English country garden and allotment gardening diary blog week six february 5 to 11

GARDENING BLOG

Week thirty one August 5th - August 12th

2005 Tuesday 9th August 2005 I am pleased with the cuttings I took some weeks ago of my Lemon Verbena as they now look as if they are ready to be moved on into individual pots.
I dug up some nice clean potatoes (Wilja) this evening that didn't have a sign of scab on them, unlike the Kestrel that I dug some weeks back that seem to have no area of the skin without scab . Peeled or scraped the Kestrel were OK when cooked but the Wilja didn't need peeling or scraping just a good scrub and they cooked fine with the skins on.
I planted out more purple sprouting broccoli this evening from plants grown from my own seed (saved from plants grown the year before last) and as I left the allotment it was raining quite hard so that should make their move to new quarters easier to take. I have one selected sprouting broccoli plant with seed pods on in a large bag for this years saved seed. That was a plant that cropped early and I have another plant that cropped late yet to harvest so that I will have an early seed and a late seed to sow next year.

2004

Thursday August 12th In past years I have sown Japanese onions seeds at this time of year - but this year I am not going to. I will plant out the Japanese onion sets again and have begun digging the ground ready for them. I'm using the same ground as I used last year and as we have had an extraordinary amount of rain in the last week (after almost a month without any at all!) the ground is like it is in spring - maybe I should sow the seed after all in previous years the ground has been as dry as dust at this time of the year.

Tuesday August 10th
It has been raining on and off today and yesterday - time to plant out the summer/autumn calabrese broccoli. The seed was sown by John on Geoff's plot in the enclosed bed that I dug, weeded and fed after planting out the spring cauliflowers earlier in the year. That bed also has my (seed swap) lettuce growing nicely and a selection of salad greens sown by John at the same time as the calabrese. The calabrese will crop in November if all goes well.

August 8th 2004
Took off a some more honey and checked through the WBC hive with Geoff. He spotted the queen that was moving from one side of the frame to the other at some speed. She looked good - a leathery brown colour. I was intending to to put some strips into the brood box to control the mites but in the end we decided not to and I put some empty frames back on. The original queen that started the year in this hive and was moved out of this hive to another brood box earlier in the year has produced no honey at all so far. I am afraid that she will not see the end of another season.

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patrick@laslett.info


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concrete-sky.com	GARDENING BLOG Week thirty one August 5th - August 12th 2005 Tuesday 9th August 2005 I am pleased with the cuttings I took some weeks ago of my Lemon Verbena as they now look as if they are ready to be moved on into individual pots. I dug up some nice clean potatoes (Wilja) this evening that didn't have a sign of scab on them, unlike the Kestrel that I dug some weeks back that seem to have no area of the skin without scab . Peeled or scraped the Kestrel were OK when cooked but the Wilja didn't need peeling or scraping just a good scrub and they cooked fine with the skins on. I planted out more purple sprouting broccoli this evening from plants grown from my own seed (saved from plants grown the year before last) and as I left the allotment it was raining quite hard so that should make their move to new quarters easier to take. I have one selected sprouting broccoli plant with seed pods on in a large bag for this years saved seed. That was a plant that cropped early and I have another plant that cropped late yet to harvest so that I will have an early seed and a late seed to sow next year. 2004 Thursday August 12th In past years I have sown Japanese onions seeds at this time of year - but this year I am not going to. I will plant out the Japanese onion sets again and have begun digging the ground ready for them. I'm using the same ground as I used last year and as we have had an extraordinary amount of rain in the last week (after almost a month without any at all!) the ground is like it is in spring - maybe I should sow the seed after all in previous years the ground has been as dry as dust at this time of the year. Tuesday August 10th It has been raining on and off today and yesterday - time to plant out the summer/autumn calabrese broccoli. The seed was sown by John on Geoff's plot in the enclosed bed that I dug, weeded and fed after planting out the spring cauliflowers earlier in the year. That bed also has my (seed swap) lettuce growing nicely and a selection of salad greens sown by John at the same time as the calabrese. The calabrese will crop in November if all goes well. August 8th 2004 Took off a some more honey and checked through the WBC hive with Geoff. He spotted the queen that was moving from one side of the frame to the other at some speed. She looked good - a leathery brown colour. I was intending to to put some strips into the brood box to control the mites but in the end we decided not to and I put some empty frames back on. The original queen that started the year in this hive and was moved out of this hive to another brood box earlier in the year has produced no honey at all so far. I am afraid that she will not see the end of another season. // gardening diary // gardening links // gardening catalogues // gardening home // Thompson & Morgan - Online Catalogues and Gardening Information patrick@laslett.info	Gardening links Catalogues Photo libraries Photographers Artists Illustrators Lemon Verbena Japanese onions Calabrese broccoli Lettuce Salad greens WBC hive Honey Topical link