Many Hands
Summer holidays have been decidedly child oriented this year, so you have to grab your allotment opportunities when you can.
Despite having two car loads full of soggy and tired teenagers I managed to persuade them that my plot was the perfect stop off before heading on to our barbeque destination.
That’s a tricky sale but they were all remarkably enthused by the whole experience. They rushed around discovering weird bin lid sized squashes, picking rhubarb and scavenging for sweetcorn. I was particularly happy with the potato picking extravaganza. I remember that as a childhood joy and loved sharing it.
It’s a shame we had to rush off, I actually had to pull youfs away from weeding my beetroot – what a waste of labour!
We went back this weekend without the gang of helpers and had to pick the remaining spuds alone.
The King Edwards seemed to do the best, all the others suffered with quite extensive scab. What causes that?
All my tomato plants have been ripped out now, the blight got them really badly but strangely it doesn’t appear to have spread to the spuds. I whipped them out nonetheless, it’s not going to be long.
I continue to be impressed with your allotment, wish I had the dedication. We have a million tomatoes and quite a few potatoes, can I swap for some sweetcorn?
I don’t need any spuds unless yours are scab free but I could certainly manage a swap with some tomatoes, mine are a black pulpy mess now. Not altogether appealing.
Anyway, now you live in the country surely you don’t need an allotment – how many acres have you got out the back?
eSorry that this is probably not the best place for these but I couldn’t find a contact address.
I’m sure you must be aware of the problems experienced by allotment holders last year due to the use of manure contaminated by a persitent herbicide called aminopyralid. Information has been collated about this problem from the links on this page http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_Contaminated_Manure.ikml
Just to update on the latest re aminopyralid contamination in case you would like to provide updates on your website or to allotment holders in your area.
The latest infomation re manure contamination is posted on my website here http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_herbicide_latest.ikml
I have also sent out a email for circulation by everyone I know that has been affected which is here http://www.glallotments.btik.com/attachments/contaminated_manure_alert.pdf which you may find useful to circulate to allotment holders in your area.
It is particularly important that gardeners be aware of the need for caution when obtaining manure in light of the fact that the government are now considering reinstating the licence that was temporarily suspended last year. As this is a concern to many gardeners you may wish to publicise an a epetition that has been started here http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/aminopyralidban/
I am posting updates as I get them on my blog http://glallotments.blogspot.com/ just on case you want to keep a watching brief.