Nic Dempsey

The weather was great on Saturday but by the time I got to the allotment on Sunday, it was raining. I did allotment in the rain but by the time I was finished, and I had to go, the rain had stopped. I didn’t really do anything on my list. 

First up I had a lovely surprise, my friend Jude had weeded around my gooseberries, as discussed last week, that area needs a thorough weed and clear before I plant the new gooseberries (we’ve bought them but they haven’t arrived yet!) so this was an absolute gift! I did see her to thank her personally it really was the best thing to see on a rainy Sunday!

I’ve had a not great growing year and one of my real points of failure has been kale, I’ve killed so many kale plants I’ve stopped counting but it’s been more than 20!! I really like kale, so I wanted to get what I have left alive in the ground. I know where it needs to go but I hadn’t got around to sorting it out it was going to be my end of August task and that didn’t happen. So I wanted to do it on Sunday.

However, my brain took one look at the path next to the bed that also weedy and needed to sort that too! and decide to weed that too. So I weeded the path and topped up the woodchip.

I weeded the bed, watered the bed, (which is an odd thing to do in the rain, but the soil is still quite dry) and added compost to the bed and then I planted probably slightly too many kale plants. I think they are cottagers’ kale and cavolo d’nero but like a lot of the allotment beds this year, it’ll be an experiment.

 That didn’t leave me with much time and I was quite wet, I weeded the new lavender bed and the lingonberry bed and then I did some harvesting. tomatoes, cabbages and chard. I also pulled up some borage plants that were in the paths. 

The paths are getting really overgrown again, it’s my fault the grass is running wild and I have not been on top of it, I was thinking about why it’s so bad now and then I remembered that I’ve lost my weeder in chief! It’s going to take a lot of work to get it back under control. The thing I’m most concerned about is the cinque foil on the right hand side of the plot as it’s really nasty and I just can’t dig it up enough and it’s started to move into the beds, which I can’t have and won’t spray.

In consultation with my plot neighbour on that side I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, and use weed killer. I’m going to paint the leaves with it and then I’m going to cover with cardboard and a very thick layer of woodchip and see if that’s enough to kill it off. It’s not ideal and if I had more time or easier to deal with weeds, I would do something different but I am already dealing with rampant couch grass and bindweed, I just can’t add another one to my plate. I need the allotment for peace and mental health and getting this weed sorted will help me.

There is still so much to do but I’m chipping away at it! Definitely on the list for the weekend is sorting out the blueberries, they need weeding, topping up with compost and strulching. The lavender needs trimming and I want to take cuttings of it too. Once the fruit cage is tidy and where there are no plants, wood chipped to help with weed suppression. It’s time to sort the path by the last untidy tomato bed. As cool as it’s been this week, it may be time to clear that bed. I have plants that can go in there.

There is loads of woodchip right now so if I can clear the paths I can top them up to help with weed suppression.

There is lots to do but by November I’d like to be working on clearing up the middle section of the plot. It’s good to have goals!!