Onions & Shallots are in

....it took a while - I had 300 red barron sets to plant and it took a good hour to get them all in.

I have also prepared the potatoe bed and ready to plant my earlies - Last week the weather was quite mild and it was really tempting to plant some of them. But I still thought it was 3 weeks too early. gues what i was right this week there have been three ground frosts. Just goes to show you do have to have some patience.

still I am all ready to go. It is a good time to be at the allotment - It is like the start of the football season - all the fun is about to start!

This week i am putting in the following.

Carrotts - nantes earlies - 1 row
Beetroot - boltardy - 1 row

I am also seeeds some summer cabbages:
Savoy
Greyhoud

A few more snow pics

Snow, Broadbeans, Garlic, Onions & Shallots...

The snow seems to have slowed things down and has meant that I have delayed putting in the Onions and Shallots. I have over 330 red onion sets to plant - which is slightly more than I was planning but the more you got the cheaper they are!

The snow may have killed my Broadbeans, I had seeded some in the greenhouse and planted them out but I think they much prefer to be planted direct. I have replaced these with some Sutton seeds.

The garlic I planted in Novemeber is doing really well and is about 3-4inches.

I have also finished preparing by fruit bed, all i need is a cage to protect the gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, raspberrys and blackberrys!

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