Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
July 16, 2008: catch cropping
There's still time to sow a second batch of salad crops, advises Terry Walton
This dreadful summer continues and the sound of a million raindrops daily echoes off my greenhouse roof. The sun is keeping a low profile and teases us with an occasional glimpse but for those brief few minutes of its appearance you feel the heat of its presence on you face and crave many more hours of its glorious warmth.
The plants are adapting well in its absence and there is lots of lush green growth despite these cooler times. The fruit harvest continues after the end of the strawberry gathering time with gooseberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and red currants providing the ingredients for my desserts and, in addition, providing plenty of jam making opportunities. So you see, we will be able to sample the delights of these summer fruits throughout the winter months. Breakfast can be a reminiscing experience in those long dark days as the memories of those harvesting moments comes flooding back.
Last weekend I was very fortunate that my four-year-old granddaughter was staying with us and able to come along to the allotments with me. As we walked in through the gates, with her tightly holding my hand, memories of my young days came flooding back as I was her very age when my father took me along to his plot and those first vivid memories have remained with me for ever.
She was in awe at the plants growing there and bombarded me with many questions.
'What are those growing there?' She asked.
'They are carrots,' I replied and pulled one long orange root from the soil. I cleaned it and she merrily chomped away on it filling herself with this instant fresh produce. It must have excited her taste buds for it was soon gone and she asked for another.
She spotted the various fruit bushes and soon tasted gooseberries, raspberries and red currants. All of these treats seemed to fulfil her desire to try more of these wonderful tastes.
After an hour of questions she had filled her young mind with plenty of knowledge of gardening and her young brain was like a sponge - very quick to absorb the delights of the allotment. I do hope this experience has sated not only her taste buds but will give her the zest in later life to enjoy fully the pleasures of gardening and growing your own produce.
The constant rains and coolness of temperature has not suited all crops and the climbing French beans and runner beans are showing some yellowing in their leaves. A sure sign they are unhappy. Give them a treat and a boost. I take a handful of hydrated lime and dissolve it in a two-gallon watering can. Stir well and, despite all the rain, soak their roots. This will give them a lift and help them take up more nutrients from the soil quickly. Hopefully the colour will return to those yellow leaves.
As harvesting continues unabated bare patches of earth will start to appear. Don’t waste it! This is the ideal time for 'catch cropping'. Turn over these little bare patches, add some organic feed and sow beetroot, stumpy carrots and a range of salad crops.
This will give you a late summer crop and double the output of your plot. So there is still time to add to the benefits of this feeding time and have the pleasures of these later maturing crops.
My Life on a Hillside Allotment
Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called, My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press. The book is available from Amazon
