Allotment news
Its been a very strange year with the weather - probably one of the wettest I have ever gardened through - and the last three months are the wettest on record - and its been cool - except for March when we had a mini heat wave! Its all very odd and most of the crops are well behind where they should be and the only things and seem to be fat and juicy are the slugs and the snails! But its not all disaster and woe - I haven't dug up any early potatoes as yet and I am worried about slug damage .... but:I have fantastic gooseberries - my best ever!The broad beans are superb - really good this yearThere are lots of lovely ripe tasty raspberriesThere is marvellous rhubarb - and lots of itThe mint and chives are doing well!
BUT its been cold and wet and windy .......... so some things are not so positive! The pidgeons ate the cabbages
The slugs ate the courgette plants and most of the runner bean plants
Many of the peas rotted in the ground before germinationMost of my strawberries rotted before I could pick them - I got a fewThe weeds love it!
We have also had a new water intake filter designed and made for us by two sixth form students at Keswick School and members of the Young Engineers club - so a big 'thank you' to John Cowper and Angus Walsh who put a lot of effort into this - and they even designed a solar pump for us should we need it!The new filter will sit in the beck the runs beside the allotments, and will hopefully allow us to have a continuous gravity fed water supply to the communal water trough - not so much of a worry right now with all the rain - but something that will be a real help when its hot ad sunny (and surely it must get hot and sunny one day soon!). John and Angus fit the filter!
We have also had a new water intake filter designed and made for us by two sixth form students at Keswick School and members of the Young Engineers club - so a big 'thank you' to John Cowper and Angus Walsh who put a lot of effort into this - and they even designed a solar pump for us should we need it!The new filter will sit in the beck the runs beside the allotments, and will hopefully allow us to have a continuous gravity fed water supply to the communal water trough - not so much of a worry right now with all the rain - but something that will be a real help when its hot ad sunny (and surely it must get hot and sunny one day soon!). John and Angus fit the filter!