Good morning, everyone! It's Endon Bear here, with an update on how everything is growing on Grizzly and Polar's allotment in North Staffordshire.
As you can see, the second early potatoes have now fully recovered from the setback they had when we had the late frost in May, although we think they might still be harvested later than usual this year. They have no flowers yet.
The onions are now big enough that we can see their tops poking out of the soil, but it's not yet time to fold the leaves over or ease them out of the ground. They will enjoy the wet weather we're due to have this coming week and hopefully get even bigger, but then we need some more dry weather to ripen them so they store well.
The squashes and pumpkins, and the courgettes, would probably be happier with more hot and sunny weather too, as long as Polar and Grizzly keep them well-watered. There are baby fruits on the courgettes so we might be picking the first ones to eat very soon.
Polar lifted the early garlic in the garden yesterday and the allotment garlic is almost ready for harvest as well. We are going to have an awful lot! We hope Polar can swap some for delicious Tiffin and Chai samosas from our friend Mrs Shug at Stoke Market.
And here are the runner bean plants, grown from our friend Chomper's seed beans - they are already a long way up their sticks and making lots of flowers. They will be happy to have lots of rain as they drink a lot of water, although we want sunshine so the bees can pollinate the flowers, or there won't be any beans to eat.
From the top of the bean frame, I could see Grizzly digging over the last empty bed. Polar lifted me down and showed me some potatoes they were going to plant in there, even though it is very late for starting taters.
'They are an experiment,' she explained. 'I'm not even sure what variety they are - they seem to be a hybrid between Sarpo Mira and either one of the reds or the Pink Fir Apple. I think they grew from seeds one of our plants made a few years ago as they were growing in a bed where I hadn't planted any potatoes last year. They kept for ages and made good roast potatoes, so we are going to plant a few we saved and see how they grow.'
How exciting! I love garden experiments. If they grow well and are good potatoes again, we'll have to give them a name. Perhaps we could call them after a famous bear?
While we waited for Grizzly to finish digging his plot over, we checked the greenhouse and topped up the water reservoirs for the peppers and tomatoes - all plants us bears grew from tiny seeds back in March. Look how big they are now!
Polar says tomatoes mustn't dry out but they also don't like to be too soggy, so we just give them enough water to last until we come back to the allotment in a couple of days.
Like Mr Monty on Gardener's World, we do 'Feeding Friday' and give all the greenhouse plants some liquid fertiliser once a week. We are hoping to make our own from comfrey next year, when we have transplanted some from the garden to our wildflower plot.
I was sad to see that there was still nothing growing there except a few strands of grass. Polar said we could collect some poppy seeds in the garden and sow them, and transplant some foxgloves as well, if our seed balls didn't grow.
'Don't give up yet, little bear!' she said. 'You never know what will come up after the rain.'
Polar said we could plant some Phycaelia there for the bees, if her seed-saving experiment worked. Polar grows it as a green manure and usually digs it in before it flowers, but this year she and Grizzly left one patch to flower and set seed. Most of the dead plants went onto the compost heap but she has saved some seed heads and is drying them off in the greenhouse.
I had a little nap in the sunshine while Polar and Grizzly planted the hybrid potatoes, then it was time to come home for lunch. Before I went back to the other bears on Bear Hunt window duty, Polar said I could have a run around what she used to call the Herb Garden, as she has tidied up the rope-top edging and finally put in the corner posts.
Polar was growing herbs and roses there but says the roses prefer richer soil then most of the herbs, so she is going to make a new herb garden in the vegetable patch where it is sunny and the ground is sandy, and plant more flowers and bulbs with the roses.
I thought this big Allium Christophii flower head was amazing - it looks like a firework! Polar says it is a good one to grow here as it isn't too tall so doesn't get battered down when it is windy.
She lifted me up to see the roses too. The one in the picture is called Ferdinand Picard. I think it is my favourite, as I like the stripy petals.
Then we picked the first few loganberries, which Polar added to some frozen apple to make crumble for tea. There are lots more ripening, so we might make jam soon.
Happy gardening, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment