Back in business (after all the setbacks)

It's been disappointing, with such a long cold spring, that I've lost several of my transplants at the allotment to slugs.  If the plants are growing well they can outgrow most slug damage, but some of them need warm weather for this:  cucumbers and squash for instance.  I've lost about half of my transplants (so far) before they've even started growing.  The weather has finally warmed up again to above 20 C, and they seem to be growing a bit now.  I have a tray of late sown squash just emerging, so hopefully when I plant them out they will just keep going (have another tray of cucumber but no sign of it).

I have other warm weather plants--corn and tomatoes--that the slugs don't like to eat, so at least they are still all right.  The corn only got transplanted last week anyway--really late--but with a pot shortage, I couldn't sow them any earlier.  Maybe I should focus more on these two for next year, with squash and cucumbers lower down on the priorities list.  

Also late to sow and hence transplant:  two varieties of climbing beans (a green podded one and a purple).  I've lost of couple of these too, but as they got planted out late it looks like the rest might be able to shrug it off. 

The broad beans and snap peas were planted out relatively early, before the slugs were too active;  finally they are producing pods for me.  I'm also getting the first of the beets, another one unattractive to slugs except as new shoots.  None of these are warm weather crops however--if it stays hot, they will go over quickly.

It's not all doom and gloom, even though I like to keep it real here and talk about failures as well as success;  I am still writing down my harvest every day.  Lately it's been lettuce, broad beans, kale, artichoke hearts, garlic, beets.  The son made a deluxe allotment crumble on Sunday with our own rhubarb, gooseberries, raspberries (and some strawberries we picked from a farm).  Even with all the setbacks, we're back in business again.

Harvest 2024: begin!

I can't believe that I've still not yet planted out everything (still got some climbing beans, corn, and late sown cucs and squash) but the harvest has begun.  I dug out half my garlic harvest on Saturday--it started raining so I gave up--and brought it home to cure the heads and dehydrate the stalks/leaves for powder.  As I stood at my kitchen sink for 20 minutes I thought:  it must be summer now!  Harvesting and preparing a large amount of veg from the garden or allotment is a near-daily task every year from summer until late autumn. (It still doesn't feel like summer though, with temps barely making it to 15C during the daytime.)

Every other day we are having small side salads from my first batch of lettuce, mostly recovered from its initial pigeon damage.  I have a second sowing on the go--just need to get it transplanted.  I'll plant it next to the first sowing, under the netting.  I've also cooked some young nettle greens and young kohlrabi leaves, sauteed with onion/garlic/ginger/sesame oil, to go in our sushi wraps alongside the rice, cucumber/carrot and salmon.  I've got some young kale too, not quite as leafy as the kohlrabi, but closing in on it. 

The daughter has been watching our few strawberry plants like a hawk and pounces on them as soon as they are red;  the son managed to get one, but she's had the rest.  She's also found the first couple of red raspberries but I'm not too worried--no way she can monopolize that harvest, there's too many.  The Morello cherries are ripening too but like last year have very few;  I've left it and the other cherry trees unnetted and the birds can have them.

The broad beans at the allotment now have some excellent pods on them, just coming ready.  They are always such a treat, as they're one of the very first fresh veg of spring and don't last long.  Another early (but much longer lasting) veg is artichoke.  It's such a lot of plant for such a little harvest, but the first ones are ready now and they should last all summer if I keep picking them.  Which I do!

State of the flock, June 2024

And now for something completely different.  I've been so focused on the allotment this past month I've not been paying much attention to my own garden or my poultry.  The son is the main caretaker for both chickens and ducks;  he's 14 now and is fairly responsible when it comes to their care.  I sometimes have to remind him to collect eggs still, but he remembers to feed and water them every day thankfully.  The chickens are laying around four eggs a day, from eight hens.

The chickens and ducks are both locked up in their respective yards at home for the present.  Some of the chickens got to make a pass of the lawn in their tractor for about two weeks but it's growing too quickly for them to efficiently graze now.  So we're mowing and giving them the clippings.  The ducks have had periodic free range (usually for a day or two at a time) but I'm still putting in new plantings and I don't want the ducks dabbing them out--I lost a few small marigold transplants this week, so back into the yard went the ducks.  And I can't let the chickens free range at all while my veg patch is in growth.

Boy Duck is maybe calming down a bit after the spring breeding season.  He gets very protective of Girl Duck (who doesn't seem to notice) but if he tries it on me, he better watch out--I've been known to send him flying.  Thankfully he can't jump and is not sharp anywhere so his attacks are pretty ineffectual.  He's been spotted chasing pigeons out of the garden (hilarious) and won't share his patch with chickens either.  He's a big duck and stands fairly upright with a long neck and short legs, surprisingly (and comically) fast.  Once he starts to molt in summer I think his hormones ease up a bit.  Girl Duck is smaller and has the more usual duck silhouette--also short legs--but doesn't do a lot of running.  She just sort of waddles around, with Boy Duck in her wake like her security detail.  Girl Duck does lay the occasional egg, but not in a dedicated place:  I don't always find it in time.

Still so busy at the allotment

Still pushing to get it all done:  it's truly the final stretch.  Despite the slow start, my allotment is looking a lot more populated, though it also has a couple of really grassy sections too.  I'm still sheet mulching bit by bit--it's a never ending process:  as soon as I reach the bottom I have to start at the top again.  

For the first time since I've been growing there, the local council has provided a couple of tons of compost for members, deposited into one of the bays by the on-site stables.  I've been using the stable bedding in my own compost and as sheet mulch since I started back in 2018, really improving the soil, but obviously it has to compost first (usually there is composted stuff--if you dig it out of the bottom of the pile).  This I have used in sheet mulch and also to fill up about half my planters, as my own compost has run out (I top dressed those planters with the contents of the last bin).

The past weekend I got in all the squashes, some very small still (fingers crossed).  I actually made one more late sowing last week too, in trays, to act as zucchini as my other zuc sowings didn't sprout;  however, I recently sowed a different zuc variety which has begun to sprout--perhaps the late sowing of squash will still have time to make actual squash.  They taste zuc-like when immature--and sweet when mature--so I'm ok either way.

The husband, son and I have all donned gloves several times in the past week to pull out nettles, filling up a couple of emptied compost bins in the process.  This isn't as persistent as the grass and is easier to remove too, despite the stings;  but like the grass, there are a lot of of them.  Makes good compost at least.  I really don't bother trying to dig up the grass except in rare cases where it has sprouted in a new sheet mulched bed. 

At the weekend I also planted out the first tray of green climbing beans and erected a couple of bamboo canes for them to climb, and have been trimming some longer garden prunings to fill in the gaps.  I have several more trays of climbing beans, both green and purple, mostly sprouted and almost ready for transplant.  I'll continue sowing the purple beans (run out of the green bean seeds) probably until the middle of this month.

I even staked most of my tomatoes this weekend;  I've had to pinch out the first side shoots and tie them in already.  My cherry toms are indeterminate--and in planters, not the ground--so these I have just let get on with it.  Most of the cherries are flowering, though not as tall as the plum toms.  And I've put in pea sticks around all the peas now, most of which are now growing a bit better, though not as tall as I'd like.

And finally I got in all my pickling cucumbers (also small, like the squash), though I'm wondering if I should make a late sowing of them too (probably).  I did a late sowing last year--early June--and they had enough time to fruit.  I finally have reached the tipping point on my trays/pots situation:  I've transplanted enough stuff to have some empty at last.  But we are still saving plastic cream pots from the fridge for the future:  next spring I will definitely have enough pots!