Monday was yet another scorcher. Now some people like it hot, but as I’ve got older I’ve found I like it less and less. If it’s cold you can always put more clothes on but there’s a limit to how many you can take off!
I decided to just pop down to the plot and water in the greenhouses and the newly planted cauliflowers.
There’s a house on the corner opposite the allotments having some building work done and I noticed a large pallet on the skip. Asked the builder who said I was welcome to it so carried on to the plot with my trophy. When I say large, it’s about the size of 2 or 3 normal pallets with 3×2 bearers. I’m sure I’ll work out a use for it, especially as it nearly killed me lugging it to the plot.
One point when skip diving, the contents of the skip belong to someone so just taking them is, technically at least, theft. Always ask first. After all, it’s the polite thing to do. I’ve never been refused and sometimes you get given more freebies that were going to be put out.
Anyway, first thing on the plot was to check those cauliflowers. On Sunday I was ranting that Wilkinsons’ netting was under-sized. In fact, it was me. I don’t know why I had it fixed in my mind that the raised beds were 4 metres long, they’re 4.8 metres.
I could claim it was a senior moment, but I’ve been told 53 is too young to claim senior moments, so I’ll blame it on the heat.
Thank goodness I didn’t send a letter of complaint, then I’d look really stupid.
The sun had gone behind some light cloud cover, so it was still hot but not burning and I decided to do a few more jobs than planned.
The plan is to provide some later tomatoes as the main crops are flagging. Since these are the only tomatoes in the small greenhouse, they’ll provide some insurance. I’d also got some spare peppers in 6″ pots that hadn’t been planted so they went into flower buckets as well. They’re fruiting so I may as well have a crop.
Got some nice tomatoes from the main house. My good friend in Canada had sent me some seeds and the ones so far are lovely. The Jaune Flamme are a medium sized orange yellow fruit, firm and meaty. It’s a vigorous plant, so lots of side shooting but it’s a heavy cropper as well. Great.
The other one we’ve had is Yellow Pear. Small plum variety with a sweetness to the taste but not as sweet as Sungold. Only had a couple of these so far, but lots more ripening.
The German Gold are living up to their reputation, large fruits and quite a few of them. Looking forward to seeing what they taste like. Same for the Green Zebra. Only thing with them is that I’m not quite sure when they’re ripe!
Another cucumber, I think we’re going to have a glut of them soon. As well as the Carmen, the Burpless Tasty Green have a load of small fruits developing.
Larry gave us a lettuce, all mine have bolted and the successional crop is not ready yet. More bad planning!
Then it was weeding. Oh, don’t they grow? The strawberry bed was swamped so hands and knees job. Pulling the weeds without damaging the plants is not so easy at times.
Cleared the bolted lettuce and the weeds from the salad bed and then hoed off around the brassicas on plot 29. I’m actually on top of the weeds on both plots now. Not that means much, they’ll be back tomorrow.
Got home around 8pm and realised lugging that pallet has pulled my back a bit so brufen and a beer. What a rotten night, really close and hot but about 3am we had a downpour. A good inch of rain according to my gauge this morning, which is just what the plots needed.
the stripes on green zebra go yellowy when they are ripe
Thanks Keith – appreciate the info.