Above, view of pond constructed the year before, raised beds with courgette plants, winter squash supported on wall, trellis with recently planted grape vine. In foreground, leaves of an apple tree. Visible behind trellis, remains of Anderson shelter, corrugated iron air-raid shelter from Second World War. The sloping piece of wood on the left side of the pond is for the use of the small frogs, enabling them to leave the pond.
Above: the two paths visible here are boarded and the path on left has a water collecting surface. (A third path, on the right, not visible.) The bed to the left of the path on left (only shown in part) was used for growing broad beans (later, spring cabbage.) The path to its right was used for early potatoes, Home Guard and Kestrel (later, leek and overwintering onions) and the bed to the right of that was used for maincrop potatoes, Rooster and Golden Wonder, here in flower (later, sown with a green manure, foraging rye.) Also shown: the versatile transframe structure, with water-collecting roof, used for water storage at the time but now used as a small garden shed, to store a wheelbarrow. Behind the transframe, autumn-fruiting raspberries (Polka and Joan J) and wild blackberry bushes. Growing against the wall at right: golden hop (humulus lupulus 'Aureus.'
Below: view of asparagus and autumn-fruiting raspberry plants (in foreground) and runner bean plants. On left, path (constructed of log-roll edging) which can be fitted with a water-collecting surface. (A long length of guttering is next to it.) Not clearly visible: the fruit trees planted at the top of this allotment last year and this year.
Below: pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) and roses (The Dark Lady, left, Remember Me, centre, Southampton, right).
Below: a support-star, with fig tree planted last year. To the left, a support framework constructed with flexible poles, with Oullins golden gage planted this year. The contrast between circular / elliptical form and straight-line form.
See also other gardening pages:
Gardening photographs 1
Gardening photographs 2
Gardening photographs 4
Gardening photographs 5
Bed and board
Structures: plant protection and support
Structures: cloches, greenhouse, store/shelter, shed
Composting and rainwater collecting
Some design principles in gardening
Processing produce:
Converting a manual fruit press into
a hydraulic fruit press
The photos here are from 2012. Other pages,
Gardening photographs 1,
Gardening photographs 2,
Gardening photographs 4 and
Gardening photographs 5 show photos taken in
2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014 / 2015.
'For the rain it
raineth every day' (Shakespeare, 'Twelfth Night,' v:1)
A very
difficult growing season. From the MetOffice Website: '
'Figures for June, July and August show that 370.7 mm of rain fell across the UK, making it the second wettest summer on record since the 384.4 mm of rain seen in the summer of 1912.
'These latest figures follow a record wet April, and an April to June period that was also the wettest recorded in the UK.
...
'Summer 2012 was also one of the dullest summers on record with just 413 hours of sunshine. This makes it the dullest summer since 1987 when the UK saw only 402 hours of sunshine.
'To complete the disappointing picture, it has also been a relatively cool summer with a mean temperature of 13.9 °C, some 0.4 °C below the long term average. Despite this it was a little warmer than the summer of 2011 which saw a mean temperature of only 13.7 °C.'
Growers all over the country have recorded low yields, for example of
potatoes, apples and tomatoes (unless in a heated greenhouse with artificial
light.) I've had the same experience here with these crops, although
most of the apple trees were only planted this year and weren't expected to
crop heavily.
I planted a small orchard in the top part of
the lower allotment (a few of the trees were planted last year):
Apple trees: dwarf Bramley's seedling (3 trees), Grenadier, James Grieve,
Red Falstaff, Jonagold, Katy, Jupiter, Winston, Spartan.
Plum trees:
Victoria, Marjorie's seedling.
Gage tree: Oullin's golden gage
Damson tree: Merryweather.
But the season was far from disastrous. The yield of broad
beans was the best ever, summer fruiting and autumn fruiting raspberry
bushes, redcurrants and whitecurrant bushes were prolific. After a slow
start, the courgette plants have been no disappointment at all and the one
winter squash plant has been outstanding.
One path has been used as a
water-collecting surface and a water-collecting surface can be fitted to
another path. Even this year, there has been a need for this water, as I
made a small bog garden at the lower end of the top allotment, planted with
hemp agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum), meadowsweet ((Filipendula ulmaria),
water avens (Geum rivale), marsh cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris) and water
mint (Mentha aquatica), all of them British natives.
I
designed a structure to support a fig tree:
support-spokes, and a structure using curved supports for a gage tree.
The pond in the lower allotment, constructed last year, was found by frogs and used for mating. The pond is planted with white water lily (Nymphaea alba),
reedmace (Typha minima), scouring rush (Equisetum hyemale) and water mint (Mentha
aquatica.) Common duckweed (Lemna minor) found its way to the pond unaided.
All of these, apart from Typha minima, are British natives.
Of the
wild flowering plants that found their way to the allotments unaided this year,
I'm particularly pleased to see selfheal (Prunella vulgaris) and common
toadflax (Linaria vulgaris.)