Jane at Levant: Allotment and Garden Update

Sunday, 13 June 2010

Allotment and Garden Update

Today - we dug our first new potatoes out of the allotment - Kestrel Potatoes - they were delicious - cooked with fresh mint sprigs from the garden tub - very tasty - also I picked a bunch of sweet peas for the house what a heavenly fragrance - and gorgeous colours - the perfume stays firmly in your memory

Lettuces and radish are producing well - an essential for a quirky vegetarian like me - and today I was given a coleslaw recipe by Molyglover - which I shall try out for myself this week.

The allotment gardener will be thinning out the swedes and carrots this week - beware the carrot fly - heads in books tonight to find ways of deterring these little nuisances and send them on their way - Bernard Schofield in his book Miscellany of Garden Wisdom tells us to crumble moth balls up and hoe them into the ground around the carrots - does anyone use these any more I wonder - probably not

Those that would grow this useful root
Free from blight and maggots
Must freely use both lime and soot
And they will have fine carrots

William Gain 1956

Broad beans are podding up well as are the peas - I slight attack of blackfly on the broadbeans to be resolved with soapy water or a spray - help! - no we are organic

Courgettes are looking healthy with sunflowers close by and garlic - onions french and runner beas - sweet corn and leeks - all growing on

This week wallflower and sweet william seeds to be set and the allotment gardener will keep up that continual battle against the weeds

In the greenhouse - zygo cactus are still flowering and Pelargonium Apple Blossom Rosebud is out these are last years plants - and doing well

Also violas grown from own seed are doing well (see pic ) - I need to consult Viola book - do they need to be stopped? I don't know! can anyone help would be much appreciated.

The Canna lily mentioned in last gardening blog is now through and making good headway - and Jasminium Polyanthum has been replaced - half price from local gardening centre - well done to me - slap on the back....
- note to self do not over water this time !!

The Moss rose is now out in the garden - what a perfume and delicate colour (pic attached taken in the rain )- the heady perfume was outstanding do you know I can still smell that lingering fragrance now.

My Streptocarpus cuttings are doing well in the conservatory - my little project at the moment - more cuttings to be taken in spare moment this month

The Pleone bulb in the stone trough mentioned last gardening blog - no change there!!!

This is the end of another gardening blog - more to follow no doubt at a later date - blogging is very similar to gardening - you dip in and out of this and that and never finish what you intended to do - so something is always left for another day

4 comments:

TIGGYWINKLE13 June 2010 at 14:15
My goodness, what a selection of veggies you have growing, Jane. They are so advanced and look so healthy. My mouth is watering. You must be a very consistant gardener.Enjoy the fruits of all your hard work
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Molly14 June 2010 at 10:40
Hey Jane, I love this blog. Everything seems to coming on great guns. Having an allotment gardener sounds posh (does he know?) Could do with one myself if you know of any going spare. MiC is busy trying to make his 93 lawnmowers work!
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Posie27 June 2010 at 08:15
Oh your garden is so much further ahead than mine. My runner beans have only just surfaced from their seed pods, so I won't be harvesting for ages yet...it's the first year I have grown them, so fingers crossed. I always plant my carrots in between rows of onions and leeks, and have, touch wood, never had carrot fly, apparently they don't like onions!
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Molly28 June 2010 at 13:47
Like your heads and tails pic :>)
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