My summer break off work at last (I work at a school), and maybe I'll have a little more time to devote to my food producing engine--I've got six weeks before the kids and I start back. I've been racing just to keep up with everything these past couple weeks, particularly since the zucs started. But it's not just them; it's also lettuce, French beans, kohlrabi, cabbage, komatsuna (similar to pak choi, which I also have), Charlotte potatoes, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, beets. I've also been desperately trying to keep a handle on the couch grass and bindweed in my wood chip mulch--I can't let them take it over.
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| Me at the allotment (zucs in the foreground), July 2026 |
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| The allotment spoils of the day (heavy!), July 2026 |
As daytime temps dropped by about 5C (down from the high 20s), I took a chance and started my late season seeds in pots: Chinese cabbage, spring cabbage, kohlrabi, lettuce, fennel, pak choi, komatsuna. Some of these are second or third sowings, but will probably be the last this year. Most of these have already started popping up, to be pricked out sometime this week.
I'm also sowing my last half a packet of beet seeds in the potato bed now it's been cleared; probably some winter radish and turnip seed too. This bed was generously mulched with well composted manure in early spring when the potatoes went down; I'll gently fork it over to remove any obvious couch grass runners (a constant battle on my allotment) before sowing, and will cover over with insect mesh to protect from birds/cats/slugs/caterpillars, my usual strategy. I should be able to take the mesh off by around mid September, as the white butterflies diminish.
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