Picked my first Caul to day as well as first sweet corn.
I think as Sweet corn is a more Tropical fruit it was not so effected by this lack of water or heat.
Rain yesterday but ground is still bone dry and still having to water…lucky that my site has an access to water.
Dug first potatoe but was a waste of time.
Most strawberry plants are dead.
Ps lost all my spring onions.
Will not try Christmas Potatoes this year.
Such a shame after we go to the trouble of preparing the ground, planting, growing, weeding, watering . . . and then you lose much of it.
So disappointing this year, and the drought isn’t done with us yet either. 
One great love of my life IS a dish of fried home grown tomatoes and bread and for the last week are having them for supper
With this weather they almost a month early in ripening so if lucky will have 6 weeks before the blight hits and I will pick a bumper crop.
Also eating my sweet corn easy tp prepare and nice to eat.
Planted the last of the leeks…very slow this year.
No Christmas potatoes this year as the Main crop of potatoes are well behind so will leave a couple of plants in for Christmas.
A couple months off before planting Onions Garlic and Winter Cauliflower but hopefully some rain so can start working the ground in the next couple of weeks.
For the first time for years had no white rot on my onions…have used Jayes Fluid to kill the spores so don’t know if it was that or the very dry summer.
Inundated with Plums this year am sick of them but none as in the past years have any little bugs in them.
Apples are small as well as the pears so am leaving them till September
One bit of good news is the UJ type bully on the site is leaving he is one nasty type and ran roughshod over everyone else but mostly the Asians and Women and have made some very nice plot holders to leave.
Galty, this is probably a daft question, but when you use Jeyes fluid on the soil, it is such a strong smell, I don’t understand why that smell and taste isn’t absorbed into what ever it is you are growing?
Logic says it can’t be absorbed, else no one would use it, but I wonder how long it takes for such a strong disinfectant to disappear from the soil?
It must stay there for a long time, because you said it is still killing the white rot, so I think I might worry a bit about using it where food crops are growing?
I had white rot all over my allotment for years was losing over half my onions.
I put highly diluted JF down in the Autumn so it overwintered killing the spores.
Had no white rot this year.
PS it is illeagle to put on the soil
I never knew that!
I just tried to google it and it seems it is something to do with EU regs.
And the fact that the manufacturer did not apply for a pesticide license after the ruling by the EU.
BUT it worked so up theirs.
Surprise,surprise, but then aren"t most things?:twisted::twisted:
Just had a tip which I think I will try and its legal I think if it is in this day and age
Last few Years after the first two truss of Tomatoes started growing and being able to pick Have had the Blight strike around the start of September as the air cools and the humidity increases.
Told to Spray the plants with a Baking Soda and water mix.
Supposed to make a film on the leaves that stops the spores infecting the plant.
Here you go Galty.
Apparently we’re supposed to mix a bit of vegetable oil with it to:
Quote:
Step 1: Mix 3 tablespoons baking soda with 1 gallon of water.This is the baking soda we use: Arm and Hammer Pure Baking Soda.
Step 2: Mix in 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, or cooking oil of your choice. This helps the spray to stick to the leaves.
Step 3: Mix in 2 drops of dish soap to help emulsify (mix) everything.
It explains more fully here:
Thanks for that…it explains what my friend said but in more detail.
Have book marked the link.
PS
Its hot in the day but in the early mornings there is moisture on my car windscreen… meaning the humidity is very high, tends to hit at about the end of August
Bit of wind and the blight will hit sooner than the last couple of years
Heavy rain at last.
:-p:lol:
rain ham essex - sounds right!
OMG are you trying make a joke that Pigs might fly.
Always thought that years ago they had to take a boat…well you cant fly for £10 even in thoses days.
My old man had an allotment near our house. When he took it over it was overgrown and neglected but over the years he got it quite productive.
Half of it was devoted to potatoes while the other half was beds of things like brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli etc… Come to think of it just about everything I don’t eat.
I was looking on Google maps only a few days ago and these allotments are still there despite the town growing out and around them.
BTW Guess who had to do all the digging? (a clue - not him). I think they were quarter acre blocks too.
Edit:
Ooops - just realised this is a very old resurrected thread.
I’ve started helping look after our friend’s allotment. She’s always bringing us fruit and veg around, or letting me go there to pick some. I thought it was about time I earned my greens. She’s away at the moment and I’ve been there this morning digging and raking the potato patches. I’d dug the potatoes out on a previous visit.
She said to take whatever I want, so I came away with some raspberries, a couple of courgettes and some tomatoes. I might go again on Friday to spread compost around.
Ah the institution of the british allotment system. one could write a book about them - as I’m sure someone may have done so already??
My mother-in-law moved to a small estate of newly built cottages for retired folks. She has worked in the local hospital for a long time and apparently the council in due consideration of her and others services allocated them these beautiful new cottages. I and my kids would walk through the woods for 30 mins to visit her.
If I recall she had a small and I mean small front lawn and a slightly larger back lawn and that was it. Other retired colleagues of hers, the more robust and usually male took another option, and that was renting an allotment from the local council at a nominal fee. I can remember standing in her back garden, on a slopping hill looking at these allotments in the distance. You could see matchstick men pottering around and many had erected small sheds for their tools etc. I did pay one close up visit and found them all to be industrious and well kept. Sad to hear that some get neglected and unused. There must be thousands all over UK in various forms of use or non-use. When I lived close by I had a sixty feet long back garden x 20 feet wide which kept me pretty busy tilling and growing. Fortunately I had purchased an old mechanical tilling machine which although slow did a much better job than I could manually and saved my back a bit! I think on recollection we grew enough vegies to last 6mths of the year before running out and resorting to shopping. The allotments of England heh - part of the culture; the history the future??
If you don’t have an allotment, you don’t have to worry about losing the plot, maybe that is a consideration, for some folks who wish to grow their own, but end up wandering round Farmfoods.
I’ve gotra few carrots I could help you to find a home for at the moment ?
I’ll be putting compost down tomorrow to enrich the soil. The plot thickens.
