by Neil Wilkinson | Aug 9, 2009 | Allotment
We didn’t have long to spend at the plot this weekend with travelling to Scotland on Saturday but the time we spent there seemed very productive. Our first priority was a bit of damage limitation. The tumbling tomatoes we had outside were well and truly hit by blight which is a real shame as they were so heavy with fruit. We picked those that were blemish free in the hope that they may ripen at home, fingers crossed. The carrots have been in poor shape for a couple of weeks now. The leaves started to wilt and go brown and despite some extra watering and feeding they never revived. We are still not sure what caused this, but there are a number of possible suspects, including carrot fly, insufficient watering or poor soil quality. A mass cull was in order as most of those we pulled were soft and mushy, not characteristics usually associated with carrots! We did manage to salvage a handful but it is pretty disappointing and we hope to improve things next year.
On to the produce we are having success with, it was time to harvest the garlic. The stems had collapsed and yellowed which is a sign that they are ready, although it does briefly induce panic that they have all died! Neil dug the bulbs up keeping the stems attached for hanging purposes. There were a couple of tiddlers but the vast majority were healthy and plump. We laid them out in the greenhouse to thoroughly dry out for a week or two then we will store them in a dark cupboard at home ready for some yummy recipes! The greenhouse is looking lush with lots on the verge of being ready to harvest. Neil had to tie up a few of the aubergine plants because it was so heavy with fruit. A few will probably ready to pick next weekend if the weather stays warm. The peppers are really rocketing. Each plant has about ten or fifteen fruit with more flowers that will develop later. According to Grow Your Own magazine, each sweet pepper plant should produce between three and eight peppers so we are doing pretty well by their account. We picked a few of the bigger ones as they looked ready to eat and we didn’t want the smaller peppers to be deprived of nutrients.
The lettuces that we sowed a couple of weeks ago in the greenhouse were ready for potting on. The germination rate was really high so we were running out of room on the greenhouse staging. This lead to us planting some straight out with a sprinkling of slug pellets to deter any feasting. The timing couldn’t be better as we have used almost all of our first round of lettuces so hopefully it won’t be long before these are ready for cutting.
After a generous watering of all of the beds it was time to call it a day. Before we headed home I picked some of the sweet pea flowers. Some of the stems are looking a bit weak like they might be coming to the end of their flowering season and as they have provided some much needed colour to the plot for a good few weeks it seemed time to let them do the same at home.
by Neil Wilkinson | Aug 5, 2009 | Allotment
Aarrgh! We are on the very edge of our first disaster on the allotment – and it goes by the name of tomato blight. I popped down tonight to water the greenhouse plants and saw a very concerned looking Bob on Sharon’s plot. Her greenhouse toms had been struck down and were looking very leafless and sorry for themselves. I did a quick recce of our plants and sure enough the outdoor toms had been got – their leaves have all wilted and they have big brown blodgy spots on the stems. So far the greenhouse plants are ok, but if it is in the air I think it’ll get in. Bob came to the rescue again by giving us a packet of a fungicide that could help combat it. I’ve sprayed the plants and I currently have my fingers crossed. In the meantime I have taken the tomatoes that were turning red and brought them home before anything bad happens to them.
Ketchup anyone?
by Neil Wilkinson | Aug 2, 2009 | Allotment
Despite the nice weather the allotment was pretty quiet and those two factors brought a constant companion to us today. The table we rescued from the bins is proving to be a bit of a sun trap – and at our allotment where there is sun, a place to lie and a few cat treats you will probably find Tammy. She’s a soppy little thing.
Tammy wasn’t the only creature on the plot today, we saw plenty of bees on our dahlias, a few ladybirds and about a million snails climbing up the bean frame. We are not supposed to like snails at the alloment and the bigger ones regularly get launched over the fench into the rough ground at the side of our plot, but when they look like this little fella, it’s sort of hard not to.
Again we didn’t have that much to do today. We fed the plants in the greenhouse, did some weeding and then harvested some more produce. Today we have taken home runner beans, tomatoes, courgettes (which Pilla is currently cooking up into a courgette casserole) salad leaves, mint, potatoes, cucumbers and sugar snap peas.
The beetroot is almost ready and our chillis are finally growing. I put the pictures of these together because I was talking to Ralph on Saturday, and not only did he give me a big bag full of tomatoes (thanks Ralph!), but he talked about a chilli and beetroot pickle he made last year. Pickles, beetroot and chillis – surely you can’t go wrong with that combination! We are going to have to make that this year.
Back in the greenhouse we got out first full truss of tomatoes – I think the variety is ‘Gardeners Delight’. The aubergines are growing at a fair pace and the sweet peppers have almost exploded. We have four plants and there must be 10-15 peppers on each.
Thought I’d also share the success of the growing frame (it’s known as a munty frame – I got the design from a web forum) as it is now producing tons of very straight runner beans and they are easy to pick too because they all hang down beneath the frame. Brilliant. The garlic we picked last week has dried out nicely in the greenhouse, and I think we can start digging up the rest of the garlic next week.
by Neil Wilkinson | Jul 26, 2009 | Allotment
Another glorious summers day in Manchester arrived today. Oh no, hang on, sarcasm is quite difficult to do in a blog! It’s pretty much been non-stop rain today so we didn’t get much done. Handily enough though we don’t really have a lot to do anyway. Allotmenting is a pretty curious beast – just at the point you think it’s going to be all hands on deck for the summer, well that’s the exact point when you don’t have to do very much. We had a bit of weeding to do and the plants in the greenhouse needed a good watering and that was about it really. The greenhouse plants seem to be doing really well – we had our first tomato and sweet pepper on Saturday.
We had another good harvest – plenty of runner beans, potatoes, salad leaves, cucumbers (we are currently a bit overrun with them), a few courgettes, thyme, mint and chives. The courgettes are proving to be curious things. We have four plants and the two yellow courgette plants are going great guns producing quite a few fruits (I had a quick discussion with Pilla, and we *think* it’s a fruit) the green courgettes are proving a little more stubborn. This is despite the fact that they have lived side by side since the first leaves appeared. Why the difference? Who knows!
Some of our garlic has flopped over so we took the opportunity to dig one up see how it was doing – and it’s actually a pretty good size. We’ve left it drying out in the greenhouse, I’ll try and take a picture next week. Pilla had some Treasurer duties to attend to by signing up a new plot holder and that was pretty much it – we were home for lunch. In the depths of winter we would have loved a few allotment days like that!
by Neil Wilkinson | Jul 19, 2009 | Allotment
Exciting times at the allotment this week – not only did we harvest almost more crops than we could carry, but Pilla got to use her new trug:
As you can see it’s pretty full up. I have to admit that the trug is quite useful – and it looks the part when Pilla is carrying it, I’m just not sure I can pull off the look! The full list of it’s content is:
- Sugar snap peas
- 3 yellow courgettes
- Runner beans
- Dwarf French beans
- Broad beans
- 3 types of lettuce
- 2 cucumbers
- A handful of carrots
- Thyme
- Raspberries
Sunday was exciting for different reasons – there was a lesson from Bob and Walter on how to prepare vegetables for the annual show. The first weekend we spent at the allotments was at the annual show last year (you can see that here) – and we did wonder if we might have produce to show this year. We probably will, but won’t be challenging for a prize (we had a sneaky peak at Debbie’s onions and shallots and they must be about three times the size of ours) and unfortunately Pilla’s appeals for a category of our own for wonky vegetables was rejected!
After the show meeting we braved the rain to rattle through our list of jobs. I added a few more strawberry runners to the first bin I cut holes from last week. We have two of these to fill and thankfully our strawberry plants are going crazy producing runners for us to use. Using these bins will give us an extra half bed for other things next year and we should have lots more strawberries than this year. Pilla was busy digging up our bed of shallots – they had got a bit of a pounding in the heavy rain this week and didn’t look likely to recover and their leaves had been yellowing for a while. We got a pretty good number from them but they are pretty small – they are currently drying out in our spare room.
We also planted out the remaining habenero chillies, melons and some more basil and sowed more of our lettuce varieties. We didn’t manage to take a lot of pictures today – a lot of the time we were hiding out in the greenhouse sheltering from the rain. I did manage to venture to the front border – the dahlia’s that Mike from work gave me are looking great. Back in the greenhouse we are about to have a glut of peppers, we have four plants and each one probably has 10 peppers on it. We also have our first proper chilli growing – finally!
In between rain showers (actually just when the rain got a bit lighter) I planted some green manure in the bed vacated by the shallots and Pilla planted our some more radishes. We were pretty damp at this point so called it day.
by Philippa | Jul 13, 2009 | Allotment
Colour all round at the allotment and mainly sunshine yellow hues! We have blooming sunflowers, opening courgette flowers and a pre-allotment breakfast of little eggs from the chickens. After the monthly allotment meeting yesterday we got straight to work. I was potting on the chillies into the florist buckets as they had started to flower and the hope is that with a bit more room we might get some fruit on them at the end of the season. We ran out of compost before I could do the same for all of the habaneros so this remains on the list of things to do. Meanwhile, Neil put his DIY skills to the test and set about drilling large holes out of a tall bin which he then partially filled with compost. He then carefully planted the strawberry plants Bob gave us so that theyare hanging out of the holes. The bin will be further filled once the runners in our strawberry beds are established. These won’t fruit until next year but they really couldn’t wait in their small pots any longer.
Exciting things happening in the greenhouse. We have a few little sweet peppers emerging, see above for our largest specimen thus far. If they continue at this rate we will get a good return from our four plants which will be a bonus as I think we were sceptical we would get anything at all. Neil had some aubergine tickling to do, with the help of a second hand paint brush. This followed a week of research in which opinion seemed to be divided. Some aubergines are apparently self pollinating whilst others require a bit of a helping hand. Not knowing whether ours were the former or the latter we thought it was better to play it safe and give them a tickle inside their flowers to distribute their pollen. Fingers crossed for the results! It was also time to plant out the dill and sage that had been started in the greenhouse. They are both looking a bit leggy so hopefully some fresh air will strengthen them up. A special mention goes to a new addition to our allotment equipment in the form of an old desk we recycled from beside the bins in our flat! Very useful for potting and DIY tasks but it may need a coat of varnish so it doesn’t perish.
It has been a good week for harvesting produce with a lots of lettuce and beans to bring home and I must say it is making us feel very healthy and virtuous! There is nothing quite like the taste of a fresh homegrown raspberry.
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