The allotment in June 2018

The sun has been beating down for the entire month but as allotmenteers this brings both benefits and problems. It's getting to that time of year where we can start harvesting our produce but there's still a lot of hard work to do to keep it all in order.

Usually at this time of year we're hoping for a spell of sunshine in order to ripen the strawberries. There's been no problem with the strawberries going red but they are very small. Strawberries consist of around 90% water so the lack of rain has had a big effect on their size.

The same can be said of the raspberries. The yield we have had so far this year has been than any other year but the raspberries aren't very big.

Our crops of potatoes are all doing well. Next month we should be able to dig up our first early crop of potatoes. We'll have to be thorough when we do dig them up as we keep finding last years crop around the plot!

I don't think I have ever seen tomatoes so early on our plants. Some years it has been October before the fruits have appeared and then they don't ripen. It will be quite a treat to have homegrown tomatoes so early in the summer.

When we walked over to our plot at the weekend three pigeons flew off – not what you want to see when you have broccoli and sprouts growing! Thankfully the plants seem to have survived due to the protection we put over them. They have been nibbled a bit by slugs but nothing fatal.

We've been very restrained with the courgettes this year. All four of our plants have flowers on so it won't be long before the courgettes start appearing and never stopping!

The last job for this month has been to finally clear the leek bed. Although we had a good crop in terms of numbers they never got as big as the previous year's harvest. The leeks that had been left had gone to seed and we brought the seed heads home since as they are a member of the allium family they make very nice cut flowers! This bed will now be rested until next to get some nutrients into it.