late September sunshine

Things have been a bit quiet on the allotment front this last couple of weeks. Went up today and was pleasantly surprised at how well the Snowball turnips are progressing. We thinned them out and, rather than chuck them on the compost, we've transplanted the thinnings into the remaining space in bed 4. It was only after they had all been watered in that Cloddigger wondered whether or not he actually like turnips. Well, he's going to have plenty of chances to decide if they all grow!


'Snowball' turnips - today's thinnings transplanted to the right of the main turnip row



Some of our brassicas have been suffering from wooly aphids so have been sprayed. Hopefully this has dealt with the problem and the plants will recover enough to grow to maturity.

Another pesky problem is our resident mole(s). It/they appear particularly fond of the brassicas bed so we've been looking into humane methods of repelling them. The best bet looks to be solar powered sonic stakes. These clever devices are placed into the ground and emit sonic waves which irritate the moles thus encourgaing them to move on elsewhere. I couldn't find anywhere locally which sells them so I'll be ordering online. I'll let you know how successful these devices are once we've given them a go for a couple of weeks.

Pests aside, other crops appear to be doing well. The potatoes are going great guns and the first tender shoots of beetroot & garlic have made an appearance. The petite pois are now big enough not to be tempting to birds, so I removed their protective wire cloches and have fitted pea netting to their wig wam.

September continues to delight us with its warm, balmy days so it is an absolute pleasure to spend lots of time at the lottie. The nights are starting to draw in now and I'm sure it won't be long before we're having to think about putting out the protective fleeces and cloches.

The lottie today enoying late September sunshine