At last the leeks are planted

One of my favourite winter vegetables is leeks and I like to grow as many as I can. We've usually had a good lot of leeks to harvest down at the allotment, but last  year they didn't do at all well. So I'm determined to do better this year.

We have been planting leeks for a few weeks now as space has become available. The first lot were planted at the end of the onion bed in late May, another lot were planted a few weeks later in what I call the spare bed which is not part of the plant rotation. The last lot were planted this week.

I łove planting leeks, it's so different from planting other vegetables. Make a planting hole with a dibber, pop the leek plant in then fill the hole up with water. Easy but back breaking! It's also a job which the grandchildren enjoy doing.

I sowed two varieties earlier in the year-- Autumn Mammoth and Blauwgroene Winter Bandit. Two problems we have with our leeks are bolting and rust. Blauwgroene claims to have some resistance to both of these problems so I am hoping for better results this year.

All the leeks are planted now, and the first lot are doing well. I am now dreaming of all those lovely leek dishes, soups, cheesy vegetable bakes, stir fries and more.

A fruit cage at last!

 Ever since we've had the allotment I've struggled with finding a secure way of netting the fruit. Last year I thought I'd netted the blueberries well but arrived on the plot one day to find one of the plants completely stripped of its fruit. Throwing a net over might deter the birds for a while but they will soon find a way in if they really want that juicy fruit.

We've been working on the fruit bed for a couple of years and now it's finished and planted up my dream has been  to have a proper fruit cage. It would have to be a home made one as we try not to spend too much money on the allotment.

The last few weeks as I've seen the fruit slowly ripening I knew we'd better get something in place before we lost the fruit again. As usual Richard came to my rescue with his DIY and recycling skills.

The fruit cage was put together in a morning using the old net brassica frames which had been used on the raised beds on Helen's old allotment. These had originally been made using recycled wood, so they were put back into use again. Held together with string and a few screws it may not stay put for very long, but as long as it's in place until the fruit can be picked that's fine.

The blueberry bushes are on the other side of the bed to the rest of the fruit so had to be netted separately, but there were some smaller net frames which could be used. It's always good to be able to reuse and recycle.

We can now watch our fruit ripening and hopefully we won't have to share it with the birds. I'm also looking forward to some jam making sessions.

Through the garden gate--looking back on June

June was spent mainly potting up plants in containers, weeding and deadheading.  Everything has been growing so big. That must be a result of the home made compost I brought over from the allotment to mulch the beds with.

My sister in law who is a great dahlia grower gave me some Lilliput dahlias and I planted those out a couple of weeks ago in the back garden. They are a miniature dahlia with  really tiny flowers.

At this time of year we like to go out and about visiting gardens and in the last few weeks we have been to RHS Harlow Carr, and an NGS garden.  I love visiting other people's gardens. No matter what size the garden, large or small we always come back with ideas to use in our own garden.

We had a few days away in the Lake District near the end of June and everything seems to have grown even more while we were away. There has been quite a lot of rain recently which has brought plants on. The owner of the B&B we were staying at showed me round his garden. He is an enthusiastic rose grower and had an amazing number of roses. I was a bit envious as roses don't do well in our shady garden, although there is a yellow climbing rose in our front garden which is flowering well at the moment.

On the way back from our holiday we called at 'Cath's Garden plants', this is a plant nursery near Levens, within an old walled garden in the grounds of the Heaves Hotel and Cath is a Chelsea award winner. It has been on my list of places to visit for a while.  It was pouring with rain when we visited, so not the best day to linger.  I bought an Achillea 'Inca Gold' because of its orange flowers and I thought it would look good in my yellow/orange/blue bed.

I need to get out in the garden to do some weeding, deadheading and cutting back and then I might be able to find some space for my new plant.

I have joined with Sarah at 'Down by the Sea' for this monthly 'Through the garden gate' post.