MY WEEK : 41 (W/E 14TH OCTOBER)

Welcome to this week's update from my allotments here in Stourbridge.

Well it has been another mild and mainly dry week here again, I have been fairly busy with getting things tidied up before the onset of Winter and also getting prepared for next season. As you can see from this picture my Brussels Sprouts are finally starting to form although I'm not sure that they will very big come Christmas time but never the less they are still an improvement on last year's crop whose buttons were not tight as those above are. In general some crops are starting to grow again with this mild weather and the same can be said for other parts of the country as well, several people have contacted me and mentioned that they are experiencing unseasonal growth on some of their Fruit and Vegetables.

This week at my allotments I have taken up my Gladioli for storage over the Winter. I find that the time to do this is when the leaves start to turn brown as shown in the top-left picture. Then I sort through them and as you can see in the bottom-left picture quite a few of them have produced new corms or divided, I carefully teased them apart so now I have more than I planted in the Spring. The next job was to reduce the stems to about 8" and then I placed them on some suspended chicken wire to allow plenty of air to get round them and dry them in readiness for storing them in a cool frost free and dry place, I find that they keep best in my shed in plastic baskets that Lidl have their Spring Onions in when displayed in their stores, if you ask nicely I'm sure that they will let you have as many as you want, they are ideal for things like Shallot sets and Garlic.





In my Brassica cage things are doing nicely, the Spring Cabbages pictured top-left that I planted a few weeks ago are putting on a good amount of growth and the Calabrese whose main heads had already been harvested are starting to produce their side heads pictured top-right, these are not as big as the main heads but they are more than adequate for the three of us. I found last year that they continued to crop into the New Year which was great.




As I mentioned earlier some of the crops are getting a new lease of life and the Dwarf French Beans pictured are a good example of this. They had finished flowering a couple of weeks ago but as you can see they have resumed with plenty of new Beans forming, even the Runner Beans that looked like they were over have produced more.





On Tuesday morning which was one of the coldest this week I decided to get stuck into turning and mixing my compost heap which certainly got me warmed up in no time and in fact took me about 5hrs to complete, as I mixed it I sprinkled Sulphate of Ammonia into it to get it really breaking down well along with giving it a good watering. Then to help keep the heat into it and also to help stop excess water getting in I covered the heap with an old piece of carpet as you can see in the top-left picture. The end result should be as good as the pile of compost pictured top-right which is from earlier in the season and will be an excellent soil improver for some of my beds.




Another exerting job that I managed to get done this week was to replenish the wood chips on the car parking area at the front of my plots pictured left, this helps to keep everything neat and tidy and it also helps if we have a wet Winter when the car park surface would otherwise be a bit slippery and muddy. The wood chips by the way are easily obtained from a local tree surgeon free of charge, these they would normally have to pay to get rid of so if you ring around the ones in the local phonebook I'm sure that you will find one willing to supply to your allotments.




Finally for this week I thought I would show you this Dhalia which is nearly the size of a dinner plate and wonderfully formed, I had been expecting a frost to have finished them by now but the mild weather has encouraged them to grow even more, absolutely stunning!! As a result of the milder weather I have held back on sowing my Garlic, Broad beans and Peas because I do not want them to put on too much growth before the coldest weather arrives.

Well that is it for this week, the weeks certainly seem to fly by at the moment with Christmas only weeks away and then it will be the New Year and a new season for us all, take care and I will speak to you all again next week regards Steve.