Week 44/ 28 Oct - 4 Nov

Sunday October 30th 2005 Another extremely mild day. I've started a new tulip bed next to the little apple tree that has been doing so well in recent years. It's a bed that I dug over in the spring in order to get the bind weed out. Judging by how much bind weed was still in there, not very successfully apparently. It's a bed that has had rocket left there to go to seed in the last few years so I'm hopefully that it will produce more rocket and possibly land cress as well as tulips in the spring. After the tulips have finished and been dug up I will give the bed a dig over and remove more bind weed and add plenty of manure before planting out squashes there for the summer.

I planted out what was left of the Japanese onion seedlings.

Saturday October 29th 2005 This autumn the weather has been record breaking. Never have we experienced such warm weather at this time of the year. And this week was no exception as we experienced several warm days of continuous bright sunshine. Today it was a little gray but still warm nonetheless. I haven't thought much about snowdrops and aconites recently until today when I decided to give the area under the apple tree a weed. Evening primrose is quick to established itself throughout my allotment as I tolerate a lot of it letting it flower and go to seed for the birds. But those growing under the apple tree I pulled up along with any verbascum that is just as prolific if left to it's own devices.

The japanese onion sets got their first weed and liquid feed today.

I pulled a few good sized leeks today. The leeks did get quite consistently attacked by leek moth this year and I think this new pest is going to be with us from now on. The organic control method for leek moth that seems to be effective is to screw or cut the top of the plants off as soon as there is any sign of moth damage thereby removing the grub before it can develop and eat it's way right down into the center of the plant. The leeks soon recover from the loss of leaf and the moth doesn't it seems lay more than one egg per plant or on the same plant twice. Obviously if the leeks are well established and healthy before half their foliage is removed they will stand a better chance of making a good recovery and growing to good sized plants and those few plants that moth misses altogether will be bigger and better plants than the rest. Maybe this will be another crop that will need to be grown under fleece to get maximum results in future.

Friday October 28th 2005 The greengage tree outside my window has just had a visit from two Great Tits one Blue Tit and a Firecrest I'm sure it was a Firecrest although they can be easily confused with Goldcrests. As the leaves have have fallen from the branches I guess the bugs have moved to the nooks and crannies in the bark for their winter quarters and are going to provide a winter larder for these insect eating birds.

2004
31st October This weekend sees the end of an era for me as I move the shed out of the apiary site and down to the allotment.