After 2 weeks away with the caravan in Vendee we were a little nervous about the state that the allotment would be in, especially as we understood that there had been a real heatwave in our absence. We had had a couple of kind offers to water our plot (Paul and our 'next door neighbours'), but had not expected so much to have been done. Virtually everything had thrived, unlike last year when our former plot had more or less come to a standstill.
The polytunnel had lots of cabbages ready to pick, the courgette plants are growing well, along with the cucumbers, tomatoes, beetroot (exceptional this year) and leeks. First impressions, comparing the polytunnel with the rest of the plot, suggest more leafy growth but with flowering and setting of fruits somewhat behind. This may give us different options for the future in terms of crop succession and so on.
On the main plot we picked our first potatoes - Swift First Earlies which produced 1.23 kg of very nice potatoes from only 4 seed potatoes. We tried them the very same day of digging them up and look forward to eating more. I also picked one plant of the next crop - Arran Pilot - which seems to crop more heavily with 462g and we look forward to trying them tomorrow.
As for the remaining plants, we should be able to pick them as we please from now on and enjoy fresh new potatoes for some weeks to come. They are also leaving the soil in a far pleasanter condition which short term will be good for quick crops such as radish and salad leaf, and longer term for more general crops, especially when we've been able to add some soil conditioner and manure in the Autumn.
Also on the main plot we picked lots of French beans - 700g, with many more to come - and broad beans - 2.2kg, with more to come too.
We also picked some onions, both red and white - 542g with more to come - and they found their way into a ratatouille tout de suite.
The fruit situation is very interesting also. There were already a lot of fruit bushes on the plot, top which we added some of our own raspberries and a black currant bush. Today Linda picked 492g of raspberries, 757g of small black currants from existing bushes, and 213g from the bush we moved from our former plot. The latter were also larger fruits and demonstrate, we think, that new stock can definitely add to productivity as well as flavour.
With more uncertain weather ahead for the next few days at least we'll need to still make sure we continue to harvest little and often to fully enjoy the fruits of our labour. It's very exciting and definitely makes clear just how difficult a task we had with our former plot.
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