Rain Rain Go Away

I thought it was too good to be true when the Met Office issued their prediction of a long, hot summer. Apparently, they are now poised to revise this forcast. I had an idylic vision of spending day after day of the summer holidays down at the allotment, but so far, it's been a miracle if I've managed to get down there for half an hour without any rain. I made a quick dash to the allotment today, yes it was raining at the time, to harvest some courgettes and French beans for tea. The pumpkin on my son's patch has grown again since I was last there, and I didn't notice at the time, but if you look closely on the photo you will see a largeish piece of glass lying right next to it. I must remember to move this when I go down again, or else we'll have pierced pumpkin! This is the first year for years that we are not holidaying abroad. My hubby is a sun worshipper so we usually always head for the sun. This year I have persuaded him to stay in Britain, and on Friday we head off for Cornwall. After a week, we will be swapping this destination for North Devon for a second week. I'm really looking forward to it as I have never been to either county before, but if this weather continues, which looks likely, it doesn't look as though we'll be going back there in the near future. I can just imagine already what hubby will be saying - "We should have gone abroad"!

Last weekend we managed to get some serious weeding done, although it doesn't look like it in the photo. The brassica cage was opened up and that bed was cleared of weeds. It's definitely slugs which have been eating the brassicas. I found hundreds of those horrible tiny little slugs all over the leaves, and they have created quite an intricate lacy pattern on most of the leaves, great! The sweetcorn bed was also given a good weed. I underplanted the sweetcorn with squash as a variation on the three sisters system, thinking that the squash would suppress the weeds. It hasn't quite worked out though, as the squash don't really seem to have got going, and therefore, there were weeds a plenty.

I have harvested some of my potatoes, but all is not good. The smaller potatoes were fine, but any which had grown a little larger had small holes tunneled into them. A quick google has me thinking that Keeled Slugs may be to blame. I shall lift the rest of the potatoes before I go on holiday if I get the chance, to prevent any of the smaller tubers growing larger as it seems the bigger they get, the bigger the problem.

Work has started on the top end of the plot, which until last weekend hadn't been touched. The first job we have embarked on is clearing an area for the compost bins so that we have somewhere to put the spent plants once the harvest of each crop has finished. The ground just needs levelling off now before the compost bins get moved to their new home.