Yesterday, for the first time in a long while, I joined hubby on his trip to the allotment as he wanted my opinion on the various bits of brassicas that have over-wintered. The purple-sprouting broccoli had both run to seed and been nibbled by birds, but the cabbages are standing well, and if they aren't very large, at least there's a lot of them. I brought three of them home to clear ground ready for potatoes; at a guess the one on the right is about grapefruit sized!



The fruit trees seem full of bud, particularly this  pear (left) and cherry (below), and another week or so should see them full of blossom.























 Blossom of another sort lined the road to the allotment - council-planted ornamental cherries which always look so beautiful at this time of year, and I just had to grab a few pics out of the car window.

26th April 2015 - Picked this week and allotment update

 It's blossom time at the allotment - one of the cherries is in full flower, and the other in bud

The established pear tree is covered in just-breaking buds with apples soon to follow. Some more sunny days should see it at its prettiest.

 Surprisingly my allotment trip this week turned up a lot of produce - spinach that's much bigger than that growing at home, some american land cress




two almost forgotten leeks, the first rhubarb

brassica bits in the shape of bolting brussels, which might get eaten as 'broccoli',and the tiny heart of a cabbage

more of the long white radish

Settling in to the New Year

After Christmas's snow and frost, the weather seems to have settled back to mild but windy - VERY windy at times! We had a quick trip to the allotment last week, mainly to check up on things but also to plant out the Christmas tree in its new spot, add some extra ties to the new found-on-freegle pear tree and sow some late garlic bulbs bought in a sale. There's not really anything to pick at the moment - a row of parsnips waiting till I need them, and some kale coming ready for maybe next month. I've given up hope for any brussels - none are forming proper sprouts at all!
At home, I can see the buds on the snowdrops so it shouldn't be long before they're in flower.

Picked this week - 4th October

The lovely sunny weather continued for another week - though by the time I'm writing this up, Autumn is really here with rain every day.

Lots of fruit to be picked again - in fact more raspberries this week than from any summer week!




The last couple of smallish pears






More dodgy-looking peas

Squashes cleared after Saturday's ground frost. The smaller ones have now been covered with fleece and netting in the hope that they'll still grow.







First leeks of the year

Tomatoes and chillies from the garden greenhouse


and lots of tomatoes again from the allotment greenhouses

Early in the week, I picked these two peppers, then on Sunday (worried by the frost) I cleared all the reasonably sized ones - and some cayenne peppers and jalapenos.

I also cleared cucumbers and courgettes - still surprised to have either cropping in October

Tiny cabbages





Some more seasonable crops - though sadly this is all of our carrots

but just the start of the parsnips

Both french and runner beans - though with colder nights I don't think they crop for much longer

Fingers crossed

I'm always keeping an eye out for plants being offered through the local Freegle/Freecycle network and last week I had a lucky find - someone wanted to get rid of a pear tree. Unfortunately, by the time I spotted the offer, the tree had already been dug up for a day - and we couldn't fetch till the next. So in this unseasonable weather, it was out of the ground (and presumably not being watered) for 3 days.
Sadly at the moment it isn't looking too well, with most of its leaves all brown and dry. I don't expect any new foliage will grow now so all we can do is water it and hope for the best.

Picked this week - 21st September 2014

Another busy week, warm with a little rain but still needing to water at times - astounding for September.

Lots of offerings for salad lunches - cabbage for coleslaw


a mixed batch of radish







beetroot

spinach

possibly too many tomatoes

and weird cucumbers

Decide to take off these two smallish butternut squashes and hope the others on the plants will grow more

more of the disgusting-looking mildewed peas

French beans - for the green bits and the seed.

Also a bag of runner beans which must have run away from the camera(!)

Apples and pears



raspberries, strawberries and blackberries

and the only surviving grape. Something, probably a mouse, has eaten the rest!