Onions Ahoy

 

Hardly ground breaking news but as the weathers so good this weekend I lifted the onions a little early and then set about drying them, as the green house is like a furnace at my folks house I elected to just lay them on the lawn and tomorrow I will turn them over.

 

I was assisted by a cheeky monkey.

 



Harvesting time.....

Well I just got back from 10 days on the Isle of Wight on Monday with mostly great weather so I was in a good mood but had a nagging dread when I got to the allotment it would be a nightmare tangle of weeds.

  I got to the allotment expecting a shock at the weed growth only to find as it had been quite dry that it wasn't too bad at all so Bonus!

 

My first harvest was of 2 Rocket first early plants which I got almost 2kg from, not quite so 'new' potato anymore but regardless they tasted great.

 

Here are the remains of 1kg of shelled peas (Kelvedon wonder) that took a lonnnnggg time, we have had them every night since we got home with tea.

 

This was followed quickly by 300g of mange tout (Golden sweet)

 

And finally this morning I picked a fruit medley from our plants, I will look up recipes for a kind of open tart I think as they should really be done justice with a decadent dessert.

 

 

All in all worth coming home to I think, although I will say my main crops have suffered somewhat from the lack of rain lately an need a thorough soaking.

 

All work and no play......

Well now, it has been a while since an update purely because I have had about 3 days in the last month down the allotment at most due to a combination of bad weather and my fathers ill health meaning I have been doing his list of job at my parents house including the garden and painting.

The onions I have growing at their house seem to be doing well as I am practicing a don't disturb the soil approach with them meaning I cut off the nasty weed but eave everything else alone and it seems to be working at the moment as the onions are a good size for the year we have had.

Now Answers on a postcard I have no idea what this stuff is but my 2.5 rod potato bed is covered in it and I really mean covered as in not 1 bit of soil is visible ( the spiky edged looking leaves between the potato ones)

 

 I picked up an electric strimmer today from Homebase and they didn't have the one I reserved in stock like it said on the website, instead they gave me the next model up at no extra charge to make up for the hassle. It is an Art 26 Li Bosch cordless electric, I really wanted to go petrol but its just such a hassle transporting one from home to lottie and back all the time and the car started stinking of petrol as well which would of hacked off the wife.

 

I have noticed my Brassica's seem to have hardly developed at all in the last month raising concerns about soil fertility or maybe some disease like club root or soil Ph being wrong so..... I got hold of a soil Ph tester and it came out at about 7 give or take a small amount which is about right as far a I know which rules out that. I next tested fertility by giving half a row some blood, fish and bone last week but despite the decent weather they don't show much of a difference (I know BFB ideally needs to weather in) and lastly I dug one up to check the roots but the roots seemed clean and healthy although still quite small.

I am really at a loss now, all I can think to do is give them a good dose of nettle tea which I have brewing and if that fails to help them along I may just pull my hair out followed by the plants and try putting in something from a different plant family and see what happens.

One success story this year despite the lack of sun is my strawberry's as they are in the 2nd and 3rd years and most of the fruiting stalks have 6+ strawbs.

Sleeping on the job

Contrary to popular reports I was not buried under a Couch weed avalanche.

This blog should be backdated to 25th april or so when I picked my first Cauliflower and was given a monster Parsnip!

 We will start with the Parsnip because I may have mentioned before how Barney on the next plot grows massive root veg, well this one was as long as my forearm and still tasted great when I souped it without any woodiness.  If I can grow Parsnips half as big and good as these I will be very happy, Barney employs the sow a row of parsnips thickly and constantly thin them out until they reach the correct spacing method.  Another thing he does is dig in the mulch that you can see in my previous post showing the sweetcorn area I mulched before sowing.

Now my proud moment, my first Cauliflower, I have 8 more in the ground but unfortunately they all seem on the verge of bolting as they are getting bigger so it looks like a giveaway/blanch and freeze time is coming.

Wonderful Sunday, not so wonderful sunburn.

I was hoping for BBQ weather sunday, we got the Sun in the end shame about the 35mph gusts of wind!

 

Still undeterred by the fact even a shed was blown over on the allotment a few rows over I started by helping my plot neighbour dig over his old strawberry patch,  this involved me *Cough* 'saving' 70 odd runners (no idea of the variety) to expand my Strawberry bed to almost 100 plants.  I planted them in and afterwards gave them a sprinkling of Blood, Fish and Bone (BFB) along with a decent soaking, I am pretty sure they are a little closer together than they should be but time will tell.

 

 

Here we can see my other reason for being down the allotment today, I planted out the first 80 Peas (Kelvedon Wonder) I have another 80 at home to put out next weekend and I also sowed in the ground approximately another 100 in this row.  I was going to sow 80 peas followed by 5 more sowings of 80 successionally at home but they take up so much space and the weathers turned now so I am risking it direct sowing.)

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I did uncover a first early potato by accident earlier in the week and that was throwing off roots nicely so the soils definetly warmed up considerably in the past week which is good news.  I will do another line of beetroot soon and direct sow some lettuce as my transplants in the bed at home don't seem to be taking well.

 

 



Easter weekend fun .

Easter weekend was cold but importantly it was dry and had been for a few days which meant I could really get stuck in on the allotment doing jobs, so much for 4 days off!.

 

 

Below is one of my original beds which I extended by 5ft to the left after measuring and finding out my 30ft x45ft 5 rod plot was actually only 25ft by 45ft  just over 4 rods with the path included.  I also dug it all over, weeded and put in some Chard from home as well as some very leggy  mange tout (Golden Sweet) peas which I don't expect to do much but they might recover.

 

This is the bed where my sweetcorn will be going in and I covered it with a layer of manure and bedding which is quite fresh and ordinarily I wouldn't do as it is a no no however seeing as the weather has been so cold with no signs of change I am gambling on it being later in the ground.  The sweet corn goes in around June and the manure will have the burn chance taken out of it by then and as a side bonus it will be acting as a weed mulch. 

(bottom right corner you can see a mass patch of scallions, so easy to grow and fire and forget really no care needed) 

 

The picture below shows my first fruiting area which is red currant, white currant, black currant and rasperberry .  I intend to build a fruit cage around this area as I lost a majority of currants particularly to birds last year, undecided yet wether to make with chicken wire or 1" gap pea netting obviously there is a big cost difference but the chicken wire should last years whereas the pea netting might only last 1 or 2 seasons.

 

 

Although I don't have pictures I also cleared up my strawberry bed and I am debating wether to dig them all up and then lay weed membrane to plant through. Weeding a strawberry patch without disturbing them is a serious pain due to their shallow rooting and keeps fruit cleaner but the downside is the membrane makes a nice safe home for slugs.

2nd post in one day, it must be raining.....

Well I was down the allotment bright and early this morning and despite being overcast it was quite pleasant when the sun broke through on occasion.  I was surprised to see again the allotment was empty bar maybe 2 or 3 of us and there must be 200 odd plots id say now but hey ho.

 

I started off by digging trenches for my 2 rows of first early spuds (Rocket) about 5" deep, it's a bit early judging by the way the weather has been lately but as long as I earth them up in good time on frost alerts I should get away with it.  I then laid down a thin covering of grass clippings and a sprinkle of chicken manure pellets in the bottom of the trench, there is some concern chicken manure pellets cause scab on your growing potatoes but I never had any trouble with that personally and it might be because I add them at planting not as a food later on.  Now the potatoes go in with chits facing up 30cm apart and then firmly push down so they are stable when earthing up, next I cover the potatoes with a good 3" of soil and spread some blood fish and bone on top as extra food.

 

Onto other things, shown below are 5 transplanted self seed Chard I moved a week or so back.

 

As a little experiment I am going to cover the smallest 3 of these Chard on the right with a cloche that has both vents open either end for airflow so there is less chance of mildew forming etc.  The other 2 larger specimens on the right I will leave uncovered and then after 2 weeks I will photograph them again and compare size changes and any diseases gained.

 

 

Conventional wisdom would say the 2 larger plants wouldn't put on nearly as much growth as the sheltered warmer ones but the larger plants have a head start of root ball size and surface area for the leaves as well to consider.

 

 

P.S.

Just a thought here on something I read a year or so back that is pertinent to the frost issue, plants that are damaged by frost apparently aren't actually damaged when the frost hits them (bear with me now I know that sounds kooky) the real damage occurs when they slowly thaw out and you can even help the plants out by giving them a quick soaking with room temperature water.  

Rhubarb forcing - Results.

Rhubarb, you either love it or you hate it.

The way my Nan used to cook it bless her mashed into a stringy soup I used to hate but wait, I like it now because there are better ways to cook Rhubarb and I may even add a recipe.

 

Now on to the main point of this post which is to show the efficacy of Forcing Rhubarb, you'd think at this time of year it would be barely poking it's head above ground

 

Like so

Lots of lovely heads appearing but nothing to eat ;(

 

Now hold your horses because if you happen to know about forcing your crop then yours could look like this!

 But they are small I hear you cry?  Well I have to admit before I even considered making a post about forcing the Rhubarb I picked all the big pieces, I couldn't help myself.

 

There is a small extra point to consider when forcing and that is you need to have a container to place over the crowns that is quite deep or the Rhubarb will hit the top, double over and split as its very delicate.



Hardening off my first sacrificial plants

Today I will begin to harden off my first seedlings that I sowed about 2 weeks ago my Peas, Pak Choi and Lettuce as they have all put on their first true leaves.  These are all meant to be reasonably cold hardy plants but if you start them off indoors you will need to transition them outside as they will be soft from the nice sheltered conditions

 

Hardening off a plant is a process whereby you gradually transition plants from inside the nice warm house or greenhouse etc into the exposed ground whether that is an allotment or pots and tubs.

They will go outside in the Blowaway during the day for a few hours at first and gradually increase this time from morning until night by the end of the week.  There is still a good chance of frost and worse at this time of year and when hardening off it is best to do things gradually or the plants will sulk and stall their growth for a time or may not recover at all.

Just as a side note, putting the plants outside during the day has another benefit in they will receive more light from being outside rather than a windowsill so reduce the chance of them going leggy.

If you are interested in your approximated last frost date look here -

http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/main/weather.asp

Leggy Seedlings?

 

Some of you may have heard of leggy seedlings and wondered exactly what they look like, well now you can get an idea thanks to the fact the Sun did a disappearing act Tuesday being replaced by heavy fog and rain just as the seeds germinated.

 

(Top 2 rows Webb's Lettuce, bottom 2 rows Pak Choi F1)

Brussel Sprout ( Trafalgar)

Now this doesn't necessarily mean the seedlings are going to be no good and a simple fix is when you pot them on to plant them deeper so the stem isn't as exposed above ground.  With some plants this fix will work better than others but you have to be very careful not to crush the stems as they are delicate at this stage anyway but even more so when leggy.  Be sure to execute best practice when you prick out the seedlings you should gently pull them out by their first leaves (Cotyledons) after loosening the compost around the seedling (I use a toothpick).



2013 Wet and Wild or Fun in the Sun?

 

None of us know what this year will hold but for me I gained a second plot at the end of last year which means I can take more gambles than the staple crops like Potatoes, Leeks, Beetroot etc.

I have now got both the beds fully dug over, sowed a row of beetroot and transplanted some self seeded Chard from the other plot into a nice neat row and am hoping it will be productive and taste nice as it is probably crossed with god knows what.

 

 

The bed shown above I intend to have a salad section with successional sowing (Lettuce, Beetroot, Spring onion etc) at the back and the front I will plant a block of sweetcorn. I haven't worked out the spacing exactly yet but i am hoping to fit in 6 plants wide by 5 plants deep giving us theoretically 30 plants with 2-3 cobs per plant to fill up the chest freezer with!

I intend to try a 3 sisters idea with the sweetcorn (well 2 sisters) and grow some mange tout or French beans up the corn for an experiment.

 

 

The bed above I am going to fill with potatoes, yes that's a lot of tatties.

Rocket for first earlies

Desiree and Sarpo Mira for Main crop

Will fit in as many as I can.

 

I will be planting the first earlies 16th/17th March and then the main crops good Friday 29th March, my only concern will be getting to the allotment every other day to make sure they aren't poking their heads above ground and risking a frosting.

 

 

 

 

 



In the beginning there were weeds... Part 4.

 

 

Well now there comes a bit of a gap in the story because after I got the Cabbage and Cauliflower in (shown below growing away nicely)  I started experimenting with a load of seeds I knew would be too late to start but forgot to document any of it with pictures.

 

 

The Leeks (Volta) however made me happy and were growing nicely apart from a small infestation of alium leaf miners so I used a tip from the growfruitandveg.co.uk forums to cut the leeks down to ground level.  Look carefully for the ahem 'mistake' of forgetting where I planted a row of Beetroot as well.

 

                                                                 
A quick written recap of what happened in the intervening months is in order I feel.

The Leeks did great and I started pulling them in November they were at worst an inch thick and best so far almost 3 inches and out of approximately 100 I sowed we have now eaten about 40 so plenty left to go although I may have to give them away if they show signs of bolting.

The Cabbages did o.k while not reaching amazing sizes they tasted great and out of around 10 planted we have 3 left that are undersized and I am hoping will put on a growth spurt with the recent sun.

The Cauliflower well, I had 1 Cauliflower so far and the rest have failed to heart up at all which is almost certainly a consequence of the late sowing but as I daren't peel back the spiral of leaves it could be slugs eating them out before they can grow.

Which bring us upto this year.  Roll on 2013

In the beginning there were lots of weeds .... Part 3

 

Here we see some lovely soil expertly dug over and weeded by yours truly and I was done less than 3 weeks after taking on the plot on the first bed but now I had a problem of it being late in the year (mid July)

 

 

So yes I cheated, I pulled a Lance Armstrong.

 I went online and checked out the reduced sections in Homebase etc for plug plants and got lots of leeks for a start as they are bladdy expensive to buy in the supermarket.

I got them planted out asap hoping for a decent crop despite the time of year.

 

I also picked up some Cabbage and Cauliflower plugs on my travels. I decided as I had precious few of them they needed to be protected by coloured balls, debris netting and canes! (amazingly this all held up during the christmas snow as well.)

 

 

 

In the beginning there were lots of weeds.... Part 2

I was lucky to have one of the best diggers a father could ask for when my Son Joshua came to help me on the plot with the added bonus of it meaning he wasn't doing that to our back garden.

 

 

Over the coming weeks I set about tackling the worst of it with my Wife filling bag after bag with the debris from my fevered digging.

 

 

Slowly but surely

 

 

Things started to look up as I found raspberries in fruit

 

 

The ground was revealed

 

 

And we even had nice enough weather to get a BBQ going!

 

 

 



In the beginning there were lots of weeds....

 

 

 

Well where to start...  At the beginning I guess.

Last June I took over a 5 rod plot in Hitchin after a long time on the waiting list and this is what greeted me on the first day.

 

 

 

Needless to say it was daunting and a little disheartening as it was so late in the year I didn't have much hope of getting anything grown in 2012.