Allotment Catch up - Early October

After having nearly four weeks away from the allotment due to a combination of holidays, illness and bad weather I wasn't looking forwards to my visit earlier this month.

I was expecting caterpillar munched brassicas, slug munched lettuce and courgettes and drowned everything else, but I am please to say that although there was some damage, it was nowhere near as bad as I was anticipating.

The torrential downpours had washed away every slug pellet, so there were quite a few fat slugs enjoying the fruits of my labours.  They soon got the sharp end of a trowel and were flung onto the manure pile.



Onions hanging on - just !





In bed 1 the square of 15 onions had suffered some slug damage, with about four whose tops had been munched but the rest seem to have been left alone.



Big lettuce pressing against the netting



In the next picture you can see just how well the lettuce are coming on - when I planted them I thought they were the sort where you harvest the outer leaves as and when you need them, and that they didn't form a heart, but every one is now a huge, full-hearted lettuce that are very sweet tasting.

One problem with all the rain we have been having is that the very outer leaves which have been touching the soil had started to rot on the plant, but I soon whipped those off.



Brussels, PSB and Kale



The brassicas also under the netting in bed 1 are still growing strongly - there have been a few caterpillars on them due to the flimsy construction of the netting and cage, but nothing major so I am hoping for great things from them later this year/early next.



Before removing the finished courgette plants



The peas at the top of bed 1 had withered so I pulled them out, and the courgettes had been badly attacked by the slugs, so they came out too.

The turnips planted from seed are starting to bulk up a little - the largest was about 2 inches across, and some of the spinach is also doing well, but a lot of it has been swamped by the cabbages in the next squares so was still pretty spindly.  A lesson to be learned for next year here, don't include brassicas in a square foot bed unless they are all similar size plants or they will overwhelm their neighbours.



Pak Choi doing well



The pak choi planted from seed have done fantastically well, so I harvested a couple for our tea, and very nice they were too.

Some of them were also having trouble with the huge cabbages next door, so I did a little trimming of the lower, larger cabbage leaves to give the pak choi a bit more light, which will hopefully allow them to grow a bit more.





The star of bed 1 so far has got to be the french beans.  I have had four small harvests from them already and all four plants are still loaded with flowers.  I just hope that the frosts keep off and we have enough sun to be able to harvest the rest as they have an unbelievable flavour.









Lots of Bean Pods




The Mammoth pumpkin hasn't really lived up to its name despite an early showing - the one remaining fruit hasn't really grown very much since the last time I measured it.



Mammoth Pumpkin



The Jack 'o' Lantern, however, has nearly doubled in size.



Jack 'O' Lantern



I just hope that at least one of them will toughen up enugh to be carved for our Halloween Party on Oct 27th!





Top of bed 2





At the top of bed 2 the Savoy cabbages are doing well despite their somewhat shakey start and are pretty much the same size as those in bed 1.

I had to remove the two cherry tomato bushes as they had signs of blight, but I have left the chillis in place - the plan is to trim them and try to overwinter by wrapping in fleece with the surrounding brassicas also providing some shelter.

In the space left by the tomatoes I have planted some of the kale that was pigeoned, slugged and caterpillared back in July as they appeared to be staging some kind of come back.

I also planted three Kohl Rabi that had been sitting at home and should really have been in the ground by now.



Bottom of bed 2



At the bottom of bed 2 the donated rhubarb is growing fantastically well - all my rhubarb at home is starting to die down ready for winter but these two are still going great guns.

The transplanted turnips have taken well, but aren't as far along as the ones left behind in bed 1.

The radish at the botton right of the picture have started to form bulbs, but they aren't much more than pea-sized right now.

The chard and perpetual spinach are flourishing, but some of the slug-munched onions appear to have been too far gone to save.

I have also started to plant into bed 3 as I had to bring out all the remaining brassicas from home, plus those munched on earlier but still with full hearts.

The whole of bed 3 now contains spring cabbage, curly cale, brussel sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli.

I think the next thing to do is to get beds 4 and 5 ready using the lasagne method.

This isn't as I planned, but I need to get some onion sets and some garlic in and the way the weather is closing in as we head through Autumn I doubt that I will have enough time to double dig as I had wanted.

D-Day

Today is the day I get my allotment!

Had lots of emails back and forth with the allotment secretary last night.

I have now been offered the full plot instead of the three quarters I was going to take - apparently the lady who was going to have the other quarter has been offered space on another plot.

I had a chat with my stepdad (who is my allotment partner) and my wife (who is having a quarter for soft fruit) and they both said to go for it, so this afternoon I will be signing up for the full plot.

I just hope that I am not taking on more than I can handle here.

The secretary also told me that the plot has been recently strimmed - I am not sure if that is good or bad right now as I would have liked to have walked the plot first just in case there were any plants mixed in with the weeds that could be saved as I had been told by a neighbouring plotholder that there was some rhubarb in there somewhere. It would also have shown me where the nasty perennial weeds were.

On the other hand, it has saved me a day's work, and I can get straight on with creating my first couple of beds, depending upon what the ground is like.  It has rained so much here recently that I am concerned that the soil will be so wet that I really can't dig it. or if there is a lot of clay in the ground as my stepdad thinks, there will be standing water all over the plot.



Seedlings ready for planting 



More seedlings!



Last night I totally emptied the blow away to do a thorough check for slugs and snails hiding on the underside of the various pots and planting trays in there.

It was only when I laid all the trays out on the hot tub lid I realised just how many seedlings I actually have ready for planting out - and remember, I also have more on the table in the front garden.

The haul in the blow away that is ready to plant out is:

67 onions - not sure if these are ready as they are only tiny as yet.

15 Winter Cauliflowers

15 Winter Cabbage

15 Purple Curly Kale

15 Brussel Sprouts

15 Purple Sprouting Broccoli

1 Tomato

6 Peas

1 Capsicum Pepper

2 Pumpkins

4 Courgettes



Even more seedlings!

Left over from planting the front garden

1 Swiss Chard

3 Leeks

2 Cavolo Nero

2 Curly Kale

1 Romanesco Broccoli

Not big enough to plant out yet are

9 Lettuce

3 Kohn Rabi

11 Courgettes

I have also got loads and loads of seeds ready to go in.

I just hope I can keep everything under control!

Allotment Countdown. T-6

There are now only six days until I get my allotment, so I have been working hard to try and get sone seedlings ready for transplanting as soon as I get a couple of beds ready.

Got some more veg plugs from Aldi today - I got Brussel Sprouts and purple Curly Kale, and I also picked up a tray of strawberries as I needed five more plants to fill up my hanging planter..

I have also sown nine modules of lettuce, All Year Round, and I have tried an experiment with the water retaining gel that came with the Aldi veg plugs by replacing the compost and sowing a couple of spinach seeds into each cell.

I also picked up an olive and a fig from Lidl.  The olive was in reasonable condition, but I don't think that the fig is going to survive long at all.  Still, I will give it a chance.

These won't be going to the allotment as they need to be brought in over winter.

Multi Onions per plug

After having transplanted all the veg plugs my blow away is absolutely full - I ended up with 59 onions as each plug had up to six separate seedlings - after asking for advice on The Grapevine I decided to carefully split them and give each one its own separate cell.



A very full blow away

 We have finally had a bit of sun, inbetween the torrential rain and hail, and this seems to have given everything a bit of a kick start.

Lettuce by the front door

The cut-and-come-again lettuce by the front door is looking great and we have already had three or four meals from it.  I am hoping that it will last long enough for me to get some lettuce grown down at the allotment.  I cheated a bit with this lettuce - I noticed a pack of 'living lettuce' in the reduced section at Asda marked down to 20p, so I bought it and carefully split it into eight sectios, each with a well defined root system, and planted them in a large tub.  Three weeks later they had almost filled the tub and we were popping out for some lettuce whenever we needed some.  I think I will give that a try again next year.

The tomatoes in the growbag at the front of the house look like they are finally starting to develop some flowers.

The thyme has almost doubled in size over the past week which is really good as it is the herb we use most in the kitchen.

A couple more kohl rabi have germinated along with two Sweet Baby tomato and two Oregon Sugar Pod mange tout  on the boxroom windowsil.

Still nothing from the Borlitti, Mammoth pumpkin or Anaheim chillis but it has only been six days.

I was expecting these to germinate faster than those outdoors - the Mammoth pumpkin in the blow away took 10 days to finally show - it will be interesting to see how long the one inside takes.


I have also decided it is time to plant out my aubergine and a couple of the peppers, so I balanced a grow bag on some greenhouse staging to keep the plants away from the slugs and snails.  I already have one pepper forming, and both plants look like they are about to produce a few more flowers.



Two Peppers flanking the Aubergine in the GrowBag



Not sure about the aubergine - it is going strong, but I can't make up my mind if it is about to flower or just produce more leaves

Yet more Seedlings

My stock of seedlings awaiting the allotment increased dramatically yesterday when I made a quick trip to Aldi.

They have just got in a batch of vegetable seedling plugs - a pack of 15 for £1.99.

I bought Winter Onions, Winter Cauliflower, Winter Cabbage, Spring Cabbage and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

All I have to do is to transplant them into a proper seed module tray and water them in.  Once the roots start coming out of the bottom of the module it is time to plant them out.

The seedlings are in a tiny amount of compost which is sitting in a layer of gel (it is supposed to help with water retention and you can mix it with your compost in the seed tray if you want).

A quick spin around the seeds I have recently planted -

In the blow away almost everything is starting to show - both pumpkins are going well  (the Jack O' Lantern is doing best).



Jack O'Lantern on the left, Mammoth to the right





White Lisbon Spring Onions





Paris Market Carrots

The spring onions

are also coming on, as are the carrots. 



Kelvedon Wonder Peas



The peas are nearly an inch high and growing noticably every day - there is even a sigle kohl rabi sprout as well.

 

Basil - at last!

Best of all - there are a few basil coming up as well.  This will be the first time I have managed to get basil to germinate in over three years of trying, so I am very pleased with this.

Nothing from any of the courgettes as yet though, but they were only planted six days ago so I really shouldn't get too impatient just yet.

On last Monday evening I planted chillis, tomato, another pumpkin 'Mammoth', borlotti, sugar snap peas and radish on the box room windowsill, so they have only had four full days so far.

The only movement is from the radish.  It started to show after only two days, and this is where they are now.

Some of the seedlings are nearly an inch tall, and almost all the seeds have germinated meaning that I have two seedlings at each station.

I may try to transplant the weaker one of each pair, but I have read that radish doesn't like being transplanted, and you should seed it where it will be growing.

It will be interesting to see how the radish that I will move fare compared to those left behind.

More seeds

Sowed a load of seeds yesterday ready to be transplanted to the allotment as soon as I have a bed ready for them, which I am hoping will be around my birthday on July 10.

I put in loads of cucurbits (courgette family) as last year I put them in late, and although some small fruit formed almost all rotted from the flower end before they were big enough to pick.


I planted 3 x Courgette 'De Nice A Fruit Rond' (never had a round courgette before so really hoping these come up),  4 x Squash 'Patty Pan Custard White', 3 x Courgette 'All Green Bush', 3 x Courgette 'F1 Defender' and 3 x Courgette 'F1 Atena'

I had a few spaces left so I decided to try some Kohl Rabi 'Purple Vienna' - another veggie I have never grown, or even eaten for that matter.  I sowed three or four seeds in each 'plug' just in case some didn't germinate.



What I planted today.



I also planted out a couple of spare plants to replace the slug and snail eaten ones - a couple of Romanesque broccoli and a Cavolo Nero kale.  All my brassicas are now protected by pop bottle cloches.

I don't want to lose any more seedlings so the cloches will stay on until the plant is too big for them and hopefully big enough to survive the odd leaf being munched,

Fully loaded Blow Away

Had a quick look at the seeds I planted 10 days ago - no signs of anything from either of the pumpkins or the spring onions, but a couple of the Kelvedon Wonder peas are showing, and there is even a tiny bit of green from one of the Paris Market carrots.

One of the pepper plants in the blow away has got a flower on it.  Apparently they self-pollenate, so I may have at least one fruit this year.

Flowering Pepper

Also in the blow away is my single aubergine plant which is getting quite tall now, and looks like it has recovered from the slug attack a couple of weeks back.  Apart from the pumpkins I think that this is the plant I am most looking forwards to see growing.

Aubergine - Recovered after slug attack

Maybe I can do this gardening stuff after all!

One new thing I tried yesterday was to mulch round the leeks in my raised bed with grass clipplings.  It is supposed to keep water in the soil - not that we have had any problems with shortage of water recently! and also to deter slugs and snails as it dries and becomes a barrier.

Part-mulched raised bed

We will see.