Last week's snow

I know it is not really related to the blog but here are some picture of last weeks snow. We (me & the wife) love the snow.

Look at my Cabbages

Never turn down help

Well he didn't actually volunteer I pretty much told him he was coming and doing some digging. But I suppose that's how you treat children. We are talking about 'Boy' as he is know to me and the wife. He is infact twenty odd and nearly a city lawyer - but we see him as a surrogate son. So after a night of beers, curry and him telling us about his love life (never simple) we set him lose on digging a few beds and planting some garlic. As with most things Boy does he does with non stop yabbering and oodles of energy. Still he did a good job!

Allotment Fees and seed catalouge

I have just had seed catalogue through for this year. I have to say it is one of those times of the year when you don't feel guilty about sitting at home on s Sunday watching the football on SKY when you should be down on the plot.

It is a time to plan what you are going to do next year and decided whether you should grow sweetcorn for the wife as she didn't eat it when you grew it last year...

We have also had our rent through for this year. It has gone up by eight pounds a year to thirty pounds - still not bad value. Next week it is the AGM - the excitement is unbearable!

We are back in Business

As some of you know we have spent the last 7 months travelling. Fortunately I did take a few measures to prevent the allotment getting completely over grown. Despite that, the poor weather and the council trying to allocate the allotment to someone else it looks like we are back in business.

The person who was given my allotment started to redesign my plot i.e. rip up some of the raised beds, big up rhubarb crowns and raspberry canes! So I have had a bit of work to do.
Still from the pictures it is amazing what you can do with a few hours.

Not a bad first year!

Even though I took the allotment in June 2006 last year (2007) was my first cropping year. I had some successes, a few failures and I learnt a lot of things.

Successes
Green Beans
Onions, Garlic and Shallots
Pumpkins & Courgettes
Parsnips – I thought they would only be ready Dec but I could have started eating them in October
Leeks
Made Jam, Chutney, pickled shallots, pickled beetroot and Piccalilli for the first time


Failures
Peas – use fresh seeds
Sweetcorn – pray for some sun!
Potatoes – dig bigger trenches
Dry my onions thoroughly some of them moldy

Things learnt
Use fresh seeds – if they are past the date don’t use them
Need bigger canes for runner beans
Need to have more veg ready in the Jan- April e.g. winter greens and spring broccoli

Here are a few pictures from the end of the year.

My first Cabbage

I had been told that cabbages are quite difficuly to grow and last year I failed. They do take a long time to grow and you need to be organised - to get some spring cabbage you need to be on the case now.

So in Janury I bought some Greyhound seeds, these are Summer cabbages and had these in the greenhouse for 2-3 months. When they were about 9 inches tall (some were quite leggy) I planted them out under fleece.

Cabbages can attract caterpillars and slugs so you do have to keep an eye on them. I left them under fleece for 2-3 months, not to keep them warm but just to keep the butterflies away. This was a tip from Lukerman and it seems to have done the trick and we had the first summer cabbage this weekend.

I just need to master growing leeks now..........

At last summer is here

and all the weeds are growing!!!! Apart from that the place is full of veg, my courgettes, squashes and pumpkins are racing away. I have pulled up the remains of the Broad Beans, my late crop didn't do too well as half of it was eaten by the deer. In its place I have planted some late 'Nantes' carrots and some winter turnips.

The sweetcorn is doing very well - I can't stand the stuff so I hope the wife is hungry. My late crop of peas seem to be doing quite well as are the parsnips. The only crop I am worried about are my late potatoes - they seem to have taken a battering with all the bad weather so how many we get is hard to say. One mistake I did make was that I didn't plant the potatoes deep enough so I have had to earth them up.

Anyway here are a few more pics

Still more Beans.......

.....they just keep on coming, the freezer is now full so we are now selling them or trading them for other veg. Last weekend we had a 'preserving weekend' we pickled shallots, made some Piccalilli and some Blackberry & Apple Jam.

here are a few more pictures from the last 2 weekends

One crop out another crop in

At last we have had 2 days were we could get out and tackle the allotment without getting soaked. The recent rain has damaged a few crops but the weeds just keep on coming.

Last week we pulled up all our garlic and onions and in that bed we have planted peas. It is a little late but I though we would have a go - I have struggled all year with peas mainly for 2 reasons - firstly I was using old seeds and germination was slow, secondly those that did germinate were eaten by the pigeons. So to deter our feathered friends the peas are now under netting.

We have also taken up our shallots - and in their place we have sown some Purple Sprouting Broccoli (PSB). Well, that's what I think it is - but the label came off... As the pigeons also like Brassicas these are under netting and fleece as shown in the photos.

We have also dug up our new potatoes - these looked quite sorry for themselves after all the rain and in their place are leeks.

But still things are growing - mostly weeds - in fact for the last month we have been overrun with lettuce, so much so we now have a large amount of lettuce soup in the freezer...
Last weekend on one of the few dry afternoons I pulled up all the garlic and onions. These were planted on 3rd Dec and they have grown really well - last year I struggled with garlic - this was because I used shop-bought garlic. This is heat treated so when you plant it it will not spilt into cloves. Also I have found out that the frost is essential for garlic to split into cloves. Normally you would pull up the onions and garlic and leave them on the soil to dry out in the sun. Clearly this is not going to happen so they are in the greenhouse. I reckon we have enough onions and garlic to last us 12 months. What lovely breath we'll have...
We have also been eating a few new potatoes and this has been great - these have been our earlies though they didn't flower. We have also had a good crop of Broad Beans.
I am now deciding what to plant in place of the onions/garlic - I reckon it will be peas, although I am struggling with these as the pigeons keep eating them.

Lettuce, Lettuce and more Lettuce

Garlic & Red Onions

I don't know if you can see on the photo but some of the onions have started to flower - so these heads needs to be snipped off and these onions eaten first.

Beetroot, Sweetcorn & Carrots

Broad Beans...

A few more pictures.....

Early Spuds and some french beans

Welcome to my office, a wedding and Fava beans……

The last few weeks have been a little weird as April’s weather seems to have caught us a little off guard. The glorious April weather lulled us all into a false sense that summer was here – but thankfully the past few weeks of rain has meant lots of seeds have sprung into life and we are at last eating produce from the allotment.

As you can see from the planting plan the plot is looking pretty full – the areas in grey are now fully planted so you can see there is not much space. For those who are really interested look how it has changed since March.

I have found that I have had a different set of results between planting direct into the soil and seeding everything in trays and then transplanting into the ground.

I prefer to seed everything in the greenhouse and then once seeds have come on I transplant these into the ground. This does take a little longer but what it does mean is that I don’t have to thin out seedlings on my hand and knees at the allotment. If you have sausage fingers like me the last thing you want to be doing is trying to separate delicate seedlings on your hands and knees! Give me the peace and quiet (and warmth) of my greenhouse.

Essentially I am planting a tray of seeds once every 2-3 weeks. E.g. I seed Beetroot in a tray and in 3 weeks time they should be ready to plant out; once they have been planted out I seed another tray. This means that if I have some old seeds I can see that they have not germinated and so take some action. This also means that I should get a continual crop of that veg right through the summer.

Also one quick related note re the allotment – we went to Fiona & Andy’s wedding last Friday and I was very surprised to see a picture of my allotment as a table name – apparently most of the people on our table like digging holes which was why we were all out together, though I think everyone else seemed to dig bigger and more interesting holes than the ones I do for my spuds. Still it was a top day – thanks to Fiona & Andy.

Anyway I think that’s it for the moment – I must pop up to the allotment now as I need to pinch out the tops of my Broad Beans – apparently when the first pods grown you pinch out the top parts so they concentrate on the pods not getting any bigger – and finally did you know that Fava beans are in fact Broad Beans – somehow you can’t imagine Hannibal Lector saying ‘Broad beans and a glass of Chianti’ can you?!

lots of seeds in...

It has been a busy few weeks and I have planetd the following:

Main crop of spuds, Runner beans(Scarlet Emporer), Peas (Greensage), mixed Lettuce, Autumn Gold Carrots, Beetroot and Spinach.

As you can see I have built my runner bean canes. This was very easy to do.

As things are ticking along I have been spending a bit of time tidying the place up.

Running out of space????

When I took over the plot I was given a full plot size (10 pole) and after a few months I thought that I may give half of it back as it would be too much to handle.

Thankfully I didn't!

At first it was quite daunting - the picture below was 9 months ago so I started to slowly get a grip on it and by working on it all through Nov & Dec. I have started to use the top half of the plot.

The top half already had 2 redcurrant bushes, a friend (Lukerman) also gave me a further 3 bushes and these have been planted by father-in-law. He has also cleared a small area at the top of the plot and discovered a further 10 rhubarb crowns, so the top half will just be for fruit bushes.

The plot to the left of me belongs to Murray (a Kiwi-Arsenal season ticket holder) and he, like me, is new to allotments so it is quite good to chat things through and see how each of us are doing.

One of the good things about the allotment is that you share resources. I have a shed on the allotment and have given Murray a key so he doesn't have to lug his tools up every time. In return he has given me some horse muck and a few raspberry canes from his plot. And these have been added to the top of the allotment.

I have been finding out that I have been running out of space, so a strip of land that I was not going to use will now have my spuds in it - It has been sheeted for 6 weeks so it should be ok.

The last bit - probably the size of 2 raised beds - is quite rough, so it will be sheeted for the next 2 months and I will look to grow my winter caulis, broccoli and sprouts in it, so that will hopefully mean that all of the plot will be utilised.

I am now starting to think about what to fill the plot with once the first crop has finished, ie once my broad beans have finished in July - what will I grow in that spot - eg Kale ready for winter, still that is a while away but worth a thought.

So in total I should have about 10 raised bed that about about 1.3-1.5m across - how much this will all produce remains to be seen......