July

Well I won’t dwindle too much on the weather but goodness me wasn’t July a washout 🌧️ I’ve never known a summer month to be quite so wet! It feels like every day has rained. On the plus side our newly planted garden and fresh laid turf has been well and truly watered in.

This month has been tough for me. I’ve had to adjust to life on my own again as my partner has jetted off to Cyprus for 4 months. We had a scare with one of our cats being poorly, the weather has been a disaster and I fell out of love with my allotment 😢
Unfortunately in the height of summer things can get a bit overwhelming and I had a burnout. But as the month went on there was many positives that gave me a boost 💪

My garlic this year has been epic! Truly the best I’ve ever grown! Huge bulbs that smell amazing and have been drying in the greenhouse for storage 🧄 the Magic Mulch in late spring certainly worked its magic.

I’ve also harvested my new potatoes which is always a fun harvest. You can’t beat digging through the soil with your hands to find potato treasure! Unfortunately I’ve also had a rodent of some sort digging for this treasure so we had a few nibbled tubers but that’s ok, there’s plenty to go round.

As the months gone on harvests have been coming in thick and fast! Courgettes galore, cucumbers, peas, beans and the first carrots! I created a couple salad beds at home but unfortunately the wet weather has meant slugs galore and they enjoyed my tiny seedlings as soon as they popped through 🐌 I’m going to look at nematode treatments to help protect my garden from them. Thankfully the allotment never seems to have much damage and I imagine that’s thanks to our resident hedgehog and a few toads I’ve spotted too.

The garden has been spectacular since we transformed it. I’m so in love with our new space! I’ve seen a huge increase in bees and butterflies. An abundance of hover flies, a toad in the compost bin and even more birds including our lovely woodpecker family! I also spotted my first Bullfinch in the garden.

As we head into august there’s still loads of harvests to come and I’ll be sowing some seeds of beetroot, spring cabbage, salad leaves and dwarf French beans. August is also a good month for starting perennial flowers from seed so I’ll be doing those too.

All we need now is a little more sunshine so my tomatoes can start to ripen, I can’t believe we’re into august and I haven’t had a fresh tomato yet 😲 there must be a sunshine dance we can all do ☀️

Steph 💚