Day by day our urban allotment is taking shape and we thank you for the messages received. Last month we hung up a post with some tips for planting. Today we go to the heart of the summer experience of achieving our first results. July and August are the hottest months and that is why the soil must be well watered. We will have to water almost every day. Also, if we have the allotment on a south-facing terrace, we should give it some shade to decrease the stress due to excessive temperatures.
July is a good month for sowing carrots and Swiss chard. We can also transplant tomatoes that will appear after two months. We must plant them separate from the other plants, above all those that are from the solanum species, such as aubergine. We could even plant lettuces that we will be able to pick before the first tomatoes appear.
The tomato is a plant that requires a lot of care. We must prune the excess shoots, so that there are only one or two remaining. This way we minimise the risk of catching diseases and speed up the picking. The shoots we leave must be tied to a pole. If the pot is high up, picking the fruit will be difficult and this is why we can train it along the railing of the balcony or leave it as a creeper along the ground.
The carrot we recommend for an urban allotment is the short cycle, short and rounded variety. To sow it we must place the seeds near the surface and following a straight line that we can mark in the earth. If, once they have germinated, we see they are too close together, we can space them some 8 cm between each plant. We can expect to eat our first carrot 80 days after having sown them.
At the same time we can also prepare more seed boxes of lettuces, Swiss chard, escarole, cauliflower or cabbage in small pots, just as we explained in our last post.
