Flooding, Greenhouses and Rose Arches

Just been up to the allotment to find that some of the localised thunderstorms we have been having localised themselves directly over the Nesserlaan! Gah!

I took some pictures. First here is the flooding:



This area of the garden has consistently flooded. I have two options here as I see it. I can move the sitting area from the other side of the garden down to here and have a squishy sitting area or I can raise the beds by importing a whole lot of sand and soil and improving the drainage. I'm leaning toward the first option purely because it will be simpler to have the chairs and table at the entrance where I can put all my things down as I enter the garden.

Also, I won't be able to leave my mobile phone lying under a pile of branches on the table at the end of the garden and completely forget it, like I did two weeks ago, and only remember that it was lost once it had started raining!

We put up an archway for the thornless blackberries and will be planting a climbing rose, one of the David Austin ones, to keep the blackberries company. My idea was to make a wider path, which sort of stepped sideways into a patio area to cover the flooded area. I could put my potplants in that section too.

Here's the archway:



See the flooding on the pathway too?

I also bought some portable greenhouses that were a special offer at the Lidl. My neighbour spotted them in the Lidl newsletter and called me to take a look. At 25 euros each they are quite sturdy with a metal frame and a plastic cover. They have windows on three sides so you can open the plastic to allow the air to circulate. Inside the plastic is another zipped netting area which forms the window. These are they:



They are placed at right angles to cover the beds of ailing tomatoes and protect them from the wind and storms that are expected the next few days. When they are used properly they will be placed over beds that are the same dimensions as them so that they can easily be moved from one to another.

I think these will be perfect for next year for my tomatoes, sweet peppers and a melon plant. The plastic should keep any blight away from the plants and the whole structure will keep wind damage to a minimum. I'll be able to use the greenhouses to protect early crops from the birds too, like my peas and early lettuces.

Since I last wrote lots has happened ...

I dug up our first potatoes, which, though tasty were not quite ready. We may have to take what we can get though because they are suffering from 'holheid'. Not sure what it is in English but the centre of the potatoes has a little hole in it and the potatoes are glassy. Ick. The very small ones are ok. Not entirely convinced about this Novella cultivar. It was a bit tasteless. The potatoes do wash up nicely though and the skin is all but removed with a quick brushing.

The garden got flooded. We had localised floods two weeks ago just before I went to London and most of the garden was underwater. Most of the plants seemed to do ok. The teepees for the peas didn't withstand the wind and the pea plants have since been removed.

The shallots were almost ready so I took them out. We reaped a fair amount of shallots for very little work and they're really tasty, with firm flesh and a purple tinge to the skin. I will definitely repeat the shallot experiment for next year. I purposely planted them close together because I like small bulbs. Nothing worse than half an onion/shallot in the fridge making everything else smell funny.

The cauliflower is forming heads! This is the same cauliflower that shares a bed with the kohlrabi and which I feared had club root. The cabbage in the bed next to it has no club root. I'm baffled. I'll let these ones form their heads and then pull them out and see what their roots are doing. Next year I'll try in a different portion of the plot.

The garlic has a little bit of rust, but nothing on the scale of what I've been reading about.

The strawberries are forming runners. I think we got most of the fruit that we're going to get off the yellow raspberry and the currants are probably lying on the ground now after the horrendous windstorm we've been having all day. I should have harvested them last week. I spent four hours at the allotment and didn't even get half of what I wanted completed.

The apples and plums are hopefully thinning themselves in this wind and the blackberries have put up an amazing framework of stems for next season. All the manure I gave them in spring has obviously worked wonders. I have woven them through a fence I made with wire and poles, and I hope that it holds. I have to work on a system for cutting down the just fruited stems.

How do other people do this? Do you just remember which ones just fruited, or do you mark them some way or another?

On the balcony my tomato plantation is doing wonderfully! My tomatoes are now about 5 ft high and each plant has more than 10 trusses of blossom. The first few trusses on each plant have set fruit and they're looking wonderful. The orange cherry cultivar is very strong indeed and is rampaging all over the place, whereas the gardener's delight seems more restrained. I can see a very big difference now in the planting dates of the seeds. The orange cherry was sown on 3 March and most of the others were sown a week later. Orange cherry has trusses of fruit that are much closer to ripening than the others.

I think for an early crop, and if one has a greenhouse/sheltered area the first week in March is a good time to plant. Of course, it all depends on the weather. Three years ago in March we were under 2 ft of snow.

Patrick gave me a whole lot of tomato plants which are doing pretty well. They've got two sets of blossom on each plant. I used the method of transferring the plants to their final pot/planting out area when they had their first flowers just opening, as per Joy Larkom.

The other side of the balcony, and sadly, still in windowboxes, I have my sweet peppers. I just didn't have enough room/money to get big pots for them. They're rather cramped, but quite pretty and even if they don't bear it will have been a good experiment. They have lots of flowers. I think if I can keep them damp they should bear, but otherwise... oh well. I will know for next time.

The basil is growing nicely, but I learnt something this year - don't plant individual basil seeds, plant a whole 4 inch pot full! I intend to take soft cuttings of my lavender, thyme and rosemary this week to try and establish some new plants.

I had my first sweetpeas from the garden which scented the living room beautifully. The gemsquash and butternut are romping away madly and have filled up their bed/rows between the potatoes. The dwarf bean plantation was augmented with some more plants raised at home. The borlotto didn't come up at all, but the contender did well.

It's time to think of what to plant for winter crops. I will be planting more salad leaves, seeing as all my summer lettuces drowned (and the slugs with them I hope!). I have spinach, swiss chard, autumn planted garlic, overwintering broad beans and peas. Leeks are obviously a must.

I need some more soft fruit bushes. I'm thinking of a gooseberry to replace the one redcurrant that is ill. I tried a wonderful red gooseberry that was just amazing. The current strawberry bed in front of the apple tree will be moved in autumn to be a bed adjacent to the other one with strawberries in and the rest of that area will be for soft fruit.

I'm now working in a flowershop which gives me the capability of buying plants at reduced prices like this chocolate cosmos, which has been calling my name repeatedly this week. They really do smell like chocolate!

So, lots to do, and possibly a development for our family that includes a summer house, 250 m2 of land and a greenhouse, all less than 5 km from our home! Just financial logistics to work on ...

Too too hot

It's 35 degrees out there and we're melting. I visited the allotment this afternoon at lunch time as we have a busy week and it's the only time I could go. I can't help but feel that the water I gave the plants probably all evaporated!

I asked about the redcurrants on my plot and apparently the plants are 17 years old! No wonder their yield is low and they look ill. This winter I'll replace them with other plants. I'm thinking of a gooseberry (kruisbes) and some other raspberries ...

What the garden did on vacation

Came back from vacation and first thing on Saturday we were at the allotment. The committee had made sure my garden was watered and I was amazed to see how everything grew while we were gone! The weeds grew too!

Some new photos to show you what I mean.

A beautiful butterhead lettuce. This one was a seedling from the garden centre.



We ate one just like it for supper tonight with a chilli vinaigrette, chopped tomato, feta cheese and sliced carrot. Oh, and the best kebabs ever! Marinated in a ginger, garlic, maple syrup and vinegar marinade. Mmmmm...

One of the Salad Bowl lettuces planned for dinner tomorrow. This lot was sown indoors back on the 3rd March.



First pea pods, sown indoors on 3 March. Don't they look just like peas in a pod?



A cauliflower surrounded by some purple kohlrabi. The idea is to harvest the kohlrabi as golf ball sized fruit and then pull them out, leaving the cauliflowers the rest of the space.

These cauliflower are remarkable because they were eaten almost down to the ground by the ducks before I made my cunning chicken wire enclosure for them! They've recovered wonderfully. The chicken wire is off and they now have pirate flags protecting them from errant fowl. I'm hoping the pirates on the bunting will prove even more chillingly frightening to the ducks. Pity you can't threaten ducks with walking the plank.

The caulis were from the garden centre and the kohlrabi from my neighbour. Don't they look beautiful together?



Blackberries in bloom. I'm thinking ... JAM!



A procession of cows on the polder:



I wonder what they were doing? Do you think one said 'follow me' and the rest did? Maybe the two behind have co-dependent personalities. Maybe the one in front is a dictator. Psychology among cows... I'm sure someone's studied it.

I also replanted some tomatoes to 10 cm pots, bought some compost to replant the rest, potted on some calabrese (broccoli), planted more lettuce in a tray, weeded my entire plot, tried out the new sprinkler, and then tidied up everything and brought it home because tomorro, after 45 days of drought, it's going to rain!

34 days and counting ...

Without rain, that is! I can't believe it. The newspaper headlines today were full of how it's not quite a drought. In a place where it usually rains every day I think this qualifies as a drought!

I'm especially concerned because I'm on vacation this week. I've asked some of the other gardeners to look after my plot and water my plants, but there's always the fear of returning to find everything dead and dying.

Yesterday I planted out loads of squash plants, more sweet pea seedlings and transplanted lettuces. Cross fingers they are still alive when I return.

Oh, and the pea plants and strawberry plants are flowering!!

Ok, so who turned the sun on?

It's flipping hot! I could even say 'it's FRIKKIN' hot!' I got so sunburnt today. First window washing, then car washing, then the whole afternoon in the allotment.

We spent most of yesterday morning there, before rushing back to catch the Grand Prix qualifying - husband is a fan.

Today I was there from 1 - 5 pm. The kids sat in their tent and read books, dug a bit in the dirt, fed grass to the chickens, got in the chicken run with the chickens ... in short... all those things kids get to do outside that they can't do in an apartment block. I love it!

Yesterday most of the time was taken up with chatting, having coffee with some other gardeners, getting some spare seedlings - spitskool, kohlrabi and kropsla. I planted them out yesterday but my visit today showed that the kropsla were very offended by the heat and today they were very wilted. I think one or two might die.

No such luck with the kohlrabi.

I'll let you in on a secret. I really don't like kohlrabi, but the lady who gave them to me was so nice, and I want to see what they look like when they grow and I had a spot to put them in so I took them. Ok, so the real reason I have them is because I just can't say no!

I planted out 12 Ostara strawberry plants yesterday and today I planted more sweet peas v. Old Spice - they finally came through after about four weeks! I now have Old Spice and Bijou on either side of a fence constructed of canes and chicken wire.

More sweet peas came out of their layers of damp kitchen paper today and went into trays. This variant is Candyman and it is a bright pink. I'll erect another screen for those in a different place. The sweet peas are for cutting. They don't seem that popular in the allotments here. I wonder why?

Other seed sowing happened today. The sweetcorn I had growing in pots was planted out and I also sowed seeds directly into the ground. I am making two windbreaks of corn, and my runner beans (Armstrong) will be left to clamber in the corn.

The runner beans and dwarf beans that I have here at home are becoming rather leggy but I'll keep them here a while longer. I'm still nervous that there might be a late frost.

I planted out two trays of Salad Bowl lettuce and I'm really pleased with the patterns I've made. I alternated rows of red and green lettuce - very pretty! The other three plants that were over went into the strawberry bed. They should be cut before the strawberries spread to fill the bed.

I also planted two more rows of carrots. I'm getting into this 'potager' look and sowing rows of plants in pretty patterns. The carrots form two sides of a square and the sweetcorn the other two. Hopefully the corn will shade the middle of the square so that I can plant things that are not that tolerant of heat in the middle.

My makeshift cover from chicken wire for the cauliflowers has worked really well, no more ducks eating them, but the peas are still being eaten by a mystery beast. It just nibbles the edges of the leaves? Bit like a caterpillar chomping, but I can't see any?

Spinach is through, need transplanting, carrots are through and need thinning, lettuces are through and ready to transplant. The apple tree is blossoming!

At home I planted chives; lemon basil; basil minette; gardener's delight, tigerella and costaluto florentino tomatoes (heirloom beef steak tomato) in trays.

I think I need to stop with the tomatoes now as each of those trays will give me 6 plants and I already have 18 cherry tomato plants already potted up.

Tomato addiction, anyone?

Oh, I want a courgette plant, but this year I will be lazy and buy one (and some aubergines) from the garden centre rather than starting my own from seed.

The flowers I planted in trays last weekend are through and I have to transplant them to modules.

I think it was a pretty successful weekend's gardening but I just wish it would rain! It hasn't rained for weeks now. The gardeners at the allotment allayed my fears of the canal running out of water. Apparently it has never happened before, except one year when there was a fault further up, so my plants won't die from lack of water.

It was so hot that the ponies were in the sloot (canal)!

I wanted to join them.

Rosemary and Thyme

The weather today was pretty fantastic. It got up to 19C!

Unbelievable for March.

So, guess where I was?

Planting lemon thyme, eau de cologne mint, apple mint, common thyme, sage, chives and chervil. I also planted a campanula and another plant - can't remember its name. Now isn't that a good start? Plant stuff and have no idea what it's called?

I had to ask for the water to be turned on so that I could water my plants. Yesterday they wouldn't turn it on so Sebastian had to do some seriously dangerous scrambling to get water out of the canal for me. Today that was absolutely not happening. Seb wasn't with me and I had no intention of ending up in the 'sloot'. I firmly requested that the pump be turned on and finally it was. Good thing I bought a ten litre watering can because it took me about 10 trips to water the few little plants I have. I see a hosepipe in my future.

I continued the work we did on the weekend and dug over some more beds. I discovered a large rhubarb plantation at the back of my plot so I'm planning to move the rhubarb plant I bought over there to keep the others company.

While I was there one of the other gardeners asked me if I had planted some special kind of bean plants. I asked why and he said it was too early for beans. I replied that I had some thermal fleece for them and so if frost was forecast I could always protect them. He seemed dubious about whether they would survive. I felt like saying 'Dude, if they die I'll just plant some more! Get over it!'

One cannot be rude though, one has to maintain one's 'normen en waarden'.

Sadly five of the bean plants got broken off by the wind - four Borlottis and one Contender. I need to replant some to fill in the gaps.

Life is definitely stranger than fiction. Remember I told you about the Chinese girl, Hong, from my class? You can imagine my surprise when she appeared with her mother in law at the volkstuincomplex!

Her parents in law have a garden there. It was so nice to chat to her and meet her mother in law and her baby son.

Another coincidence? One of the ladies who works at the natuurwinkel has a volkstuin in the same complex. So, that's two 'contacts' I have at the garden. How's that for six degrees? We have over 100 000 people in our town and two of them, from totally different areas of my life appear in a third, unrelated area. Weird.

I found a long term weather forecast for Europe which is very useful.

Let's hope the warm weather continues!