Beaten back by the Heat

Today was hot. Really hot. Too hot. I went down to the allotment this morning to get ahead of the weeds. I started with the weeds in the greenhouse which insist on growing in our tomato bed. The mix of bindweed and mares tail is lethal to any plants attempting to grow within several feet of them. Alan swung by and kindly offered us two beautiful cherry tomato plants and a blue bean. I love how there’s always a new and exciting varieties of vegetables unknown to many!

With the greenhouse done, I moved onto the next section of the strawberry bed. Again, the toxic mix of mare’s tail and bindweed. But credit to the strawberries, they are still growing underneath it all – even flowering! The heat was becoming oppressive and I hid in the shade to try and cool off. I chatted to John who was equally busy working on re-potting his plants.

I gave up on the strawberry bed and headed down the plot to weed the stumpery. Using the secateurs, I cleared the worst of the grass and was delighted to discover the ferns were still alive! I definitely need to get some more to fill out the space between the logs and to grow one on the top of the dead tree fern. Even if it’s not alive, it can at least look like it!

Next I headed over to the willow and began to trim it along both sides. The top is challenging as I don’t have a ladder and the electric hedge trimmer which would make the job doable. Happily, a fellow allotmenteer offered to trim the top for us over the next few days. We chatted about the height and I left it in his capable hands. By now I was melting, so I headed home to try and cool off. As I walked towards the gate, I stopped by to say hello to Jason and Nic who very kindly gave me two beautiful yellow spherical cucumber plants which I took home to keep a close eye on.

In the evening, we both headed down for part two. My husband worked on hoeing the beds and did a fantastic job on them. I worked on clearing the weeds in the bog garden until the combination of the heat and aching hands, brought our endeavours to an end for the day.

The plan for the next few days is to finish clearing Geoff’s beds and finish off our strawberry bed. Assuming the weather doesn’t break spectacularly and flood the entire plot…