First Major Harvest of the Season

So far this year I have been able to harvest a small amout of produce from the garden - there have been a small handful of strawberries and raspberries, a couple of tomatoes, six potatoes, six sticks of rhubarb and a couple of pea pods

With all the sun we have had recently the chard in the front garden has started to bolt and has thrown out huge flower spikes.

Bolting Chard

The flowers themselves are nowhere as colourful as the plant, simply being a mass of tiny green petals.

I decided to harvest some of the plants tonight as we will be making a chick pea and spinach soup tomorrow, using the chard in place of the spinach.

We also had a handful of leaves braised in stock to go with tonight's tea.  I wanted to have a taste test just in case the leaves had become too bitter to use, which is what I have read happens once the plant bolts.

Fortunately they weren't too bad, so there is now a colander full of large leaves plus a nice pile of smaller, hopefully more tender leaves and some stalks - about 350g in total from 2 plants.

There are a further three much larger plants still awaiting harvest - I will probably lift them tomorrow and put something like beets in their place.

Bountiful Harvest

I have planted another Bright Lights Chard at the allotment which is a few weeks behind those in the raised bed at home.

I am hoping to be able to harvest some of the smaller young leaves from that plant on Saturday as well as some of the leef beet we planted last weekend to give Will his first ever produce to take home.

That will be a great milestone for him - the next will be when his seeds start showing, followed by harvesting from the plants he has sown himself.

And then there were six ......

Another long day at the plot again this Saturday - I was on at 6.30am to put the frame together that will eventually hold the netting needed to keep the cabbage whites and pigeons off my brassicas.

A quick check on the plants I had transplanted out earlier this week revealed no slug damage at all to anything - a triumph for slug pellets.



Jack O'Lantern

Both the pumpkins have finally started to put out a vine - the Jack O'Lantern was doing well, but the Mammoth has nearly doubled in size since it was planted out and has what appear to be female fruit forming already.


Mammoth



I may have to pinch these out as they are far too close to the main stem, but I may just wait and see first....

When I planted the courgettes on Thursday evening neither had anything other than leaves, but this morning both have flower buds which I am hoping will open tomorrow.

The French Beans are doing well, with a few flowers and the peas have already got two pods forming.

Hard at work - One of them at least

I went off-site for breakfast about 8am, but was back again for around 10.30am with both step dad Ken and son Will, and we all stayed there until 6pm.

We soon had the frame for the third bed made as all that was missing was the long sides.

Part dug third bed

This bed was installed alongside the existing two and me and Will started to dig it out while Ken continued cutting the rest of the timber to make more beds.

You can see the netting frame that I had made to the left of the picture.


Part way through the afternoon Ken was given some more produce from one of my friendly plot neighbours, Diane, who came across with a handful of beetroot for him.  Thanks again Diane.


 After a lot of hard work we managed to get the final three beds in place, but weren't able to dig them, or even get them properly aligned as we had run out of both time and energy.



 As almost the last act of the day Will planted his first ever seeds - he put in 2 blocks of 9 spinach 'Matador', 2 blocks of 4 x Pak Choi and a single block of Turnip "Purple Milan".  I hope that they germinate and prove to him that he hasn't got 'black thumbs'.

These last sowings have completed the first bed which is now totally full.  Only another five beds to have a go at now.

More Goodies for the Allotment

Last Friday I ventured out in the pouring rain to have a look at a plant Nursery near to where I work.

It was a tiny thing, round the back of a row of terraced houses but with an amazingly wide range of veggie plants for sale - lots more variety than I have found with the big boys.

I went with a list, unfortunately some had sold out but I still managed to come away with quite a haul.

6 x Calabrese 'Marathon'
6 x Purple Sprouting Broccoli (these did fantastically well for me last year, so I decided to have another try)
6 x Beetroot 'Boltardy' (not so good with these last year - never did manage to get one much more than a couple of inches across)
6 x Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake Stringless'
6 x Onion 'Red Baron'
6 x Onion 'Rjinsburger 5'
6 x Viola
1 x Nasturtium 'Empress of India'
1 x Tomato 'Golden Gem'
1 x Tomato 'Little Sun'
1 x Chilli 'Jalapeno'
1 x Sweet Genovese Basil
1 x Coriander 'Calypso'

Garden table groaning with the weight of seedlings just waiting for a home at the allotment

I had a boot full of goodies - and the cost?  Only £16.25 !!

The owner was really helpful, recommending alternatives to things on my list that were out of stock.

If you are ever in South Manchester I can recommend the Chorlton Nursery

http://www.chorltonnursery.com/

All I have to do now is keep them alive and well until I can get my first bed set up on my allotment - hopefully within a couple of weeks.