Lazy would be one word, another couple would be too busy, but it's been awhile since logging on, though I have been keeping up with the blogs on the side there, and it looks like everything has been ticking over nicely. Apart from the lady with the skin disease's matrimonial mayhem, good luck there and chin up old girl.
I started this allotmenteering about a year ago now and it's time to take stock has it been worth it? Well I'm biased; if I had only produced some dried-up radishes and slug-nibbled strawberries it would still have been worth it. just standing out on the ground with the weather happening around you, breathing in the smell of freshly-turned earth is fairly priceless, and working outside is a reward in itself. So I won't do an accountant's look at this, though the 12 lbs of strawberries have got to be a bargain, but just to look at the failures and successes.
Failures first: Well what happened to the rhubarb? I put in four different crowns, and a couple tried poking their leaves through the soil but kept failing......soil, weeds or jinx?
I had a lot of potatoes, but generally smallish, so more watering and manure there I think.
The cauliflowers were pillaged by pigeons after I planted them. Mea culpa on this one as I failed to cover them. This has to be permanent standing order on this, putting out brassicas, cover them immediately.
I think I could have had a few more pumpkins, one per plant isn't great, and a lot more courgettes. I think this may have been to do with my lack of watering.
Some of my tomatoes, the big ones like mortgage lifters and some of the cherokee ones were hit by some strange viral infection, I don't think it was blight.
Successes: Strawberries, bags of them, quite literally.
I started this allotmenteering about a year ago now and it's time to take stock has it been worth it? Well I'm biased; if I had only produced some dried-up radishes and slug-nibbled strawberries it would still have been worth it. just standing out on the ground with the weather happening around you, breathing in the smell of freshly-turned earth is fairly priceless, and working outside is a reward in itself. So I won't do an accountant's look at this, though the 12 lbs of strawberries have got to be a bargain, but just to look at the failures and successes.
Failures first: Well what happened to the rhubarb? I put in four different crowns, and a couple tried poking their leaves through the soil but kept failing......soil, weeds or jinx?
I had a lot of potatoes, but generally smallish, so more watering and manure there I think.
The cauliflowers were pillaged by pigeons after I planted them. Mea culpa on this one as I failed to cover them. This has to be permanent standing order on this, putting out brassicas, cover them immediately.
I think I could have had a few more pumpkins, one per plant isn't great, and a lot more courgettes. I think this may have been to do with my lack of watering.
Some of my tomatoes, the big ones like mortgage lifters and some of the cherokee ones were hit by some strange viral infection, I don't think it was blight.
Successes: Strawberries, bags of them, quite literally.
Along with some delicious ice cream.
I was hit by some weird disease which I didn't think was blight but some form of blossom end rot. The tomatoes went all bubbly and started to rot.
However, there were quite a few tomatoes on the unaffected plants. I adore the smell of tomatoes, so rich, and the ripening green fruit covered with minute hairs seemingly dripping already with some sort of essence of tomato. Sometimes they look even better half way grown than when ripe.
to be continued...
