Week twenty five - June 17th - June 24th
2006
Sunday 18th June 2006 – sowed my collected snowdrop seeds in pots of multi purpose compost with gravel on top. I have put the pots in the shade under the cherry plum tree near the bee keeping shed. I am still cleaning out the area under my second large eating apple tree ready to plant snowdrops there next year. There is still a little spindly bindweed there to dig up - but not much now.
2005
Tuesday 23rd 2005 I started to pull up the Japanese onions that were sown as sets last year. I am going to dig the soil over and weed it and feed it as I put a row of Autumn fruiting raspberries between the two onion beds earlier in the year and I want to feed them up. I may also plant some kind of catch crop there as well.
Monday 22nd 2005 Thunder and lightening and lots of rain. We have been very fortunate with the rainfall this year and have been getting plenty of it just when it has been needed. The Blue Lake climbing beans sown after the first broad beans (sown in the middle of October 2004) were cropped and dug into the soil where they grew have sprung up through the soil and are busting with life.
June 21st 2005 Emergency! Emergency! For the first time this year I have been using the 'brood and a half' system. This means that I add a super to the brood box under the queen excluder to give the queen much more space to lay in. The intention is aimed at building up a big hive with lots of bees in it. However it seems that I don't understand the full process as when in the past I have reduced the queen cells down to one in the hive I have left the hive be for three or four weeks before opening it again that has worked fine. Not this year. In many of my hives after the queen cells have been reduced to one the bees have made more emergency cells. This first became apparent on the day bee inspector went through all of the hives on the 28th of May. There I was saying that hive is re-queening and there is one queen cell in it only for him to open it up and find several more. I should have checked this hive (the WBC) again a few days after removing the queen cell as when I came open it today (it has been extremely warm so even though it wasn't the 24th yet I thought it was worth a look) there they were, queen cells in the super. There had been a swarm a few days ago into the apple tree at the end of the allotment - was that the first queen to get back?
I have decided to completely change the bees in this hive now an have removed the bees left in it and put them on a old base next to it. I have a strong new laying queen ready to replace them with.
2004
Saturday 25th June 2004. Today is gray and gloomy with spots of rain every now and again. We have had a reasonable amount of rain in the last week and plenty of opportunities to plant out leeks and cabbages. The bees on the other hand have had only a few days of sunshine in the last seven and are not being able to make the most of the lime trees that have started to flower.
The peas sown at the beginning of December last year have been a great success this year. They are going over now and the first to crop I am beginning to pull up and strip of any remaining pods that can be kept dried both for next years seed and eating in the winter.
2003
Monday 24th June 2003
The first broad beans Aquadulce Claudia were sown in the middle of October last year (not Nov 5th!) and I pulled the plants up today. However, there there are still plenty of beans yet to pick from the later sowings of several other varieties.
We had a good long rain early in the morning yesterday and the soil is still in excellent condition for planting out cabbages, so there is now a row where the beans once stood.
The shallots are just about ready to harvest once they have dried out from the rain. I may well dig them up this coming weekend.
I now have four 'coloured' gooseberries red, yellow, white and green
1999
June 20th 1999 Today couldn't have been more different than yesterday - cabbages planted out from a secondary holding bed at the end of a cold wet day.
June 19th 1999 Hot summer weather at the end of of warm week means using the watering can on the allotment and the hose in the garden. The weather is about to change again and more brassicas and lettuce can still be planted out. More French beans and radishes sown. The spring sown broad beans had the first invasion of black fly on a couple of plants so all the plants had to have their tips (the first couple of inches) removed to discourage the pest spreading to all of the plants. This does work, the fly like to start at the very soft tip of the plant but if it isn't there they can't easily get established and invade the rest of the plant.
