I need a Shower.....

No that doesn't mean I'm letting my personal hygiene slip while working from home in these strange times, it means the April showers we expect just aren't coming and the plot is looking a little dry and dusty.

I'm very thankful we are still allowed to carry on working on the allotments, it is certainly helping to maintain my sanity. As someone who usually pops into his local 4/5 times in a week it provides a welcome opportunity to see a real human, even if it is just from a distance.

In the last couple of weeks I've been fairly busy planting at home and filling up my new greenhouse as well as some direct planting, housekeeping and completing the strawberry bed project.

The strawberry plants are looking good and the final level of the cage and netted lid have been added.

 All my spuds are in now, Foremost for earlies and Carolus for Main. Plenty of soil available for earthing up.
.

 

I planted out the broads and put a wind screen around them. They are supported with string as there can be a stiff breeze down there. This pic is a few days old, they are flowering nicely now.

Some direct planting. A half row of radishes, spring onions, lettuce and beetroot in one bed. Carrots and parsnips in the other.

Asparagus season is starting again. Only a couple so far but looking forward to it!!

Happy gardening folks!!

Mad March!!

Blimey what a lot has changed since the last post...  It feels like the world has gone mad. The biggest worry at the moment is what happens in terms of access to allotments if the lock down gets worse.

I made a start prepping a bed on the farm today. The covers are off the pea/broad bean bed now, I threw on some Growmore and worked it in with hoe before raking it smooth, it was dug over at the end of last year so that is all that's needed.

I need to redo the netting on the pea cage before moving it into place and planting out my broads which are hardening off in the garden. They are a bit leggy and needed staking. They got a bit warm in the house during the storms but putting out a pop up greenhouse for Derek to trash seemed a little silly. These will go out next week as we have a couple of cold nights coming.

At home I have a gone for a larger pop up green house. It's weighted and tied down so fingers crossed it stays in place. I might even set it up as a home office as it's pretty toasty in there!

Over the weekend I have planted my tomatoes, leeks, pickling onions, brussels, oca and broccoli. I've thinned my flower seedlings, (pansy, marigold and mimulus) and pepper plants. I've also re-sown my white oinons as they all died off. I suspect dampened off so I'll be more careful and try and water from the bottom this time. I've need had this before.

That's quite a few trays of plants to bring in on a cold night but hopefully I'll be able to leave them in the greenhouse overnight soon.

Happy gardening folks, stay safe

Let the picking begin!

A good blast of rain and a hot weekend later and things are kicking off nicely. Now as well as keeping up with the weeding we have the picking to keep up with as well. 

The Arran Pilot potatoes didn't flower much but as they have been in the ground since March it was time to see what we've got. The results were good, giving a good yield per plant and some of them are huge. They have a really nice taste and don't fall apart when boiled. There was very little pest damage or scab so really pleased with them.

I thought the Shetland Black spuds had gone a bit wrong and been ruined by something but after looking through all my books and digging around online I couldn't find pests/disease that matched what I was seeing or any evidence on the plants themselves.

Then I found an article that says this variety often doesn't flower and that while they are second earlies they are often ready at the same time as first earlies. It also said that they don't get very big. Based on this and the condition of the spuds themselves I've decided they were actually a success. They are a pain to harvest though. They just look like lumps of mud and are quite hard to spot as you dig.

They are really a roasting/chip/crisp spud as they are floury and fall apart when boiled, they actually turn the water a rather strange green colour too. 

The first couple of Dutchman summer cabbages have been really good. No damage from pests, very clean and a good size. 

The mangetout peas, Oregon, are ready now, the Boogie ones won't be far behind. They are very nice but grow so quickly that picking them at the right moment is a challenge.

A glut of broad beans is being dealt with by taking them to work, they go down well and make a healthy snack that keeps us out of the biscuit jar as well. 

The good news is that I'm getting requests for courgettes. As the courgette madness will be upon us soon this is good news.

Some of onions had some browning of leaves, when I tried to remove them they came out of the ground very easily. It looks like the dreaded white rot, luckily it only affects 3 onions so far. They weren't wasted though, they were fine to use straight away.

I've had to plant more carrots as carrot fly had been at them and I found the tips had gone soft when I pulled the Malbec variety. I think this was caused by the amount of rain we had as I've never seen this before

As always there is the odd problem but in general I'm happy with everything. The farm certainly looks a lot fuller than last year.

Happy gardening folks!! 

The Great Outdoors

After 2 weeks away it was nice to get down the farm for a couple of Saturdays and make a start.

First a little house keeping, trimming all the grass paths, which only took 20 mins thanks to the raised beds, rather than the usual 2 hours, topping up the bark on the cross paths and a bit of weeding. 

Next was to plant the potatoes, as the pic shows they had got a bit carried away in the chitting department this year. They were under my bed as per usual so no idea why they went quite so mad, maybe I'm going soft and had the heating on more this year.

So that's the Arran Pilot and Shetland Black planted out. As a little experiment I planted the Arran Pilot 6 in one row, 5 in the next and 4 in the final, just to see how yields are affected. 

We are expecting a couple of cold nights so they are well earthed up.

Next was to plant out the broad beans, they have been out in a cold frame so are nicely hardened off. The farm can be a bit windy so they have string supports, it also has  lot of pigeons so CD bird scarers and finally slugs, so slugs pellets. Not much more I can do, they are on their own now.

I've put in 2 rows of parsnips and 2 rows of carrots and covered them with cloches to keep the temperature up and also to stop the rain capping over the soil. After last year I'm hoping for more than 2 parsnips!

I've built a pea cage for this year, without it the pigeons will eat more than me. I find covering things with nets that need removing for weeding and harvesting a time consuming pain in the preverbal. This one is high enough for me to stand in and I should be able to get 2 rows in there nicely.

I ran out of staples to finish the netting but I wasn't planning to plant the peas until next weekend anyway as we are due 3 days of rain this week. It's in the diary for next weekend.

As the first Saturday was nice and sunny a quick beer on the plot was called for.

Happy gardening folks!! 

Still frosty

First of all, apologies for the lack of pics on this one, I forgot to take them before I wrote this in a hurry before leaving for the airport...

In previous years there have been things sprouting under cloches on the farm at this time of year, but this year so far... nothing.

There are 2 reasons for this, firstly we are still getting some pretty impressive frosts and secondly I go away for 2 weeks shortly meaning popping in to water on the way home is a no no. Once I'm back hopefully it will have warmed up a little and we can get cracking. This doesn't mean we have been doing nothing, at home the sowing and potting has continued.

Every broad bean came up and they seem to like it out in the mini greenhouse. They will be planted out when I get back at the end of March, hopefully after the winds have abated.

The cabbages and Kohl Robi have been pricked out and are growing on nicely. They may go under cloches soon, I haven't decided yet.

The chillies are slowly germinating but taking their time. Once up they spend the day under the grow lamps to stop them getting leggy.

The Marigolds, unusually had a poor germination rate and had to have a second sowing, again with mixed results. I'm not sure quite what is going on here, they usually germinate under almost all conditions.

Onions germinated well, now thinned to one per cell they are getting their first proper leaves. I've been trimming them back to about 3-4 inches in height to stop them falling over. They seem to like the mini green house as well.

This weekend I planted some beetroot in cells. I've never done this before but as you can buy plug plants of beetroot I figured I'd give it a go. Also some Convululus and sunflowers, leeks, pumpkin on a stick and a couple of Apero tomato plants to see if the grow lights stop an early sowing going leggy.

I almost forgot these, under the bed the spuds and Oca tubers are chitting nicely.

When I get back things will start to ramp up with the main sowings of peas, parsnips, early carrots, and early spuds. I look forward to finally getting things moving on the plot.

Happy gardening folks!!

We're Still He're

This time last year between the date of my last post this year and now I'd written 14 posts. My apologies for the tardiness this year. Its been a funny start to the year for personal reasons, with limited time and weather windows, and to be fair I was too embarrassed to post pics as the grass was a mess, more later. So where are we?

At home we've been planting the usual array of seeds and have even invested in some plant lights to stop the usual leggy plants as most of my window sills face west. Purchased from Amazon and running on a cheap plugin timer.

Purchase from Amazon

It as real mixed bag this year. The sweetcorn, leeks and most of the squashes are looking pretty good although some are a little small, they shouldn't be pot bound yet so maybe they don't like the compost. Hopefully planting them out and a feed will give them a push to catch up. Everything was planted a little late this year because of the cold weather and personal commitments so maybe that plays a part.

The brassicas, kale, cabbage, sprouts and PSB are looking rather small considering how long they have been growing, not unhealthy, just small. I'm not too worried as they aren't really needed until later in the year, they are more winter food to me. Again hopefully planting them out will help.

The tomatoes however are a disaster area. I have no idea why, they came up pretty quickly and the first two leaves were fine, but once the first proper leaves appears they stalled, despite the plant lights. It looks like we'll be buying in standard varieties  this year as there is no way these are ready to go out.

On the plot there is some progress. In bed 1 all the original plantings came to nothing but the second round is fairing better. We have beetroot, radishes, chard, spring onions and some lettuces. There is also Purple Orac, a new one for us. It's a spinach substitute, I've no idea what it tastes like yet but its certainly a pretty looking plant. Flea beetle have got the better of the turnips though.

In bed 2 the garlic and shallots are looking good and the asparagus is having a run away year, every couple of days there is a decent sized bunch, turn your back and its 2 feet high! The 4 new crowns I put in have yet to make an appearance though. At the other end of the bed are the roots. A row of parsnips, 2 rows of carrots and a row of fennel. This year I've tried a seed tape for one variety of carrots, I've heard mixed reviews but wanted to give it a try, hopefully it will save on the thinning. So far only the packet sown carrots have come up.

Bed 3 has the  spuds. Charlottes, Foremast and some King Edwards planted from last years leftovers. The brassica cage has been moved to the end that had the beans last year, hopefully a good source of nitrogen from last years roots which were just dug in. I've just planted out the first squashes, 2 marrow and a spaghetti squash. The pipes hold about 1 litre of water which slowly soaks in around the roots. Courteously of a bit of skip diving!

Bed 4 has the broads which have just started to produce the first small beans and are having their first black fly attacks. The climbing, runner and purple dwarf beans are up. The reverse wigwams are in use again this year. There are also 2 rows of peas planted a few weeks apart. The carpet bombing seed planting approach seems to have worked and with already have one very bushy, healthy looking row. The pigeons are sitting on the netting eating the tops off, but we may actually get some this year. Another project for this year may be a decent sized pigeon proof cage.

Bed 5 is still under cover. The strawberry bed at the end is looking productive, there are a lot of green berries and some red ones their already. The raspberries are also starting to flower.

You may have noticed the wooden frames round beds 2 and 3. I'm slowing putting these in, they will provide nice even sized beds once done and should give us a good 15-20 sq ft more growing space per bed once done. It's just taking a little time to complete as it involves moving some of the paths around.

The grass got very out of control. We have been having some strimmer issues this year which have now been solved by the purchase of a petrol generator which allows me to use my home electric strimmer down there. This  removes the short charge issue from the battery one and the weight/over powered issue from the petrol one. With a money off voucher from Machine Mart at £120 this is a bargain as I can run drills and saws down the farm if needed as well. The £20 off voucher was what finally sold it. It's also quieter and cheaper to run than the petrol strimmer.

Purchase from Machine Mart

Hopefully as the season picks up we'll get the plot under control again and find more time for writing., but for now............

Happy gardening folks!!

The Bullet is Bitten

What a lovely Easter weekend, or should I say typical...

We go away tomorrow for 9 nights and predictably the weather improves, just not where we are going. The broad beans were starting to get pot bound so we had no choice but to brave it and start the season on Sunday.

Under the covers the ground is a bit warmer and not too wet. A quick hoe down to about 6 inches to break up any lumps of manure or compressed bits where the securing stones have been, a rake over and its ready for planting. Here's a before and after shot.

There is still fair bit of rain forecast in the next couple of days so the spuds and asparagus can wait until we get back, for now it was the broads to go out, some peas seeds and a few odd bits under cloches to plant. Oh and the usual weeding.

The broads have been living in the cold frame so should be fairly well hardened off, the worry as ever is any high winds. As you can see they were getting desperate to be planted out. There are 34 plants in all so hopefully a good crop. Maybe this years bad weather will keep the black fly at bay. You live in hope. Here's the finished job.

Under here are couple of short rows of radishes, beetroot, lettuces and something called Red Orac, a spinach substitute, we had haven't tried it before, we found it at a garden show. Could be interesting.

I know this may seem like a lot of pea seeds to put in a trench, but our luck with them is appalling, so carpet bombing and thinning is the way forward this year.  

Heather gave the garlic, remaining leeks and asparagus bed a good weeding, once she'd finished lunch in the boot of the car that is, surprisingly little had actually grown. The beds behind H are next doors, he is currently putting us to shame.

We are still harvesting last years crops, the weather had kept us away so they are lasting us well. Some of the parsnips are huge now, the leeks never really got that big, the sprouts are done and  finally the purple sprouting broccoli is coming through.

The rhubarb and the raspberries are showing new signs of life, so mother has got her act together somewhere at least.

I have a day off when we get back so that will be spuds and asparagus day, fingers crossed for good weather!

Happy gardening folks!!