After the Easter break I visited the allotment and on seeing the weeds I was struck with a pang (albeit in the lumbar region) for more children. Children are great for that sort of job, low to the ground, flexible and with the uncanny ability to find Wally in a sea of red and white striped Wally’s, they would surely be able to distinguish the weeds from the produce. I know, I know, one mans weed and all that – but I have been patient and I did admire the lush crop of dandelions we had this year speckling the hedgerows in all their yellow splendour but when you have a weed posing as a carrot top and you can’t tell the difference that’s going a bit too far. That’s why loads of children would be good. Moaning aside a mere three hours total did mucho weeding and I was finally able to see the onions.
The onions which I planted as sets (or rather the CoS did) are flying but the onions I planted as seeds are much slower and require more care, but most of them have started. Seemingly planting by seed takes two months longer than putting in plants or sets. I planted them thin and this has the advantage of not having to thin out later but increases the risk of a lower yield. The time lag is also good since we’ll have two different crops maturing at two different times.
I have decided to plant more carrots in between the onions as there is space and mixing like this reduces the risk of carrot fly as they don’t like the smell of onions. Well at least I think that’s the reason. Though one wiseguy did suggest it’s because the onion fly will eat the carrot fly…that will be interesting – aerial warfare over the carrots.
The peas are flying, these guys put out amazing tendrils that wind around everything even the netting to keep the boids off. So I see a future where there is a bumper crop of peas but I won’t be able to get at them because they are all mangled around the netting.
But I did plant others also. As a little experiment I plantedcorn and peas together – seemingly the peas will use the corn as a support to climb on. Good in theory – the peas are flying but no sign of the corn. It might be a bit cold. I see the farmers put cling film on the fields to get theirs started. It’s biodegradable of course. Of course, but I wonder what’ll it do in the long term.
We’ve also planted: chives, good; garlic, good; leeks, slow started but getting there; corn and strawberries from plants don’t seem to be thriving and I’m blaming the drop in temperature for that and the hand on my Grannies clock in the hall is dropping, so it don’t look so good.