let the harvest begin!!

wow, there is so much to talk about and so many photos to add, but the good news is that we returned from our trip and rather everything being sunburnt to a crisp (yes, we are actually having a summer this year), things were in perfect condition!  and now we have an unlimited supply of potatoes, kale, zucchini, and raspberries, we also are picking broad beans now and our small crop of beets will be ready soon too, at home we have lettuce, basil, and cucumbers ready to eat ... even our tomatoes seem to be ripening, what a year so far!

fruit cage

so we have been thinking of ways to protect our cherries and blueberries at the allotment, at the house the birds never seem to get our blueberries, but in the allotment they are experts at waiting for the precise time that everything turns ripe and then stripping a whole bush (which is precisely what they have done with our black current bushes--note to selves, do not let this happen next year!), we have been considering spending a lot of money on fruit cages and netting the bushes properly, but a little bit ago we just decided to not be so crazy and use bamboo, which is really great to have in large quantities in the garden ...

our answer came in the form of this:

they are figo connectors that allow you to use any material to create cages, the whole box of ten was less than £20, and it allowed us to make this:

wow it looks like a real garden (you can click on the picture to see it close up), the future is now ...

brussel sprouts

here is a little look at our new brussel sprouts bed, it is very tidy, and things are shaping up!

by now they have totally outgrown their netting, so we will have to think of something new to protect them from the always hungry pigeons ... silly birds.

up and running again!

2015 began late for us after a winter in which we did absolutely nothing, oops!  since e has joined us you would think that the periods in which we simply can't get to the allotment have passed, but this winter we were laaaazzzzyyyyy ... so what have we done this summer?

a lot it seems:

 

here's the view from the top of our "new" plot, during the winter it was completely covered over so it was very easy to get up to speed quickly (note to selves), we have potatoes at the top, feeble runner beans in the middle, then barely visible are our corn and broad beans (fava), the new plot is very tidy now and we have a cherry tree, blueberries, more potatoes and leeks in the top section ...

the old plot has been more of a problem, it was a mess and many of the beds were unusable when april came around, so we have been cleaning it up bit by bit, starting with a new brassica bed and clean central path: 













and here is the view from the front, the currents and raspberries have really cleaned up well this year:

things have been planted late, we effectively avoided the april early may wipe-out that we experienced last year by planting nothing out prior to the last frost in mid-may, this is the first time in 6 years that we have been this late, but everything that we propagated has been put in the ground, and here is what's in the ground now:

winter squash (10)
zucchini (5)
corn (16)
potatoes (60)
leeks (40)
broccoli (12)
p.s. broccoli (8)
kale (6)
brussel sprouts (17)
broad beans (13)
cavolo nero (3)
tomatos (7)