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.
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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!!

A Review of 2019

My apologies for the lack of posts over the summer, while I have managed to keep up with the tasks on the plot and get a good haul in the process, time for posting here has been a bit short. Work and DIY does tend to get in the way, along with quite a few BBQ's of course.

The cold start and hot couple of months did cause a few issues but it's fair to say that everything planted put in some kind of appearance and we certainly didn't go short this year.

So here is a rather pictorial update of this years progress.

Love a freshly picked sweetcorn. They did well this year despite a bit of wind damage

50mph winds bent a few of the sweetcorn

The changeable weather meant that the sprouting broccoli put in an early appearance this year

Plenty of tomatoes this year, although the dry conditions did make some of the skins a little tough

Malbec carrots. The first planting had to be scrapped but the second produced a good crop. Carrot fly have been an issue this year

Even managed to get a couple of decent sized peppers

It was a good onion crop this year

Last of the onions strung for winter usage. I'll definitely grow from seed next year as well

Carrots, leeks and parsnips. The leaf miner has hit the leeks again this year but there are still some usable ones. Some kind of protection will be needed for next year

The biggest of 2 pumpkins, large squashes didn't have a great year

And they ended up like this!

A picture from last weekend. Leeks, parsnips and brassicas. Oca covered in fleece in the background. I need to remind myself what to do with them. 

This year I've pickled my own onions, they do have a bite! and even got to like a boiled beetroot

The plot is looking quite tidy. I've manured and covered all the finished beds and I've been working on tidying the fruit bed. I don't think I'll get the strawberries replaced this year but I'll have the bed ready in the spring.

We've had the usual end of season visits from the vandals and they slashed the pea cage netting and Brian's shirt. It happens every year, usually closer to christmas, but at least they left the veg alone.

Hope you've all had a good season.

Happy Gardening Folks!!

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!! 

Slugs, Pigeons, Rabbits..................and Horses!

The last couple of years we've had mercifully few problems with slugs and our site doesn't really suffer with rabbits like the one up the road. Pigeons we most definitely have a problem with and peas or brassicas without netting don't stand much of a chance.

One thing you don't expect though is horses. There are some living in the field beside our site and of late they have been escaping to our side of the fence occasionally.

When I popped down to water last Wednesday the first thing I noticed were some holes in a dug but empty bed. As there was no soil flung about I wondered if someone had been nicking the topsoil by the bucket full, then I saw the unmistakable imprint of a horse shoe in the clay surface of the un-dug bed one.

It looks like the beast had had a wander round half the plot, including splitting my two rows of carrots into four! Not happy. Somehow he missed every parsnip that has germinated.

I looked up to see the horse merrily wandering around the far end of the site defying all attempts to catch it, or take its picture. Needless to say a complaint has gone into the council who were supposed to replace the fences in April.

At least I haven't put in many of my plants yet, the sweetcorn are due to go in this week, quite happy with these.

I'm glad I waited unlike some who lost more than a carrot or two. Very disheartening for new plot owners.

Happy gardening folks!!

   

Where did the sun go?

Over the Easter weekend I got quite the tan working on the plot, this weekend not so much...

The great weather gave me the opportunity to plant out the summer cabbages and kohl robi seedlings in the brassica cages,  the marigolds in the borders and the beetroot seedlings in the pea cage where the pesky pigeons can't get their beaks on them!

The carrots are up and the rows look good with no big gaps, the parsnips I'm not so sure about, something is coming up in places but I haven't been able to 100% identify them as parsnips yet. This makes the weeding a rather perilous affair.

I put in a half row of radishes, turnips, Tom Thumb lettuces, red spring onions, beetroot and a row each of the pea varieties in the new pea cage. The radishes took a record 4 days to appear!

At home I've planted tomatoes, sweetcorn and chard in pots and had a good germination rate. The tomatoes are on the windowsill where they can get a couple of extra hours of light under the grow lamps, no leggy specimens for me this year I hope! The sweetcorn and chard are outside in the green house.

This weekend I wanted to get the broccoli, winter cabbages, sprouts and kale out too but it's still windy here in Essex and we are due a couple of cold nights this week so I'll leave it for a few days yet.

The red/white onions are now getting a bit big for their cells I don't think leaving them in there until the start of June is a good idea. I have been holding off planting them out until then to avoid the first wave of allium leaf miner but as I don't think they can wait I have invested in a fleece tunnel to cover them instead. I was going to buy one anyway to cover the leaks in Sept/Oct when the second wave arrives. I just need to wait for the wind to drop  a bit more so the tunnel doesn't end up next door.

I've finally made a start on clearing the fruit bed as well. There is a lot of weed clearing to do but hopefully it won't take long to do.  

The first veg crop from this season is not the usual radish, but the asparagus which has just started to produce. I'll waiting to see if the new crowns I put in last year do anything, I suspect they won't and that's the case I'll try growing some from seed next year.

The spuds are starting to poke through now, not exactly where I think I planted them but I'll take it. I've been earthing them up as the overnight temps can still be a bit low.

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!!