by Philippa | Oct 19, 2014 | Allotment
It is now officially Autumn given we have entered October but the weather is unseasonably warm. We have picked one or two large bright red strawberries on each visit over the last week or two, along with lots of blueberries and while the squash are almost ready to be picked, the dahlias continue to bloom next to them. It is lovely to see but we can’t help but wonder what the impact on the next growing season will be!
Speaking of strawberries, we covered the asparagus bed with well rotted manure and the strawberry runners we potted on and cut off can rest there until there are ready to be planted out.
We cleared out the greenhouse beds on plot 118 and in order to make good use of all that space we buried some dahlia tubers from plants that had not lasted quite as long as some of the larger ones that were still flowering well.
Neil was on a mission, a manure mission, and put about eight barrows on the plot to be dug in at a later date. It really does feel like Autumn when the expanse of dark manure takes over from the green.
The basket of goodies has also taken an Autumnal turn, with gluts of tomatoes replaced by beetroot, apples and grapes making regular appearances. Although it is sad to think that the tomatoes, peppers, chillies and aubergines are gone for another year it is made better by the anticipation of parsnips, squash and kale and is totally forgotten in dreams of crumble and other treats to come!
by Philippa | May 25, 2014 | Allotment
We really are being spoiled with the run of three day weekends we have had since Easter, it’s a shame we have to wait until August now for the next one!
After coming back from Spain on Thursday we knew that while there had been some warm days, there had been mostly cooler temperatures and quite a bit of rain. This was to bode well for how things had got on in our absence! However, as predicted last week the tray of calabrese that had suffered in the heat had not had a miraculous recovery and so I had to sow some more calabrese green sprouting, purple sprouting and summer purple sprouting broccolis. But at least the old dried out tray did not go to waste, as we discovered the culprit in ‘cat bum gate’!
We had a lovely lunch with friends today so we only got to the plot after 4pm. We had a long list of things we wanted to get done and managed to check off quite a few items despite the late hour. The tomatoes have come on well and suddenly looked tall and full of side shoots, so Neil removed them and tied them up.
We potted on the aubergines (jackpot and long purple) and most of the courgettes. Although, oddly, the zucchini variety hadn’t germinated at all so I popped another few seeds while we potted on the rest. We also potted on the chillies (which I think we were on the third or fourth sowing of after a strange run of issues with them!) and as a result of all of these jobs, Neil had to take down one side of the staging to make extra room.
On a slightly smaller scale I sowed some more Savoy cabbages as they had some patchy germination and I pricked out some leeks (almera) into larger pots to get them a bit stronger while also sowing a large pot of the jolant variety.
In the greenhouse on 118 Neil hacked back some of the grapevine, and I do mean hacked back. It grows with abandon and I’m convinced that the harsher you treat it, the more it likes it! We try and train a central line along the apex of the greenhouse roof so that it doesn’t get too much in the way of the other produce in there but it still persists in trying to, literally, branch out!
As for outside jobs, there was lots of re-jigging of the coldframe to be done to fit in the cauliflower (snowball), zinnia, aster (milady), chrysanthemum (mixed) and celeriac (prinz) that were ready for some cooler conditions. I also gave the shallots a water, as while they didn’t need the moisture after a lot of rain in the last day or so, they did need some organic feed as they had some yellowing tips and generally looked in need of a bit of a boost.
We dug up the spinach that had most definitely gone to seed! In fact I was joking that we had been keeping it in until it grew as tall (yes I said tall!) as me. Well it had exceeded that height, so it was most definitely time for it to come out. We’ll add some manure and feed to the bed once we dig it over to get it ready for whatever is next to come.
There are still jobs left on the list for tomorrow’s bonus weekend day but we are hoping for drier conditions to get more done outside, fingers crossed.
by Philippa | Mar 30, 2014 | Allotment
The seeds that failed in the propagator were so frustrating after they started off so well. So this week I planted second attempts of the peppers and some of the chillies. Fingers crossed!
It was only a brief visit for me due to a busy weekend but as often happens, you keep seeing things to do and start little jobs that end up leading to other jobs! So the act of picking a parsnip for a recipe later in the week lead to the thought ‘I might as well dig the rest up and that is that bed clear’. There were only a few left but they were whoppers and so then I needed to chop them up with the shovel for the compost!
Then after watering the greenhouse seedlings I thought the aubergine seedlings were ready to pot on. As I knew it would be a week until we were back I thought I’d better do it now! So I potted them on to larger pots and before you know it a half hour visit was a couple of hours and there was still more to be done, but there is always another day!
by Philippa | Mar 15, 2014 | Allotment
A run to B&Q was in order as we needed to stock up on sowing compost and also some growbags (permanently on the 5 for 4 offer so 10 was a bit of a squash to fit in the boot!). While there we took advantage of an offer on woodstain to get some green for the fence, blue for the shed and dark red for the staging. While quickly checking to see if they had starting stocking organic liquid tomato feed again Neil managed to spot a stash of four bottles of the feed we used to use until they discontinued it last year! They were a bargain price of £3 instead of £4.50 so we grabbed them in case we don’t see it elsewhere.
The white onions were doing so well that they needed to be brought out of the greenhouse as they will be ready for planting out in the next week or so. We left them in front of the greenhouse so they had the benefit of a bit of shelter, especially as the weather has turned cooler again.
Neil was very excited this week as he had made some internet allotment purchases that were delivered. He has treated us to some new secatuers and a pruning knife and also some bits of sharpening kit so that he can give some much needed to TLC to our older tools. So despite not having long at the plot due to other commitments, Neil managed his own before and after shot.
I had the much quicker and less messy task of replanting those propagator seeds that perished last week. This included both varieties of aubergine, several varieties of chilli and our peppers. What was rather frustrating was that some of the chillies and peppers come in small quantities, perhaps only 6 or 8 seeds so I discovered that I couldn’t replant the Tasty Grill variety of mixed colour, long peppers so made do with some Long Red Marconi that we have used in a previous year. Here’s hoping that these second propagator sowings don’t suffer any casualties!
by Philippa | Mar 8, 2014 | Allotment
The weather has really warmed up this week and so the windowsill sowings in the heated propagator had all sprouted swiftly and some were even ready to be taken to the greenhouse. I think we had our most successful germination, but maybe I had that thought too quickly as the chillis, aubergines and peppers which weren’t quite ready to go to the plot suddenly all died! They looked like they had burnt almost so I wonder if it was too hot for them. So we would have to sow them again. At least we have only lost a week or so.
The garlic and the onions have green tops over a couple of inches already which is great. The onions are in seed trays in the greenhouse and the white onions have definitely sprouted more and better than the red. We planted the shallots (Longor) that had been delivered during the week. We decided to put them on plot 118 so this will be the first year that they haven’t been grown in beds. I’m hoping that they are not going to be adversely affected, for example by slugs, so fingers crossed! The other planting we did was of some crocus and daffodil bulbs that have been in the shed for too many months! I suspect it is too late for them to do much this year, but it will be a nice surprise when they pop up next Spring.
We wanted to do some more clearing up so we are ready for the next few weeks when things will explode into action. We had some tubs of soil still in the greenhouse on plot 97 that we’d grown tomatoes and chillies in, so we got rid of the large root balls and spread the rest of it over one side of plot 118.
The herb beds had gone a bit crazy and were showing signs of growing again and so now was the time to do some pruning back or we would have missed our chance. It is always satisfying doing a before and after shot of a job like this! And it was a very pleasantly fragrant job too-certainly better smelling than digging the manure that we put on top!
Speaking of manure we put about another ten barrows of manure on plot 118, joining up all the gaps so now it has all had a thick layer. Neil also did some digging over, of which there will be a lot more to do before too long!
We harvested some cavolo nero, purple sprouting broccoli, horseradish and our first picking of the forced rhubarb. The rhubarb was a revelation, so pink and tender with a lovely delicate flavour with much less tartness. I just simply poached it and served it with some creme fraiche with some orange stirred through, delicious! Think we will be picking more next week…
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