Allotment Year 3

Well, let us start with things that went badly. Once again, we had no gooseberries as the berries that formed were eaten by some other species in spite of being covered by our mobile netted cage. We had not much luck with the apples either, although I did get one strudel out of the Bramleys; the rest were eaten by pests although this year I put black nets over the trees. The other tree had small red apples but the wasps loved them because they are such a sweet variety. I suppose I should have picked them as soon as they turned colour, but I thought they might grow a little bit bigger.

This Spring I weeded and fed manure to the roots of the raspberry canes, and they repaid me by not dying in the drought, but the fruit was very small.

The rhubarb was great - I forced some and it was tall and lovely to eat, but I fear the root died in the drought. One of the crowns puts flower heads up but I cut them off, and after you cut them they grow normal shoots from the base. Don't take any notice if you are advised to dig the crown up. The rhubarb didn't like the drought and I wonder how many of my crowns will come up next year.

The potatoes were tiny, and few.This statement reminded me of a picture that we saw in Germany, of the King of Prussia, Friedrich the Great. In this picture he inspects the potato crop.

If the Queen came along we would be in the same situation, showing her very small potatoes. But she is not interested in potatoes, unlike the Prince of Wales. I don't know if this will boost Prince Charles's popularity, as it did with King Friedrich. 

My problem is Europe's problem  -the Economist says - "The Chips are Down"

EUROPE faces a potato crisis. Around 53m tonnes of spuds are harvested in the EU each year. Germany, the biggest producer, usually digs up 10m-12m tonnes. But thanks to a dry summer, the tubers have come a cropper.
On September 26th Germany’s agriculture ministry announced a harvest 25% smaller than usual. This year’s spuds are littler and denser than normal. Belgians are feeling less than chipper over rumours that their beloved frites may now be one-third shorter as a result. But these fears are small fry compared with the wider implications.

Alas I don't subscribe to the Economist, (but they keep sending me tasters) So I can't tell you about the "wider implications" but take it from the Kaiser Chiefs, everything is bloody awful nowadays. Short video here

But no!!! Many kinds of vegetable did well. I grew a yellow courgette that prodigiously produced courgettes, and is still alive and going strong,  and three green courgette plants that did fairly well but died young. 

I grew two butternut squash plants that were fab, and gave very good tasty squashes. I haven't cooked many yet but they roast well. 

The other revelation was the cucumber plants. They were similar, grew everywhere and were so tasty! I watered them a lot of course but they survived periods of drought very well.

The tomato plants have produced excellent tomatoes, not tiny cherries but not full-sized either, somewhere in between. No sign of blight yet. 

Some leeks are in and are going well in the new bed.

Swedes are in and are also going well, except those inadequately netted, I think the birds got them. Other winter veg are just a token effort to keep something going - 6 red cabbage, 6 curly kale and 6 broccoli. 

I had a row of fairly respectable onions, - one of them was a model onion, large and handsome, and all very strong and tasty, and about half of my shallots grew to a decent size and have kept well.

I grew some amazing spinach. I would grow that again and again, as I love spinach and can make a few things with it. I also grew ruby chard, which continues to do well though the leaves seem tougher. Apparently these are even more nutritious than spinach.

I grew beans as usual and have them in the freezer. The runners are still on the canes but look a sorry sight - must come down soon. 

I put in a line of radiccio salad leaves and have 4 plants - they are so beautiful. 

I thought of putting my plot in for a prize but it wasn't well-kept enough and had too many marigold plants. It also doesn't have a proper compost heap.

The weed "crab grass" is taking over the allotments and inhibits the growth of other plants. Constant hoeing is the only way forward. 

I am now doing a website for the allotments. I made it and am doing a blog for it. 

Allotment year 2, post 5 ish

So this year I planted 9 courgettes because I wanted to see if they would survive from such small and measly seedlings and that was 4 too many. Five is the correct number of courgette plants and if one of them dies you still get plenty of courgettes. I took a good many large courgettes to my club. I didn't waste any. I made soup, and I made marrow and ginger jam. A. made chutney. I made courgette cake.

I was completely bullied by the huge number of beans. I planted about 18 plants and one died. That is about twice as many as I needed. I cut up and froze the beans in small portions. If you freeze them in large bags you never use them. I also gave them away by putting a bag of them on the green with a "help yourself" sign.

I planted three types of potatoes and this time I didn't mix them up. I planted one row of Charlottes and harvested them as soon as they flowered; they were nice, apart from the ones that were a bit scabby. But we ate them all while they were young, but most of them had to be peeled.
One row of Desiree was enough, they have done well apart from some scabby ones, and they should mash well.  I also planted some Roosters because the packet of seed potatoes was reduced (roots growing through the mesh. These are lovely round potatoes which hold their shape well when you boil them. They were lates because I planted them as an afterthought.
So apart from the potatoes, courgettes and the beans things didn't go too well. The mange tout did nothing (soil too poor?) So I just pulled them up and eventually I planted leeks in that place. These are growing quite well. When I planted the leeks I also planted two rows of beets. We ate a lot of the young leaves as salad. I eventually pulled up some - they didn't take long to grow. I have never cooked these before but today I roasted some and they were nice. We also had home-grown potatoes and beans (from the freezer).

The raspberry canes produced a decent number of berries but we need a few more so we can collect a couple of bowls full at a time. At present, I am still eating them on the hoof (and very nice they are!)

The strawberries gave us one crop (about 10 bowls) and then put out loads of runners. I have been planting up new plants from the runners but they aren't taking very well.  I need to dig out the whole bed and get rid of the original plants, which are getting too old. That bed is very weedy too and needs feeding which I am going to do.

The rhubarb plants went completely mad and after the thirsty spell, which tested them severely in June, they grew incredibly. We should have a good lot next spring. You shouldn't eat the stems after July because they contain chemicals which give you arthritis and gout!

The other thing that needs doing is the construction of a compost bin, from pallets. A. has collected two good corner posts and some pallets and dumped them behind the shed. He is too busy to do any more. The rubbish heap may have some good stuff in it but I am going to have to burn a lot of it because I haven't the container for making compost.

(Home compost is going well - lots of thin pink worms - if it was a nicer day today I would be out putting the compost around the shrubs.)

Not a holiday

Today I want to catch up with myself. I have been reading too much and doing too much and now I feel unsteady, so to hold on to the railings of my life I will enumerate what I have done this week.
1. Went skiffing on Monday and Wednesday.
2. Had bonfire at allotment, 2nd April finished the digging out of the compost bin, spread about the soil from the compost heap (not rich enough to call it compost), and garnished it with manure to give it some body. The manure was still wet from the field (I had stored it in plastic bags) but quickly dried in the sun. It has been a dry, bright, breezy week. We now have a compost heap of manageable size but no fence around it. Husband is too busy to construct this out of the usual pallets.
3. Bean poles. These are up and there are beans in the ground.
4. I had planted seeds in modules of which only the tomatoes germinated. don't know why. Too hot maybe, when I left the heater on by accident? I have potted on 12 tomato seedlings, tried again with beans and mangetout. Pots all over the conservatory floor (a tiny room where I work). Courgettes next.
5. I read a very good book called Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Claire Morrall.
6. I went on to His Bloody Project which I had to read very fast, for book club.
7. Coxed Husband and Helena, Wednesday evening.
8. Went to book club last night and discussed the book. A very good discussion, although, as usual, the old people digress madly, and the most compos mentis people speak less than those without filters. We had a new member much younger than the rest of us, and not at all shy, which was lovely.
9. Spike came round for lunch yesterday (salmon salad) and we talked about the regatta software. Spike is 62, he has looked after his mum for many years and in February his mum died. He said he feels like an 18-year-old because he is free again. I think he might like a girlfriend. Jane???
10. On Tuesday husband surprised me by remembering our wedding anniversary, and we had a sudden whim to go to the Dulwich Picture Gallery, as I had never been there and he was willing to drive. There was a Vanessa Bell exhibition on. Will post pictures separately. We had a fab lunch in Rocco's Italian restaurant in Dulwich village, which is charming and really the most desirable area to live in London, I should think. Then we walked through a park to another area to see the Horniman Museum, because it was not far away and again, I had never been there. There was a huge display of musical instruments from around the world. This interested us far more than the stuffed animals, although I thought they did very well to make the stuffed animals relevant and interesting.

Allotment Part 8: report on growing season.

Watering the allotment is a real chore but I have done it so nothing has died - although the courgettes got mildew while we were away, and were also almost overwhelmed with weeds, and are just recovering and are just coming back into production again.

Courgette plants having recovered from mildew.

I think we were slow to realise how regularly we had to respond to the plants. That every day something else comes into readiness to eat. And this was particularly the case with the beans. Runner beans need picking every day. They get hard and fibrous if you leave them too long in the sun. Likewise our first courgettes were enormous just because we thought the small ones needed a few more days, when in fact one more day makes all the difference. Respect to the plants, they work hard to produce their fruits in short time.

Only a few more runner beans to come - we have had loads

If you can't water every day then you must come every other day and really soak the earth. With this pattern we have kept everything in production.

The potatoes are over now, and have been beautiful and very productive. I am glad I prepared the soil so well. Where we went wrong was mixing up two kinds of seed potatoes. I am pretty sure that when I asked for Maris Piper and Charlottes I wanted them in two separate bags and I was too inexperienced to insist, so I got them all in one bag and we planted them in three mixed rows. But the Charlottes should have been harvested earlier than the Maris Pipers because they are meant to be earlies. As it was, we let all the potatoes stay in the soil for too long. The haulms have stopped growing and they are now dead so we will have to get the potatoes out soon. You have to be careful when you cook them because overcooking makes them all fall apart. You actually have to stand over them and pull each chunk out when it is cooked through because a moment later the potatoes are all disintegrated. This is true of both kinds of potato. Of the two, the Maris Piper is the better. Some of the Charlottes became too big and are hard inside. The small ones are really tasty though.

The strawberries didn't produce many fruit, and likewise the raspberry canes were hopeless, half of them dead, and they were from the RHS. Nul points for the RHS. Here are some autumn fruiters that did not come from the RHS,

 

Haven't watered these as they were in the ground over winter.

 

Tomato plants - these were all cherry tomatoes and very very productive. You have to pick them as soon as they are turning faintly red. Not the whole truss, just individuals.



Nick gave me a few lettuces to plant amongst the strawberry plants. The netting protects from birds.
 

We have planted three rows of beetroot seedlings, and here they are covered with environmesh to protect them from birds.

Also planted some leeks but I honestly don't think they'll be any good because they are so dry.

This pic shows the lovely red apples on the little tree, and the rows of parsnips behind the courgette plants.

Poor leeks.

The rhubarb has done really well, we have not picked any because it's the first year but next year it should be very productive.

Allotment news (part 6)

We have lost nothing at the allotment (touch wood; and there may yet be frost); we covered the beans and pea shoots with netting to protect them from the birds. The sun and the rain (it’s pouring down here) should do the plants no end of good. I have got some courgette seedlings in pots (8 of them) and a few more runner beans as I don’t have that many in the ground, and tomato plants ready to pot on. I have a really bad record with mange tout – not many seedlings have appeared, even though I soaked the seeds in half an aspirin solution.

A man called Brian in the next plot but one gave me some strawberry plants because he had too many; I planted 14 of them. I now have more fruit than I intended with the rhubarb already up (but it isn't doing very much).

The potatoes are just beginning to show their shoots, but that part of the ground harbours the roots of ground bindweed which is sprouting madly, but I hope we will eradicate them this year.

Bramley Apple tree that is fragile



Beans, mange tout and sweet peas

Other Apple tree very covered in blossom
In the background there s a row of parsnips (in the wrong place).