Friday, June 09, 2006

Total Allotment Time: 1 & 3/4 hrs
Prnciple Task: Lifting plastic barrier and lightly forking over soil newly exposed to remove any remaining weed roots as in recent posts

2 comments:

Jimmy said...

Hi Tim

Pleased to see you acknowleded the folly of the brassicas. Let's hope you get away with it.

I think you should start eating the outside leaves of your lettuce now rather than waiting for them to mature. The logic is that you never eat them all anyway so to "spoil" a few really makes no odds but you do get the benifit! At the risk of repeating myself you should always grow something you cannot buy and red lettuce sounds just the ticket. Lettuce mature so quickly you can plant, intercrop with something else, crop and let the other thing mature and crop again. Keeps the weeds down too.

That trifid I am growing is certainly not a lupin. I do not recognise it but it is not something I planted. I suspect it is some sort of wild flower.

I do not follow football at all but have become aware of the "world cup" so I have been out pedalling away the miles to avoid the telly.

My maximum/minimum electronic thermometer showed the minimum temp to day outside as 17 and the maximum as 21.5C - not bad for Inverness.

Harping back to former postings how is the width of your paths working. Wide enough for a barrow? Not too wide. Can you reach the beds without standing on them etc.

All the best
Ya boo England
(just joking)
Jimmy

Tim Hopper said...

Hi Jimmy. Yes, those first few I was given came with the soil attached, so my fingers are crossed. I can't remember if club root is more common or not on alkaline soils (which is what I'm guessing the allotment to be - I will eventually do an soil acidity test). Those I planted today were grown in compost in pots so should be okay I think.

I just can't bring myself to start havesting those lettuce leaves as they look so healthy, but I realise I should (in fact I will tomorrow). I still haven't really started the process of convincing myself that things will grow for me (I've always envisaged this to be next year) and I guess I'm more glad that some of my neighbours, who I suspect think that I'm off my trolly with a compost fixation, can see this early indication that maybe I'm not :o)

> I suspect it is some sort of wild flower.

This is where a having a digital camera would come in handy, as you could post it to your blog and cross reference it here. Not that I know all my wildflowers, mind :o)

> I do not follow football at all but have become aware of the "world cup"

I've already found myself watching almost every live game that's been played - my love for footie is one of my biggest flaws/contradictions :o( I really need to prioritise things better and put my allotment first.

I really need to reposition my outside thermometer as it registered over 42C today (and even given that my backyard is a sun-trap, I feel this would of had me calling for an ambulance!). 28C today down here I think was the average - still plenty hot! :o)

The width of the temporary mud paths seems to be working fine (65cm I think they are offhand). The 1m 25cm beds I am finding a stretch, but just about okay - and I did hear that this width has become something of an industry standard for many cloches, nets, etc, so I'll probably stick with it.

So you've brought one of those infamous 'Anyone but England' tee-shirts then? :o)

Best Regards,
Tim
"It's coming home, football's coming home!" :o)