Jerusalem Artichokes

It doesn't seem 5 minutes since I was worrying that nothing seemed to be happening with my Jersusalem artichokes. Obviously I needn't have!

The idea was they'd shade the greenhouse in the hot summer months but they seem to be acting as a rain break.

Onions Doing Well

These Aisla Craig onions doing well considering the weather. They've now become officially my favourite variety.

Last year I grew them and they did exceptionally well and this year is no different.

In front are squashes recently planted out. They haven't drowned yet.

Climbing Beans in the Swamp

The beans I planted out the other day are not looking too healthy. I know they like to be kept moist but this is a little too moist.

You can see the second relief trench I was hoping would drain water is full. You can also see how my footprints have filled up.

Nothing to do but wait and see.

Larry's Prize Tomato

Larry came round to proudly tell me how he had a red tomato in his greenhouse. So I crept into his greenhouse to admire this prize specimen.

Luckily my camera has a macro zoom facility enabling me to photograph small objects in close up. I've added a couple of arrows to make its position clearer.

Beans looking worse on plot 5

3 days on from the last photo, the climbing beans on plot 5 look even worse. Lack of sun and a little more water than is good for them.

You can see that instead of draining the flooding is worse, standing water in pools rather than just footprints.

Water between plots 29 and 28

Plot 29 is far better drained than plot 5 but it's reached its limit. This is the path between plots 28 and 29. It slopes down about three inches at this end and thats the depth of water.

San Marzano Tomato in Greenhouse

The amount of room in the large greenhouse, 10' by 8' meant that I had room, as I thought, to plant one bush tomato in the rear border. The San Marzano planted outside are about half this size.

It's threatening a takeover of the whole greenhouse!

Cleaning Potatoes

Having harvested a load of potatoes we'd normally dry them off outside and pick over for any damaged or diseased before putting them in the storage sacks.

Well it's pouring with rain again so we're drying them off in the kitchen. I'm beginning to suspect a bag of spuds from the supermarket might be easier.

A Summer Shower in the Back Garden

One moment the sun was shining and it actually looked like summer. Next moment it went black and the power shower in the sky turned on!

Never seen the cat get through the cat flap so quickly! This is the rain bouncing off the table in the back garden. We'll probably look at this photo with envy next year in a drought.

Potato Blight on King Edwards

Fairly classic really, one day the haulm is fine, next like this - browning and obviously dying. The potato blight usually arrives later in the year but the wet conditions have been ideal for it and this is the result.

More information about potato blight.

Sarpo Mira Blight Resistant

The Sarpo Mira being blight resistant are unaffected and doing superbly. Got to have some positives despite the weather! I had a few King Edwards planted in the same bed and these are going down fast.

A Toilet on the Allotment

Yes, our site now proudly boasts a toilet. A great boon to the half of the allotmenteers who find using a bottle in a shed a bit tricky!

It's rather flash on the inside with moulded plastic foot pumped wash hand basin.

Stone Chippings and Trailor on the Car Park

The rubbish trailer is back and this time they delivered a load of stone chippings to us as well.

I barrowed eight loads across the site to the path in front of my plot to fill in the ruts. There's more on this in my allotment diary entry - the carpark has been cleared and looks huge now.

Sweetcorn Success

The two real success stories on the plot are the sweetcorn and Ailsa Craig onions.

Tall, healthy looking plants with about two cobs per plant so at least we'll have something this year from the plot despite the weather.

I put the success dwn to a load of pelleted chicken manure scattered round as I planted. Sweetcorn likes a lot of nitrogen and chicken manure is rich in nitrogen.

Sorting Potatoes on the Lawn

We've got a problem with blighted potatoes rotting in the sacks so we sorted them out on the lawn as today was actually sunny for a while.

It's pretty frustrating to lose nearly a third of good crop in a matter of weeks - full details are in the allotment diary article about my potato blight

Tomatoes - the good and the bad

A few days of sunshine has had a wonderful effect and started the tomatoes ripening. As you can see, I've taken most of the leaves off as they were dying with some blight.

At the rear of the house the huge San Marzano bush tomato is suffering the blight - hence the good and the bad.

Horsetail or Marestail - the ugly

Well, I had to do it - after the good and the bad, always comes the ugly.

This horsetail is creeping in from the neighbouring plot and spreading rapidly across my paths as well as popping up into the deep beds. I sprayed with amicide after taking this photo.