29. I'm melting......!!

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with the sun. I love the way it makes everything brighter, and more colourful, and they way it opens flowers and makes all my lovely veggies grow. However, I can burn by being out in the sun for half an hour early in the morning! The sun gets so intense in the greenhouse, despite windows open and some missing, that I need to protect tomatoes from it. And on Saturday, it was too hot to work.

Yeah, poor excuse I know, but the only work I needed to do was digging, or putting up fleece in the greenhouse to shelter the tomatoes. Our little thermometer in the greenhouse was pushing the 50 mark, so I put the fleece up as quickly as possible, chucked a bit of water in the barrell to water the tomatoes, then I went back to my garden chair outside!

I had a whole patch to dig, but only managed a square big enough to plant two courgette plants. The smaller plants which I grew from seed are still small enough to live in pots til I am there next time, hopefully in cooler circumstances!

Again no photo's, I did take my camera, but stupidly, left battery at home!

On an allotment related theme, I got some more bargains from the City Farm. Two small pots with a bean plant in each, it will be a surprise to see which beans they are as it didn't see, but at 20p a pot you can't go wrong! I also bought a greek basil plant - to add to my citrus basil and regular basil on the kitchen windowsill, and a marrow plant.

Back at the allotment, I have just remembered that my main crop potatoes are poking some shoots through the ground. They have been in about a week and a half and I was surprised to see the shoots as they had been chitting for months and hardly grew at all.

28. And then there was one...

The only problem with turning up at the allotment for the odd hour here and there, is that there is no time to rally the troups together.

I went and did an hour on Tuesday after work, which meant Matt was out training for his cycle race, and Beth was ... probably asleep to be honest!

Now, I don't mind my own company, but the bugs start hunting me down when I am alone. The other week I was dragging carpet about on my own to find the beginnings of a wasps nest in one carpet, and when that didn't frighten me off this MASSIVE black spider thought it would put in an appearance! The carpet stayed where it was after that. So on Tuesday when I found a dead spider in the fleece that I use to protect the tomatoes from direct sunlight, I decided it was time to go, before something bigger, and more alive came for me! Suddenly, I missed my Beth. Not that she eats spiders when I tell her to, but she makes me laugh when she jumps and sniffs at it like she wants to play.

Before the bugs realised I was at the allotment however, I did get some work done.

I was surprised to find that most of the irrigation system that I have attached to a water butt in the greenhouse, were still working fine, despite me not cleaning them out at all over winter. Although, I did give the tomatoes a good watering as well before I left! After this photo was taken, I also put up some fleece on the left of the plants. The direct sunlight gets so fierce through the glass (even though it is filthy) nearly killed some tomato plants last year, so I try to give them a bit of shade now.

Outside, one of the courgette plants has it's first courgette growing. Doesn't look that great in that photo, as the flower is bigger! But if you look closely, you will see that the courgette is yellow!

I have realised that my 'thing' in gardening, is growing unusual types of plant. Last year I grew tomatilloes, this year it is yellow courgettes and tomotoes and stripey tomatoes. I struggled to find any yellow courgette seeds that weren't F1, and as I wanted to keep some seeds for next year I didn't want F1. However, they had some plants for sale at the City Farm, so I bought a couple. I also have some smaller plants that I grew from seed that are green courgettes.

Last year I also bought a thai basil plant from the City Farm. It smelt and tasted lovely, so I went to the shops to try and get some seeds. However, all I could find were Citrus Basil seeds. So, being a seed hoarder, I bought those. The first plant is just getting big enough to use the leaves, and it smells great. I didn't taste them as I put them in a meal, and there aren't many leaves that are useable yet. I also got some free seeds on a magazine last year that were for Dark Opal Basil, which has dark purple leaves. I have tried to grow some seeds on a couple of occasions, but they just don't come up as well as the normal basil and died off easily, so not all experiments pay off!

27. Little and often

I snuck into the allotment on Friday lunch time for half an hour, and it felt great! I got some watering done, and finished weeding round the shallots (which hadn't seen daylight for a few months). I wanted to give them some fertilizer, but the sun was blazing down, so I thought I had better leave them.

I could have stayed there all afternoon, but unfortunately had things to do.

There are no photo's of my achievements as I was so disorganised, I didn't even have a pair of trainers with me, let alone a camera. Although I do have this one...

These are my tomato and courgette plants, and hiding somewhere there is the lone chilli plant that grew this year. They managed to survive the stifling heat in the greenhouse when all my seedlings died, and were moved outside as a kind of congratulation. Perhaps if I looked after things before they had to pass some kind of courageous fight for survival, I might have a few more plants!

Full of my new found enthusiasm, I am going to the allotment tonight as I have an hour to spare before I need to set off for training. It has been throwing it down all morning, but what I really need to do is set up the water butt in the greenhouse for the return of the tomato plants, so there's no excuse!

26. A Truce

Feeling a bit better about the allotment this week.

The seedling A and E has worked well. There were a few casualties, namely peas and tomatoes, but the squash family seem to be doing well, I have courgettes, grey sqaush and butternut squash seedlings.

I weeded around my early potatoes and they seem to be doing well. I also planted my main crop which are pink fir apple, but I don't hold out too much hope as they shoots are pretty small even though they were chitting for months.

My shallots haven't done well at all. They were an overwintering variety, so I expected them to be ready now, but I pulled one up by accident when weeding and they are barely the size of spring onions. This may be because I haven't been able to see for a while for all the weeds surrounding them!

What is growing really well at the allotment is the green manure that I planted before the winter. Yes, I know it should have been dug in weeks ago, but I am getting so many compliments because it looks like beans growing, that for now at least it is staying! Look how pretty it is too...

It has been mentioned (by one person), that I never cycle to the allotment anymore, so should really change my name from cycling gardener. Well, I am pleased to announce, that following Matt signing up for a 300 charity bike ride, we both cycled to the allotment on Monday.

So the name lives on, although I will be back to the car on Friday as I want to take Beth and her legs are too short for cycling!

And while I am talking to my regular readers, if you lazy lot only read from the email you receive, you should have a look at the blog itself because I have given it an update to look cooler and even more green than before!