Finally catching up...

Well this blog post is certainly long over due. In fact, everything I will mention took place about two weeks ago when I took a couple of days annual leave to catch up at the allotment. So when you come back to read tomorrow's post, pretend it's been a whole two weeks since this post and not 12 or so hours...

Anyway....

The Potatoes and Onions are finally in the ground!!

We might have slightly overdone it with our potatoes. We have 4 rows (5.5m long each!) of Desiree and 3 long rows of Charlotte and we still have some seed potatoes to spare. If I get some big pots I might just put them in there and see what happens. It's not like we are going to be short of them anyway... Well, I hope not after the back breaking amounts of work I put in to planting them..

Next along from the potatoes are two rows of Onions (Stuttgarter Giant) and then a row of Beetroot (Boltardy)!

After the onions there is currently a large gap which come the middle of May will be planted up with Cabbage, Kale, Pumpkins, Courgettes and Squash. After this currently empty space, closest to the patio area is the beans. 6 rows of broad beans and there is space for a further 2 rows of dwarf French beans. I have also dug out the trench and emptied one of the compost bin’s contents in to it and then filled it on top with some used compost from last year’s raised beds, the support frame has been erected for the runners, and finally the allotment looks like an allotment again and not just a wasteland!

Here's a full on shot of the once again allotment like allotment!

The next couple of jobs are to actually sow the runner beans, courgettes and pumpkins and also prepare the ground for the cucurbits by digging in some well rotted horse manure!! There is also the unappetizing job of weeding the strawberry bed at the top of the allotment. It will be done, but when... I am not sure!

More soon!!

Martin J

Food, Glorious Food

Hot crumble and custard!

( Not the original words, but more appropriate in our circumstances!)

Well the produce keeps coming. It's a daily battle with the soft fruit bushes to keep on top of picking. We have huge amounts of Raspberries and Blackcurrants. I've actually got a blackcurrant and apple crumble in the oven right now, so it is an ideal time to sit down and write a blog post.

The rain hasn't stopped in recent weeks but admitedly the weather is starting to ease and believe it or not they are predicting that we might have a week long summer next week. I'll certainly be getting my shorts and wellies on to get up to the allotment. Due to the weather the only visits we are making is to harvest fruit and vegetables for dinner. The weeds keep growing, but there is little chance to do anything about it until we get a break in the rain. We had planned to have a whole day down at the plot on Friday but due to the weather it turned in to a solitary hour, but we managed to weed the onion bed in that time.

Aside from soft fruit, we've been harvesting lots of vegetables too. We are harvesting potatoes every other day and each plant is giving us a good amount and is plenty for just the two of us. We are getting between 7-10 potatoes off each plant and they range from golf ball size to just under the size of a tennis ball. Some of them are the biggest charlotte potatoes I have ever seen. When I have grown them in the past they have been small and kidney shaped, but these have completly dwarfed all of my previous efforts.

The courgettes keep coming and you could say we are beginning to enter the glut period. One of my favourite times of year! The other cucurbits doing well are the pumpkins, their plants are almost 10ft long now. They are running away from their patch and encroaching on paths and other beds. We're really hoping for a giant pumpkin this year but at the moment we'll settle for a giant marrow and giant lettuce. The rain must be good for something. Although this marrow isn't a giant, I read that you shouldn't let the first one get too big and then pick it and this will encourage more growth. We're not growing for the show bench, but for the dinner table so this is a very good size.

I was about to sow some lettuce seeds about 10 weeks ago when a fellow plot holder came over to me offering me some of his spare lettuce seedlings, not only did it save me a job then but it has also provided us with lettuce in the kitchen. We have had it in salads, in sandwiches and on top of big juicy burgers in a bun and it has been great. He didn't know what variety it was and I still don't know exactly either. It looks like a cos, but what variety, who knows? I've decided to call it Jumbo Gem and you'll see why...

Other things we are picking include broad beans, strawberries and other varieties of lettuce. The runner beans and dwarf beans are flowering now so it can't be long until those. I must remember to take pictures of the allotment. You can just about see it behind Amy, but the weather never really does it any justice when we take pictures of the whole plot. I'll try it tonight after dinner, we'll be making a flying dash to pick some more soft fruit and courgettes to top our pizza for tomorrow night.

It's an absolute delight being back on the allotment site after a 2 year absence due to studying. It's fantastic to be picking and eating delicious food again, and great to see Amy's enthusiasm continue to rise every time we pick something new.

If you're lucky I might upload some more pictures tomorrow. I was busy at a job intereview today for next year's placement year at university, I was amazed to see their fantastic grounds and gardens. It is located in Selly Oak and the manor was owned by George Cadbury who was of course the founder of the iconic chocolate brand. They also had an allotment area and polytunnel and ran gardening courses. I would be deligthed to get the job there and contribute not only to the business function side of it but also get in and amongst the gardens too! Paradise!

Will be setting time aside tomorrow to catch up on my favourite blogs, have not had time to read them for well over a week.

Hope the sun shines for you!

Martin



A note to the sky..

I have had enough of this weather! Have you? Yesterday morning we were sat in the living room being deafened by rain pelting against the windows, the whole road was flooded and there was no sign of it letting up. Then came the thunder and lightening, what a great insight in to summer time this was.

However, cometh the afternoon it was blazing sun with temperatures at 25 degrees celcius. I made my way to the allotment and came back in the evening with blackcurrants, lettuce, strawberries, raspberries and a tickle of SUNBURN!

Absolutely unbelievable. It is so hard to plan days at the allotment when the weather is so varied. Thankfully yesterday afternoon was good enough for me to get a lot of weeding done and also plant out the carrots we had started off in old loo rolls. We also planted some lettuces which we bought from a large food retailer that I work for. They were those cut and come again 'living lettuces' that are quite fashionable in the high end supermarkets. They had apparently exceded their sell by date and thus were destined for the bin (how a living thing can exceed it's sell by date is beyond me!), but I did manage to get them via a friend for 8p each from the staff waste sale. We had 15 so they are all now planted up and should in theory give us lettuce throughout the summer. We've picked some leaves from all of them to encourage them to produce new growth!

They are a gorgeous colour and I will be letting them go to seed at the end of summer to save seeds to plant again for next year!



We've planted 12 out in between the broad beans and dwarf french beans to fill a gap from the second lot of broad beans that failed to get going due to mice/bird problems. I don't normally use slug pellets but I've had to give in. We were losing a lettuce per day last week due to the wet conditions. We had tried using 100% natural organic pellets but they made no difference. So we have reverted back to the blue pellets but they are supposedly repellant and non toxic to domestic wildlife so that is good.

There are plenty more weeds to remove over the coming week, and I also want to get straw down at the top half of the plot to keep weeds down. The top area was awash with couch grass and the only way to get rid of it/to reduce it is to cover the area for 6 months or more. Obviously it would be suicidal to cover 1/3 of the allotment and not grow on it so we have dug over it several times and have planted it up with pumpkins, sweetcorn and some brassicas, so now I can cover around them with straw to keep the weeds at bay but also retain moisture for the vegetables if we do get a warm patch. Unlikely I know..

Anyway, I'm going to be catching up with other blogs today if I can. However, I do need to get up to the allotment and weed around the strawberries. I'll try and take lots more pictures to give you an idea of how the plot is doing.

Have a great weekend!

Martin

I swear that veg is growing...

Blimey!

This rain is certainly increasing the amount of foliage on the plot. As you can see below the potato bed is now a sea of green leaves and small flowers. A very promising sign indeed, the cabbages, well, they are certainly flying along and the lettuces don't seem to stop.

It definately looks like an allotment now doesn't it. Onions and potatoes in the foreground then beans and brasiccas just beyond.


We'll start at the back and move forewards in today's blog post.

In the soft fruit area there is plenty of growth amongst the raspberries which now present a huge green canvas of lushious leaves, with the not so glorious bindweed wrapped around it of course!

Our grape vine has finally started to get a shift on too. Everybody has a vine on our site and they all started off as cuttings from my plot neighbours single vine he purchased 31 years ago when he first got his plot. Everybody's elses have been running wild for the last month or so, however mine hadn't even broken out of it's winter dormancy, until now! The weeds on our site really are rampant due to 5 or more years of neglect. I have put some black tarpaulin over the grape vine area and cut a hole for the vine. This should supress the weeds and give the vine more of a chance. Here is what the area currently looks like, it is certainly  a work in progress!

Just in front of this area we now have 5 pumpkin plants. 2 hundredweight and 3 smaller Jack O'Lanterns. Amy and I are having a competition to see who can grow the biggest one! They were planted on top of heaps consisting of a mix of horse manure, farm manure, multipurpose compost and top soil. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve to make sure I'm the winner...

The thing I am most pleased about is the brassicas. I am the envy of the whole site. My cabbages are hearting already and my brocolli have heads! Unbelievable, I've never grown a good brassica in my life, I hope my luck has changed and we'll be enjoying some delicious greens in the future....

You might have noticed my home made net tunnels before, they are fantastic at keeping pests out and also shading the crops from the blazing soon. They also allow perfect ventilation on moisture to enter. They are a real secret weapon..

They're not massive weeds between them either, they are actually rows of fast growing Cos Lettuce, to allow us to maximise our space!

Opposite the brassica bed is our bean bed. Our broad bean plants are starting to produce a few bean pods now and the dwarf french beans have germinated plentifully. I also managed to get my runner beans in today at last. They are a real staple for all allotments, plots don't look the same without them!

With the amont of horsemuck I put in their trench I really do expect a good harvest from them!

Here is a picture of the potato sea. Lots of foliage, let's hope there are some good tubers underneath..

Elsewhere, I was very glad to see Monty cover dealing with bolting onions on last Friday's gardener's world. Many of mine had repented the recent weather conditions and decided to bolt, thankfully I've now nipped them in the bud so there is still some hope.. I hope!

Although the allotment is being stocked well, there is still plenty in the mini greenhouses including kale, red cabbage, savoy cabbage, more lettuce, sweetcorn and french climbing beans. They'll all be making their way out in to the ground over the coming weeks...

Final installment of this update, is a suprising advancement. Remember those 19p Asparagus crows I bought from a large supermarket chain...

Only 2 more years to go and I might be able to taste some. At least they're growing! Best 19p I've ever spent, that is for sure!

Enjoy the rest of your week. If their is a break in the rain make sure you are in your garden or on your allotment!!

Martin





Asparagus, Rhubarb and Perpetual Onions

All of these 3 things will still be here in their same growing positions in 10 years time. But what else will be here in the same place in 10 years time. Will we? Who knows? But we must plan to be.

I planted the Asparagus only yesterday. I had never thought about or even wanted to grow it, mainly due to the long wait for the first harvest. However, when I saw a pile of crowns reduced to only 19p each in a supermarket, I really couldn't refuse. I bought 7 crowns, and for just over £1 I can't complain if they don't come out too well. We'll wait and see!

In order to keep the cost of growing down we need to be as sustainable and even as thrifty as possible. You just can not justify spending money on needless things when you are growing your own in the long term. The first year is going to be expensive but after that I don't really want to spend another penny. That's why buying quality equipment and planning provisions are essential to long term allotment gardening sustainability.

Composting is the most essential fundamental of sustainability on the allotment. We brought 1 bin up from home, but have since ordered 2 more from the council and these are now doted quite handily around the allotment for easy access when we need it next year..

It is amazing what the compost bins will eat up. Everything from chicken poop to teabags and even the fluff that comes out of the tumble dryer. Just chuck it all in and then next year we will have the best compost going and the cheapest too.

Not forgetting we also have that old, rusty metal bin in the wild area which will be covered by a clematis in summer but will hold leaf mould in bags in the winter..

Water is also such a necessity. What are we going to do if the drought (hard to say when it is chucking it down outside) continues throughout summer and we have a hosepipe ban. The water we are collecting now is going to be invaluable...

If it's a long dry summer then where else are we going to get the water to quench our runner beans thirst.

The slabs and raised beds should also be there in 10 years time, so the foundations of our potting/play area will always give us a starting point in future years.

There aren't many excuses to not compost or collect water these days. They are so easy to do and the equipment you need is often subsidised by the local council authority.

It's always cool to recycle and upcycle on the allotment. Broken and unwanted objects can quickly become quirky or useful parts of the plot. Even seemingly rubbish like old rasberry canes can be used as pea sticks and ultimately spared from the bonfire..

Other rubbish such as plastic bottles can be used as perfectly good cloches, they're giving our lettuces some really important protection right now. Just cut the bottles in half and the remove the tops for a ventilation hole, the bottom half can be used too. Just turn them upside down and use a pair of scissors to cut a couple of small windows in each side. They are really useful for keeping slugs at bay and also keeping them warm whilst the threat of late frost or even SNOW still looms..

You can also use them as great bird scarers. Take the top off and place them on top of a bamboo cane in the ground above your vulnerable peas and beans. The bottles rattle around making both movement and sound hich will scare the birds off...

Have a good day. I've had a few enquiries about the number of courgette plants I've sown so I'll be doing a little feature on how and why I grow them in the next few days!



Martin