Six on Saturday – May 19th

While everyone else seems to be watching the build up to the Royal Wedding, I’m planning what’s heading onto the allotment next, trying to work out a way of ‘bulking up’ the soil in a raised bed (the multi purpose compost I put in is just like dust!) and hoping that the runner beans will get on and grow faster! Welcome to my  Six on Saturday!

  1. We finally got the new blackcurrant in the ground – I treated it to a lot of homemade compost, so hopefully it’ll be more successful than the failed redcurrants were!

    And here’s the original blackcurrant, in the hope the new one will thrive in the same way.

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  2. And speaking of fruit, the gooseberries are looking really good. Anyone know an idiot’s guide(!) of when they’d be ready to pick if they’re going to be cooked rather than eaten raw?

    no idea what variety this one is, as it was a gift from a fellow allotmenteer!
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  3. The lemon thyme & oregano have been let loose in the flower section (mainly because my original herb section is now shaded by a neighbour’s shed)….

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  4. ….but the rosemary seemed to like the shaded part of the garden, so that’s gone into the shady herb section in the hope it’ll approve.

    ….all I need is parsley, and I’ll be growing parsley sage, rosemary and thyme (and I bet you’re all humming Scarborough Fair now!)
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  5. Thanks to Granny’s Garden for the tips on how to resolve my dead-looking penstemon after the snow in early spring – it obviously approved of its severe ‘haircut’ as it’s growing new leaves like crazy.

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  6. And you couldn’t have a Six on Saturday without the customary strawberry flower photo….

    Some of the new plants were flagging a little, so I think the soil in that raised bed is a little too free-draining compared to the others. These are in a different brand of multi-purpose compost (with some homemade compost, topsoil and grit sand mixed in as well), and we’re a bit more sorted with just how much water they need.

Don’t forget to check out the Propagator’s Six on Saturday  and read through the comments section for more blogs to check out!

2 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – May 19th”

  1. Glad your penstemon is doing well. Mine seem fine, too. I didn’t have room for my gooseberry crop, I will include it in next week’s Six-on-Saturday. I am just contemplating how to fill my raised bed, it doesn’t seem that big but will take a huge amount of compost. Let us know how you get on.

    1. I’ve got three and a half raised beds (the half is just half the size of the others), and most of them are filled with strawberries! Although the half is my chives & spring onion bed – I’m hoping the chives will be easier to weed if they’re in the smaller bed, as last year most of what looked like chives was actually grass growing through…

      The newest raised bed just has multipurpose compost, grit sand for drainage, and a few shovels of homemade compost in there… I’ll put up a photo later in the month to compare that to the other ones, to see if that mixture was beneficial or if I should’ve added topsoil again!

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