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.