Sunflowers

20. MAY

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This is another two day effort, purely for the reason that as soon as I finished planting the courgettes it started raining. I was glad, it saved me the effort of watering it all but I wasn’t able to take any photos. I knew the job needed finishing so today first thing in the morning I took the rest of the squashes and pumpkin plants to the allotment and finished the job, including the photos.

There will be two pumpkins in the small area at the very end of the plot with  my little apple tree. Even with some potatoes there they’ll have enough space and I’m hoping for a good harvest.

I have used every inch of the land, even the narrow strip around my little greenhouse, the courgettes will be fine and if they need to run, there is room on the paths.

After lunch and a little rest I went back to plant my sunflowers. They are getting quite tall so they need to go to their permanent position and be tied to a stick. The ground had a sack of horse muck forked in and I hope it’ll help them to grow well. After all, these are the competition ones so may the best sunflower win!

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11. FEBRUARY

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One more day of maintenance work. After cutting down the blackberries yesterday I suddenly realised I have another line of them on another plot. These have been cared for better, I remember pruning them last autumn but rather slightly. All was remedied today. 

As I was taking away the branches I noticed the gorse bush beside my very old greenhouse. I have trimmed it already but it needed a bit more work done. As I did that, it suddenly occurred to  me that I can put some of the ‘cannabis’ flowerpots in the gap between the path and the greenhouse. They are a perfect fit and I have already filled them with some of the new soil I got from the composter bins. A perfect home for the sunflowers this year.

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12. OCTOBER

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My plan seems to be working. I only went to the allotment today to empty my kitchen scraps bucket, that’s what I thought. The  morning was really lovely and I just had to do some clearing. 

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This is the first piece of land on my ‘farm’ and it didn’t give a very good impression. It didn’t take long and another job was done. An extra benefit of that is that during this work I can plan what I will grow there. The best thing will be sunflowers and it’ll help the bees, it’ll help me as they will then visit my blackberries and loganberries.

29. AUGUST

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It has been so amazingly dry these last few weeks that I’m quite surprised anything is growing on the allotment. Fortunately I have my greenhouses and that keeps the tomatoes and peppers happy. I haven’t had so many tomatoes and peppers in all the years I’ve been working there.Thinking of the current situation it is quite lucky that I’ve had such a super harvest, I was able to bottle a lot of the produce – oven roasted mixed vegetables or just tomatoes, cooked blackberry and apples for future crumbles and the list goes on. I’m especially pleased with the oven roasted mixed vegetables, I just add a glug of olive oil, no water so the flavours are really concentrated.

The cucumber in the greenhouses did very well. I have planted two plants and they have climbed up and along a wire the entire length of the greenhouse, producing a lot of fruit. I had so much that I was able to make cucumber relish for the very first time and it was very tasty.

My friend Mary and her son Wayne have got a few beehives on their plot and today was the day to harvest their honey. I’ve never seen it done and was amazed how very laborious it is. 

I’m sure it is thanks to the bees that our fruit harvest is so good. It is not only the fruit that benefited from the bees, my sunflowers did very well too. My tallest one was 915cm and today I brought home two of the biggest heads to save them for Chris for next year’s competition.

Both are 25cm in diameter so we should have enough seeds for everybody.

5. MAY

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Everything on the allotment is doing well and as the weather is nice ( the forecast is good for the next number of days) I decided to plant out my sunflower plants. These are the Johnson competition sunflowers, they were in flowerpots on the veranda so they were ready to go out. I gained a strip of ground between two of my greenhouses, they will be sheltered there and it should be a bit warmer too.

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I also dug some rich compost in before planting three sunflowers, supported with a cane.

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I had more plants, they were not so big and I just placed them randomly here and there, it’ll brighten the plot, all 12 of them.

The strawberries are flowering very well, I even saw some fruit on the plants and I’m sure the birds have spotted it as well. That meant my next job was to cover all the raised beds. I have got the nets for the job, the biggest problem is to remember which net goes where. The beds are not all the same size but I think I have managed.

I will have a little break now as the next vegetables will be all kinds of climbing beans and courgettes and squashes. These are now in seed trays and are already sprouting. There is also sweetcorn – first of all I thought I’d wait for the weather to warm up even more and sow them in the ground directly but there was the possibility of mice eating the seed. Better be safe, there was room in the big greenhouse in the back garden.

19. APRIL

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The leeks are done so today I finished a job that I started on Sunday morning. My tomatoes are amazing this year, every seed I put in the pots must have germinated, I have got dozens of plants. Very carefully labelled varieties including Yellow pear. That one is prolific and produces lots of small sweet tomatoes, very late into the autumn.

I have managed to fill two of my greenhouses on the allotment – I need four more plants to finish altogether. I have even put some tomatoes in the big pots I have rescued from the canabis farm and still I had a lot left. I mentioned it to my neighbour’s daughter and she took 12 of them. Now it looks quite normal, I’ll put the rest in some more big pots and perhaps inside one of my net cages when the weather warms up.

Both greenhouses were thoroughly watered and I moved on to the next task. When my third greenhouse was erected it left a narrow strip of land between the old and the new one. I put a water butt at each end, collecting rainwater from the gutters. Unfortunately it closed the access to the piece of land so weeds grew quite well there. I was always going to sort it out, never had enough time until today. Of course I had to empty one of the butts so I chose the one with the tap as it stood on a structure made of bricks and would be easier to move. It wasn’t very full, I used the water on the sprouting peas in the net cage and the raspberries, then heaved it on the path and started clearing the weeds.

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I’m pleased with the result, I’ll have just enough space to plant my competition sunflowers there, they will be sheltered from both sides.

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The water butt is perfect in the new position, it is even easier to draw the water.

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SUNFLOWERS

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The Johnson sunflower competition is well established and my plants did quite well. I didn’t have the tallest one this year but I’m sure I had one with the biggest face.

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It is larger than a dinner plate and I decided to bring it home because I was afraid that our resident squirrel on the allotment would decide to sample some of the seeds. It lives on the table in our studio so nothing else fits on that table.

SOME MORE RECYCLING

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Quite a few years ago I started making flower pots out of newspapers – using a jam jar as a mould they were just the right size for transplanting my seedlings. The advantage was that they rotted in the soil when I transferred the plants out into the open soil.

This is a step further. I have started growing my sunflowers for our annual Johnson sunflower competition. They started well, I put them into little pots and they did even better there. Now I needed to put them into something even bigger – but what?

I have been saving the brown paper than some mailing companies fill their boxes with – just because I hate throwing things away, it might come handy.

Today was the day. I used a tall vase as a mould because I needed something bigger than a jar and with straight sides. It is just perfect, I have used most of the paper and the plants look fine. I’ll keep them in the greenhouse for quite a while and when all danger of frost is gone they’ll go out. Last year I managed 11ft and 11inches, my hope is for that one inch more!

SUNFLOWERS

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I love growing them on the allotment, they attract the bees and other insects and anyway – they look great. Especially if they manage to grow tall or have huge faces, like this one. I had to cut it and bring it home, in the past the squirrels found it and before I knew the seeds were gone.

This beauty wasn’t the tallest but had the biggest face – 39 cm! Enough seeds to grow a field of them next year.