August 2022: Parting is such sweet sorrow

4th of August

I just visited the plot for the last time before we were about to go to Italy for 5 weeks, leaving the allotment in the hands of my plot partner. I still managed to plant a last few things before I went as there were some things in the little grow house that I wanted to put out. It seems like the last few days of overcast weather have allowed the seed to germinate, so I had a few things like carrots and those peas and beetroot shoots had finally come up, so I planted those in various places.

The last thing was some lettuce from the box that I bought at Christmas. They’d put out some sprouts. I’ve put them into the big tub in the hope that I’ll have some when we return.

I pulled out one more cabbage as it looked ready. I also picked up the giant courgette as I don’t think it can wait until come back. Like the previous year, I asked Pam to just take anything that looks like it’s ripe or mature that she wants rather than it going to waste.

I’ve also pulled out a few more onions as the boxes were getting really crowded. Wherever there was a clump it was looking really squashed. I thought it was a good idea to give the others room hopefully those will be OK. I’ll leave them to dry out for when we come back.

One negative thing is that it looked like one of my precious red cabbages had succumbed to some kind of mould. I’ve no idea what it is but I didn’t like the look of it, so I excised the afflicted cabbage so that whatever it was would not spread to the other five. Also, some of the leaves look a bit chewed and I did find a couple of little snails had finally infiltrated the umbrella.

Following my plant and hope strategy, I’m hoping to have something to harvest when I return. The squash should be ready there should be more carrots and onions as well. I’m hoping for more peas and beans too so I took a handful out today of the French bean and hopefully there will be more later even if they are dry by then, maybe I can save them for stews.