Gardening blog

Week thirty seven September 9th - September 16th

2022

I have put a video on Youtube for the 16th September - Autumn is gradually taking over from summer - today it was raining!

I have put a video on Youtube for the 15th September - Moving the plants around in Autumn.

I have put a video on Youtube for the 14th September - Pea beans are struggling but my old shed vine has a good crop of grapes.

I have put a video on Youtube for the 13th September - A very short visit just to pick a few things.

I have put a video on Youtube for the 12th September - Weeding the late leeks, planting lettuce, sorting apples.

I have put a video on Youtube for the 11th September - The Autumn brassica bed is dug and the black tomatoes are ripening

I have put a video on Youtube for the 9th September - Potatoes, chard, radish, and digging the autumn brassica patch

2013

I have some ground ready for planting out the Japanese onion sets and must remember to visit the allotment shed to see if they have them for sale.
I'm thinking that these small-plugs may be worth a try - if I can beg a bit of space in my wife's greenhouse that is. It's currently nearly full of tomatoes.

My beekeeping took over from this blog as the number of hives grew each year. That was until recently. Now I'm actively reducing the number of hives I keep to go through each winter and I'm spending more time in the allotment.

2006

Sunday 10th September 2006. Yet again I’ve lost the plot; the weeds are rioting and have virtually taken over the entire allotment. Even those areas that were weed free, where the crops had crowded them out in the last couple of months, now have weeds coming through. For example the butternut squash with it's cover of large leaves had kept most of the annual weeds at bay but even in that patch there were weeds to pull out. There aren’t any perennial weeds in that patch it'is one of my best-tendered and well-fed areas in the entire plot. I double crop it every year with extremely well fed squash or courgettes plants in the early summer. I dug loads of muck into large planting holes for them before planting only a few well-spaced plants from pots there. Then after cropping the squash I clear the ground and fork it over after the first frost arrives in November in time ready to plant the tulip bulbs. The ground doesn’t need any more feed for the tulips although the odd handful of blood, fish and bone never goes amiss. I must admit that from time to time the occasional cabbage or caulis does creep in close on to the border of this patch as they always do extremely well in this well tendered soil.

One of my biggest disappointments so far this year has been the success or more importantly the lack of success with my leek plants. I just didn’t get planting them out right at all. I have less than a quarter of the total amount that germinated and grew into small plants left growing and none of those look exactly wonderful. It appears I didn’t give them enough water, care and attention immediately after planting them out even though I was well aware of the dry conditions at the time.

Tuesday 12th September 2006 Neville, who also keeps bees on the allotment site, is our local swarms co-ordinator. When we met at the allotments the other day Neville handed me a copy of Buzzwords (the monthly newsletter of Norfolk Bee Keepers Association) because he knows I have an hive out near Harlestone in Suffolk and there was an article in Buzzwords about some of the bee hives in the Harlestone area suffering from EFB (European Foul Brood) and that all hives in the area need to be inspected by the bee diseases inspector. I have the bee inspector’s card since he inspected all of our hives at the allotments so I called him and requested an inspection. Once he found my hive in Sussex and inspected it he found it to be in good condition with no evidence of EFB and with plenty of bees in residence. They do need feeding though.

2005

Friday 16th September 2005 I sold a hive of bees today from my allotment. I guess I would like to sell more hives and have upgraded the info on the Norfolk Honey products page.
Thursday 15th September 2005 It rained today - the first downpour for weeks . It's just what the onion sets need in order to get them rooted. The birds move some of the sets around I don't know why but every year some have to be put back in line.
I have nearly taken off all of this years honey. There are just a couple of hives left without strips in that I'm putting the wet supers on to get cleaned out before storing them for the winter. Some of the hives that I started feeding a couple of weeks ago are now full and ready for the winter.
Sunday 11th September 2005 The allotment shed now has the Japanese onions sets for sale. Half a kilo has provided enough of the little bulbs to make five rows planted out. I have planted them a bit closer this year as some of them always seem to bolt and get pulled early. Last year I fed them during the winter months with liquid feed and that seemed to get good results.
Our germination of July sown Calabrese was very poor this year so I was only able to plant a few plants out - but if they grow well there will be enough in November.
The leeks have been heavily infested by leek moth again. I have torn the tops of the leeks affected off hopefully with the grubs to get rid of them - but that will reduce the yield of leeks. Adam, who has the allotment next to the apiary, had a collection of Rosemary Beetles in his hand to show me. I hadn't seen them before. He said they had eaten one of his Rosemary plants this year. My lilies also had lilly beetle lava on them earlier in the year that had to be removed. I seems that both these beetles are with us now.
A familiar pest is the catapillar of the cabbage white butterfly - there are plenty of those around this year too.

Saturday 10th September 2005 It rained overnight for the first time for at least two weeks - there were many plants in the allotment that needed it and now look a lot better for it.

2004

Monday 13th September 2004. Planted out two more rows of onion sets and took off some more honey. There is only one hive left with any honey on now and I will take that as soon as the weather allows.

Sunday September 12th 2004 I planted out the first two rows of the Japanese onion sets.

Honey production this year is well down as compared with last year. The weather in June and July was just not good enough. However, I did take a bucket of honey off the hive in the apiary that started the year with such a small amount of brood I was afraid that they weren't going to make it through the year at all.

September 11th 2004 I am preparing the ground for Japanese Onions sets. Last year I split my sets into three lots and planted two rows with each lot several weeks apart. I was trying to find out if the planting time affected their capacity to bolt. The first two planting still had a fair percentage that nbolted and the last planting didn't bolt at all. However, the last planting made much smaller onions than the earlier two. So it seems it is worth planting at the beginning of September and pulling up those that bolt and eating them first.

The bind weed under the apple tree is hanging on. I pulled up the marrows under the tree and along the width of the plot removing the few remaining thin white roots. I still will not be able to plant anything permanent there next year as it isn't yet 100% clean.

2003

13/14 September. The weather this weekend was warm and sunny again continuing the summer theme. Although we did have a little rain in the week the ground is still very dry. I am continuing to dig potatoes and pick apples beans and sweet corn. I haven't sown any more onion seed yet or planted out more of the Japanese onion sets. I am thinking of preparing ground for sowing broad beans and planting out spring cabbage.

At least this sustained dry spell will have helped to keep the slug population down although I found the first slug or snails eggs so it is time to search for more.

2002

Planted two rows of Japanese onion sets after digging up two rows of potatoes. Digging up potatoes when they are 'new' is such fun in contrast to digging up the 'main crop' that is a is a real chore.

2000

September 9th 10th and 12th

Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th September The weather over the two days has been exceptionally warm. A strong southerly wind and plenty of sunshine made the weekend one to sit in the garden and simply enjoy. It was like the middle of summer and a rare treat for this time of the year. In the allotment I should have been digging or if I was more organized, as Bernie is, hoeing. Although I didn't do any of the tasks that I need to do, I did open up the two beehives in the allotment and remove the small amount of honey that was there. I also put into the strongest hive 4 Baverol strips to kill the Varoa mite. Both of those hives will need feeding and I will have to buy four more packets of strips for the other hives before long. If these two hives survive the winter I will be hoping for a much bigger yield from them next year.

The autumn fruiting raspberries planted in the spring are cropping exceptionally well in this warm spell and I may well increase my stock next spring.

Tuesday 12
The weather is still warm and dry but going to change soon. I made a quick visit to the allotment and was alarmed at the site of my spring cabbage seedlings.

I not sure whether it's as result of an exceptionally wet season or my poor horticultural practices but I now have a thriving slug population like I've never seen before. These are large orange flanged beasts unlike the little gray field slugs that populate the edges of the lawn. Not only are they ten times larger but they also seem to eat ten times as much. They are however selective about what they enjoy eating. I first noticed them at on my spring cabbages earlier in the year and was surprised to see that they obviously preferred one variety to the other. Their preference was definitely for 'Spring Hero' that they were in the process of consuming completely. And now it's the same this autumn. I chose a seed bed well away from last years spring cabbage patch and it did take them some time to find the seedlings that were doing extremely well (I sowed the seed earlier than I usually do) until this visit by the slugs. Half the row had been all but eaten to the ground. The culprits didn't last long and I made a mental note to check them out first at the weekend. They had originally been attracted to this part of the plot by young courgette plants that they also seem to have taste for, although they eat only the very center of the plants and won't touch them when they get big and hairy.