1. First we have the allotment Cucamelon plant.

   

   

   
   My ‘gardening assistant’ (dad) had told me there weren’t any Cucamelons growing yet… I think he must have missed all of these!
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2. On to the strawberries in three different raised beds now, and first we have the top raised bed which has a few of my original Strawberry Something-or-other (there’s two or three left after the majority died), plus this year’s additions of Sweet Collossus, Florence and Beltran.

   

   
   Moving on to the third raised bed, the Snow White plants are looking really healthy (and sending out runners)…
   

   

   
   Just Add Cream shares this raised bed, and I’m going to have to sort out these runners, otherwise I’ll get in a muddle with which plant is which!
   

   

   
   Moving on to the second raised bed, and Strawberry Something-or-other really isn’t happy – using the square foot gardening idea, I had 36 plants in here last year, and now I have about 5 or 6 plants…
   

   

   
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3. Runner Beans tend to work really well on our allotment, providing we net the base to stop the Roe Deer nibbling the young plants. The bean plants don’t seem quite so leafy this year though, but maybe that’ll be a positive, as it should mean they aren’t heavy enough to bring the bamboo supports down!

   

   
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4. Moving on to Raspberry Jungle, I did some thorough weeding in here this week. The grass might not have grown with all the blazing hot sunshine we’ve had, but the bindweed is proving to be even more of a pain than usual.
   

   

   
   Wondering why I call it Raspberry Jungle? This is the “weeding view” of the raspberry patch…
   

   

   
   They’re Autumn raspberries, but they grow semi-wild across part of the allotment site, so I’ve no idea what variety they are.
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5. Something a little less wild-looking is my mini celery patch. It seems to have taken a little while to get going (I bought the plug-sized plants from Homebase earlier in the year), but hopefully now we’ve had some less-hot weather, they’ll grow quicker!
   

   

   
   And if my Mum is reading this, yes I will try and get a better (straighter) edge to this bit before the grass grows too much!
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6. And finally the blackberries have finished, but it proved that our new blackberry support was worth making – we had loads more fruit than in all the previous years combined!

I just need to check when to prune the branches back, and also get the new growth tied into the supports ready for next year!

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

1. I don’t know if it’s just down to the weather, or that we’ve got the blackberry on a support this year so it’s not trailing the ground…. but whatever the reason, we have loads of fruit this year!
   

   

   
   And so far, it looks like the deer have left it alone, so there’s no need to net it
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2. This is the first year I’ve tried growing cucamelons – the seeds germinated, but seemed to stop growing so we invested in a plant from the garden centre….
   

   

   
   We split that plant into two, so one piece is on the allotment and the other is in a pot in the garden. In the end, the seed-grown plants started growing again too (apparently that’s normal for them to pause growth if they’ve not got quite the right temperature or moisture).
   One of the plants grown from seed has died, but we still have one seed-grown plant left too,so that will be heading to the allotment tomorrow to join this one!
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3. I don’t know what happened with my “original” strawberry plants this year – I started out with about 40 plants across two raised beds….
   

   

   
   ….and now have about 10 left as the others have all died off. These were runners saved from previous years, so I wouldn’t have thought they would be ‘tired’ and in need of replacing just yet.
   In contrast, my “fancy strawberry bed” is proving more successful – Just Add Cream (which is meant to produce more fruit and less runners) is sending out runners, and Snow White has runners which have already rooted!  I’m hoping this will bode well for next summer!
   

   

   
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4. The gooseberry bush is a great success this year – whatever ate the berries from it last year seems to have left it alone, as we’ve had plenty to pick.
   

   

   
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5. Onto the peas and beans, and I think the peas have definitely gone over now….
   

   

   
   ….we did get plenty of peas from them though, so compared to other years I’d class that as a definite success!
   The runner beans have taken off like rockets – I think I need to take a stool with me to the allotment next, to reach the tops of the canes in order to nip the growing tips off!
   

   

   
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6. And to finish, how about a mini game of “spot the creature in the compost bin”? This Slow Worm was pretending to be a stick, so I’ve added in an arrow to make it easier to spot!
   

   

   
   They seem to like that particular compost bin – I’ve never spotted one in either of ourother bins.

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