I woke up very early with the sun shining in the window, despite a late night, so decided to go down to the allotment before it got too hot.
I started with digging out another section of the compost heap - doing the hard work while it is still cool.
I then dug out the rest of the King Edward potatoes and left them to dry off. Then I turned my attention to the weeds!
Hoeing between the sweet corn was easy; just cutting down the few weeds that were left after the last time
Then I started on the onion bed. I had hoed it some time ago but left it too long. It was a hard lesson. First I pushed the hoe up between the rows. This is one time when the traditional Dutch hoe is best as I know exactly where the blade is under the soil and can avoid cutting down the crop. Then I had to use the three pronged cultivator to pull out the loosened weeds as can be seen in the picture.
I woke up very early with the sun shining in the window, despite a late night, so decided to go down to the allotment before it got too hot.
I started with digging out another section of the compost heap - doing the hard work while it is still cool.
I then dug out the rest of the King Edward potatoes and left them to dry off. Then I turned my attention to the weeds!
Hoeing between the sweet corn was easy; just cutting down the few weeds that were left after the last time
Then I started on the onion bed. I had hoed it some time ago but left it too long. It was a hard lesson. First I pushed the hoe up between the rows. This is one time when the traditional Dutch hoe is best as I know exactly where the blade is under the soil and can avoid cutting down the crop. Then I had to use the three pronged cultivator to pull out the loosened weeds as can be seen in the picture.
Finally I used the hoe a bit more before finishing of by hand weeding. Quite a rigmarole! - and I pulled out several onions in the process.
On seeing how much of a mess the next door bed was after I hoed it yesterday, I raked the dying weeds off, leaving them heaped on the path.
By then it was 8 o'clock and getting warm do I settled for planting out a few Cos lettuce plants I had been given yesterday at the cafe. They went straight in where the potatoes had just come out.
After that I got on with hand weeding the strawberries. Again I had left it too long so managed to pull up one strawberry plant. Only the Mara des Bois still have flowers and promise more fruit. The Elsanta variety have had a crop of lovely berries - for a week or two and now, even though there is lots of lush growth, is only producing runners. I decided to cut off any runner beyond the first plantlet. While not hard work all this took a long time.
I forgot to recover it with netting so any strawberries that come before my next visit will disappear down some birds throat!
Leaving heaps of weeds on the path to deal with next time I set off home with the onions, only to have to turn back to pick up the now well dried potatoes from beside the newly planted lettuces!
On seeing how much of a mess the next door bed was after I hoed it yesterday, I raked the dying weeds off, leaving them heaped on the path.
By then it was 8 o'clock and getting warm do I settled for planting out a few Cos lettuce plants I had been given yesterday at the cafe. They went straight in where the potatoes had just come out.
After that I got on with hand weeding the strawberries. Again I had left it too long so managed to pull up one strawberry plant. Only the Mara des Bois still have flowers and promise more fruit. The Elsanta variety have had a crop of lovely berries - for a week or two and now, even though there is lots of lush growth, is only producing runners. I decided to cut off any runner beyond the first plantlet. While not hard work all this took a long time.
I forgot to recover it with netting so any strawberries that come before my next visit will disappear down some birds throat!
Leaving heaps of weeds on the path to deal with next time I set off home with the onions, only to have to turn back to pick up the now well dried potatoes from beside the newly planted lettuces!
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