Gardening blog

Week thirty four
August 19th - August 26th

2022
I have some videos on youtube of my allotment visits this week
19th August Feeding leeks and making a winter home for hedgehogs
25th August It has been an extremely dry summer breaking all the temperature records but now we have had some rain
26th August Time to turn the compost heap

2006
Sunday 20th August 2006 I don't normally take cutting of my dahlias but generally divide the tubers up when I want new plants. This year however I did take some cuttings of my newly named Dahlia - 'Laslett's Tequila Sunrise' in the spring and I must say that the blooms from these plants are strong and clean. Great for cutting for the house and possibly even for the show bench. But I know nothing about exhibiting Dahlias apart from what I have seen on television. You can see Laslett's Tequila Sunrise growing at Applebee

I did more work on the area allocated for the new snowdrop bed under the old apple tree.

I intend to extend this digging and clearing to encompass the area under the peach tree that for the first time ever has given me a good crop of peaches - some nearly the size of a grapefruit! Then that newly cleared area can be another snowdrop or aconite bed in a year or two.

2005

Thursday 25th August 2005 I'm concerned that my leeks have leek moth and a couple were showing the tell tale signs although generally they all look pretty good so I gave them a good weed and a bit of an earthing up. I think I will have to keep a close eye on them and check them frequently in the next few weeks.

Wednesday 24th August 2005 In contrast to yesterday it rained all day today although by the evening it had eased off enough for me to do a little more digging and weed clearing under my large apple tree near the bee hives. I want to get this area really clean and bindweed free ready for spring 2007 as then I will ready to move the snowdrops that I planted under the Worcester Pearman last year. I want to give them two years growth before moving them into a luxury new home.

Tuesday 23rd August a warm sunny summers day although I didn't get to the plot early enough to do much work today. Although I did dig a row of potatoes, crop the courgettes and pick the one peach on my big peach tree. So far this tree has given me only one fruit per year. For the last three years it has started the year with a good number of small fruit all over the tree but gradually drops them all to end up with only one. Whether this is a pollination problem or the tree deciding it will only support the one fruit I'm not sure. At least at this time of the year it looks like a really healthy tree as it has shed all of the leaves suffering from peach leaf curl that had grown early in the year. I hope that one day I will be picking a basket of peaches from this tree. At least the one peach is a good size and looks great.

Monday 22nd August 2005 started out bright and sunny but by the evening a steady rain had set in. However I did manage to pick another large bowl of greengages, weed a couple rows of leeks, sow a small amount of spring onion seed and re-plant the corms of some dutch iris that I had dug up yesterday's skirmish in the battle of the bindweed.

Sunday 21st August 2005 The day started grey and dull but ended sunny and still.

I have neglected to fight the battle of the bindweed in the last couple of months and in some places it has romped away from me, it's white flowers the mocking proof of it's established existence, however, those areas that I dug over in the spring are now easy to dig again and I have been removing what weed remains there. This seems to be the best way of dealing with it, dig it out leave the ground empty then go back and dig it out again and repeat the process until no more comes growing through. The hardest part for me is leaving the ground unplanted.

2000

Sunday 19 August. Sowed the second row of onions and planted out a row of strawberries in a warm damp drizzly day that rained in the evening.

The new strawberry bed was well prepared occupying the ground that had this years early potatoes in, after it had been fortified with compost, the ashes of fire used to destroy blighted potato tops, moldy onion tops and the usual perennial weeds.

The small spring cabbage plants, grown from the seed sown at the end of last month, needed weeding but are doing well and will be ready to plant out September/October.