MY WEEK : 27 ( W/E 8TH JULY )

Welcome to this week's update from my allotments here in Stourbridge. As I mentioned last week there has been no let up in the weather conditions that we have been experiencing now for several weeks and the week ahead does not offer any change either. I have had a busy week though with a reporter visiting my allotments for an interview for a new publication from Morton's the publishers but at the moment that is all the information that I have on it, I will however let you know when I know more myself. I was asked to visit the children in school who visited my allotments last week to receive a thank you card from them along with a couple of nice presents, I put the finishing touches to the video of my plots that I mentioned last week and finally went away in the caravan for the weekend to try out our newer model, fortunately the weather remained dry and quite pleasant for the couple of days which were thoroughly enjoyed by us all.





The week started at the allotments with me planting out my remaining Brassica plants which were Brussels Sprouts, Calabrese, Cauliflower and Early Purple Sprouting into my Brassica cage, I decided not to fit protective collars to them as I had done with the Summer Cabbages because I have noticed that the Ants think that it is an ideal place for them to keep warm and dry whilst disturbing their roots, this does mean that I may run the risk of the Cabbage Root fly being a problem with them but hopefully the netting will reduce this risk.





The Raspberries and Blackcurrants are producing a bumper harvest this year which must have something to do with the weather conditions, the Strawberries have now come to an end and the plants have started sending out their runners which I intend in the next week to try to get to root for me, this will give me some new stock plants to plant in the Autumn and will ensure I keep the productivity going in future years.





I have now started to harvest the first of my Second Early Potatoes as you can see in the top-left picture, the Maincrops which are pictured top-right are doing well with some of them producing flowers as well.




As I mentioned earlier I visited the children who visited my allotments last week at their school, they had really enjoyed their visit and had also enjoyed eating the Potatoes that that saw me dig up during their visit along with the teachers. They had filled one of the walls in the school corridor with photographs and pictures of their visit and they presented me with this beautiful thank you card along with a couple of very useful presents. It was lovely to see that a little bit of time and effort on my part had given the children so much pleasure and although Daniel leaves the school in a few weeks time I have agreed to carry on doing these visits for the school in the future.



Well that is almost it for this week I'm afraid except to show you all the video I have made of my two allotments as they were last weekend ( 1st July ), I hope to bring you a video on a monthly basis now along with some more videos of how I do particular projects or jobs around the plots and anything else that I think may be useful to show you all, I hope you enjoy the video and if you have any ideas of what you would like me to show at some point in the future then please let me know. I hope that you all have a good week and I will speak to you again next week, thanks Steve.