeons - of which there are many!

My virtually non-existent harvest!

 I dug my Kestrel early potatoes today. It was a very small harvest - about a third of what it should have been. However, I know why - I dug in a lot of chippings to improve the soil structure last winter (which it has done) and that used up the nitrogen in the soil. So next year I will add some slow-release fertiliser eg blood fish and bone - prior to planting. At least the quality of the potatoes was good - no slug damage, no blight and very little scab. Other people have had good foliage but the crops have rotted in the ground - too wet!

Even the slugs are drowning....

April had record rainfall : so did June, and in the first two weeks of July we have had three times the monthly average of rain so far. Add to this the fact that, when it has not been raining, it has been gloomy and cold, and the growing conditions have been appalling. Everything of mine that has not been eaten by slugs has just refused to grow. I put in three apple trees last autumn, of which two seem to have taken, but the third looks decidedly poorly. So far this year, we've had a few miserable potatoes, a couple of beetroot and some mange tout peas that, although they were grown from last year's seed, have been 50% inedible. Not good! I would be even more discouraged if everyone was not in the same boat - and I use that word advisedly! When the plot hasn't actually been under water, it has been too soggy to walk on.
We are promised, at last, a bit of summer this week. Let's hope so!

Composting - and slugs

The picture shows our new composting site, with everyone working hard. There are several new bays under construction - hence the pallets - but about 8 have been filled already. It's very convenient as (unlike the old site) you can drive straight in, drop whatever green waste you've brought (there are separate bays for grass cuttings, small waste and waste that needs shredding) then drive straight out again. We also have a trailer load of horse manure delivered every Saturday, so typically a composting bay will be filled with green waste (shredded if necessary) then grass cuttings then manure, the sequence repeated as many times as required to completely fill it. The heap reduces over the first couple of weeks, so we top up each bay before starting the next.
The slugs are having a heyday with my plot. with just about everything a target. My courgettes just disappeared, so I have replaced them, put them under a cover and put slug pellets round them! Also slug pellets round my sweetcorn - which are looking particularly lacy - and pelleted chicken manure round many other things, which are looking a bit pale because of the constant rain and lack of sun.Yesterday was the first time I've managed to get up there for a week, what with work, rain and other committments!

Up and running

This is our new path/hardstanding, which has been made very wide at the composting site (so people can drive in, drop their compostable material, then do a U-turn and leave) and about 4m wide along the rest. It's one of the last of our 'big' jobs to get the site up and running. We have yet to get the water connected permanently, which will be done - we hope - shortly. We are on mains water at the moment, but this is an 'informal' arrangement with the farmer whose field we are using, and since permission has recently been granted to build some affordable housing, which will go right over our pipe, we have to have a more permanent arrangement. We also intend to start a Community Garden in front of our containers.
In the meantime, with the warm weather, everything is growing and we must water! The apples that I put in have all got lots of blossom, but (as expected) my grafts failed to take on the two rootstocks. No matter, I will try again!

Warmer next week?

In the end, given that the weather forecast is good, I planted out both French beans and Runner beans. This gave me some room in the greenhouse for my tomatoes, all grown from seed. I have planted African Marigolds as a companion plant, similarly on the plot, in between the beans and mange tout peas. They smell strongly, and discourage aphids, but they also attract slugs, so I put down some pellets as well.

Wet Wet Wet!

...and cold, too. May has carried on where April left off. We have even had a touch of frost at night, but my spuds have survived.I have pulled up a load of chippings round them, and they are now growing strongly. I've also planted out mange tout seedlings. This weekend I think that I'll put out French bean seedlings, but I shall keep runners and courgettes back for another week or so. This week we should have had our hard path put down alongside the plots, but it's rained every day, so it may not have been done.