Allotment Diary – Everything Is Growing and Looking Great – 21st June 2016

Down at www,OwningAnAllotment.com the battle between man and slug continues, though it is a bit tricky to know who is winning! The brassicas are looking chewed and some are completely decimated, but that may be down to wood pigeons rather than slugs or snails.

The weather has been interesting. After a burst of bright, sunny weather it has become warm and very damp, which of course the weeds and pests love, so the slugs have grown to giant proportions.

Everything is growing fantastically well and the rhubarb in particular is now much sweeter than it was a couple of weeks ago. One unexpected visitor to the plot was a bunch of mushrooms, in fact a lot of mushrooms! One bed became full of them which I am assuming has come in on the manure I dug in last year.

The square foot garden is looking great, the runner beans are growing well and the potatoes are doing well. One thing I have noticed is that the courgette and marrow plants are still very small. I am not sure if that is because of the weather, the fact I am further north than I have been for a long time or that I dug manure in the bed last year and it is a bit too rich for them. Though having checked out a few other plots they are a similar size so it may just be my latitude!

Unfortunately my garlic appears to have got rust which is somewhat annoying. I don’t think there is anything I can do but I am going to pull it all as I really don’t want it to spread any further.

I’ve finally got my squashes in – some butternut squash, jack o’lantern pumpkins, a petty pan squash and a giant pumpkin. I have built two small raised beds to plant the pumpkins in so that they are lifted up off an otherwise waterlogged ground. My aim is they will grow and smother the weeds at one end of the plot! I will publish full details of how to build the beds on my website very soon.

The carrots I transplanted are doing surprisingly well. I know people often struggle to transplant them but these are doing great so fingers crossed as I usually don’t have any luck with carrots at all.

Everything is growing well and I’m not planning some autumn crops so let’s see what happens there! How is it going down on your plot? Remember to follow me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/OwningAnAllotment for regular updates and discussions!

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