Monday, August 04, 2008

Summer progress

Things are moving on quite nicely at the plot, I spent about 4 hours there today mowing and pottering about.
The beans are producing MASSES, I planted half the amount of runner beans this year and we still seem to be inundated with them. The french beans are also going mad but I prefer them anyway so I'm happy to have lots of those and please don't anyone mention courgettes!
I transplanted the different brassicas into the bed that the broad beans had been in and covered them with the cage. The ones you can see in the picture are Calabrese, Wok broc (summer sprouting stir fry broccoli) and Romanesco.

I decided to harvest one bed of onions as they had all had foliage die back and looked ready. They aren't the biggest onions you'll ever see but they will keep us going for a while. I have stacked them inside one of the plastic greenhouses at home to finish drying off.



One of the things we were keen to do this year was to grow our own flowers for cutting. We always spend loads of money buying flowers for the house or to take when going to friends that we really wanted to give this a go.
'D' planted loads of flowering plants on plot 2, the pics below show the sunflower bed, sweetpea tripod with cosmos and in the foreground you can just see the chrysanthemums starting to bloom. As plot no.2 has been work in progress this year we only have a small selection of flowers but still it provides us with enough for the house. Next year will be even better as we will have finished digging the new beds and borders.

The sunflowers have been fantastic, we've got several different varieties but I think the 'Velvet Queen' has got to be our favourite and mingled with the rust coloured chrysanths they look amazing!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now that is one excellent way of drying onions...just wish i had the space, mine just get dumped on a wire rack in the shed!

Allotment looks lovely as always!

glosterwomble said...

Thanks Vegmonkey. Those little plastic greenhouses are great.

Anonymous said...

Your garden is an inspiration!

glosterwomble said...

Thanks Annette that is really nice of you to say, I'm glad you like it!!

suffolk outlaw said...

baggy the gladdies....

glosterwomble said...

Hey a poet!!! The gladdies are fab, they just need more staking though as they flop mall over the place!

Anonymous said...

Great idea to use those plastic greenhouses for drying (especially this year).
Love your flower arrangement ... that is how I discovered your blog via The Emsworth Village Show
I have really enjoyed reading your posts - and I have added you to my blog roll.
Karen
An Artist's Garden

glosterwomble said...

Thanks for your kind comments Karen, I look forward to looking at your blog, I always love to find new and intersting blogs like yours!!

Anonymous said...

Your plot looks wonderful, with frothing flowers and over flowing veg - fantastic! I did think I should grow more flowers in my plot last year, and with quite slow germination this year, its a must for 2009! Cat

glosterwomble said...

Thanks Cat, I think the flowers have made a really nice addition this year, we will definitely do more of those next year!!

HappyMouffetard said...

Wow - I'm impressed by the onion drying! The flowers are looking gorgeous - somethiong I mean t plant more of on the plot next year.

glosterwomble said...

The flowers have been amazing, they're starting to slow down abit now. The onions have now been plaited into strings which I keep meaning to put the pictures of on here.

Anonymous said...

Some wonderful pictures.

Enjoyed reading your August update.

My onions are hanging in the shed. They seem fine but am not sure if I'm doing something that recuce their storage time. Do you think that would be ok too?

Rgds,

CFF

glosterwomble said...

Hi, I think a shed would be fine to store your onions in. I have read that traditionally onion strings were stored by hanging in apple trees, not sure why?!!

glosterwomble said...

Hi, I think a shed would be fine to store your onions in. I have read that traditionally onion strings were stored by hanging in apple trees, not sure why?!!