JULY 2013

It's Picking Time!

We are having a heat wave!  Watering is the priority at the moment, and picking the salad to keep it going as well as making regular sowings of radishes, lettuce etc..  It's very hot on the plot and any work has to wait until the evening when it is a bit cooler, as well as very early in the  morning but by 10.00a.m. it is already too hot.

 

 

The strawberry jam making continues with the biggest batch being made on the 13th July, there is also a picking for jam on my new blackcurrant bush which is excellent news as when I moved allotments I left behind a most prolific blackcurrant which produced pounds of jam each year.  I love the tartness of blackcurrant, and although it is a bit of a fiddle it is well worth the trouble. 

 

 

There was good blossom on the Victoria Plum tree this year which avoided any frost, fingers are crossed that we will finally have some plums to pick later in the year.  Likewise the pear tree had good blossom but is looking a bit sorry for itself, maybe its the heat so I'm pouring extra buckets of water around the trees. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen in the greenhouse and the outdoor plants are beginning to produce large amounts of toms.  Interestingly the non Sarpo potatoes are growing strongly, however, the Sarpo varieties are racing ahead, I never water the potatoes, and they don't seem to suffer so much as other crops in dry weather.

 

 

I have six courgette plants, which are now producing their first courgettes and flowering well.  In the opposite beds there are six ridge cucumbers, these went in late and one of the voices of doom on the plot, declared that they would not do very well.  I am pleased to have proved him wrong, I know that before long there will be more cucumbers than I will ever be able to deal with and will be giving them away.

 

When the plot is watered and everything picked including the sweet peas which are perfuming the hot air wonderfully it is time to put your feet up and just enjoy the summer.