Sowing Update

I planted my first batch of seeds on Thursday Feb 26th, and put the broad beans and tomatoes on the windowsill.

I had intended to sow more seeds into the tray with the lettuce and shallots and put them in a sunny place but for one reason or another it was over a week before I did, which meant that most of the lettuce had germinated and was very, very leggy.

Broad Beans doing well

These may not be any good and may need replacing - the good news is that I still have loads of spare seed and the fact that it germinated so quickly is a good sign.

Most of the broad beans have germinated and so I have had to remove the propagator top. The Scarlet Flowered ones lagged behind the Bunyard's Exhibition by about a week, but as I write this on March 11 most are up.



Of the ten varieties of tomato that I sowed, the Green Zebra were very slow to germinate, and only two of the five seeds planted have come up but there is at least two of every other variety apart from the Marmande where only one has shown so far


Again, the top has been taken off the propagator as the plants were touching it.

Leggy lettuce to the left

On March 7th I sowed Red Baron and Kelsae onions, Giant Prague celeriac, Little Gem Lettuce, All Year Round Lettuce and Broccoli Raab into the tray already containing the lettuce and shallots, and this tray was then placed into my unheated conservatory for them to germinate.

Nothing is showing as yet, but it's only been a few days and it is still quite cold in there.

The New Season Starts Here

I have spent quite a few hours over the winter trying to decide what to grow on the allotment this coming season.

Like many gardeners, over the last couple of years I have built up a quite impressive collection of different seeds from many places.

Some of these, like the Purple Topped Milan Turnips, will never get planted as neither I nor my wife like them.

Others like Asparagus Pea have been planted once but we didn't like the taste.

Yet more are in the sad situation of being either too far past their use-by date to be worth trying again.

The final lot of seeds destined never to be sown on my allotment are those that are OK, but are not my favoured variety - a good example being the Purple Climbing French Beans that I grew last year.  Perfectly good in their own right, but not as nice on the plate (in my opinion) as Cobra or Blue Lake.

I store my seeds in three large plastic boxes that used to hold mushrooms, and each box is split into three sections.

The seeds are split into the following sections - Brassicas, Herbs, Legumes, Leaf Crops, Cucurbits, Root Crops, Tomatoes and Chillis, Alliums and Others.

After discarding the out-of-date seeds and those that I won't be using for the reasons listed above, I still have over 150 varieties including 20 types of tomato, 11 chilli peppers, 9 lettuce, 6 courgettes and 5 types of cauliflowers including purple and romanescue.

Obviously I won't be able to grow all of these, but until the sowing time arrives I am holding back on choosing one variety over another.

Last summer I had been asked to help judge the local Housing Association Garden competition, and I received £50-worth of garden vouchers as a 'thank you', so I decided to make good use of them and purchase a few propagators and seed trays so that I was able to start my seed sowing tonight.

I chose 10 tomato varieties (last year I didn't get a single tomato, so I am determined to do better this year).  I wanted lots of variety so I planted a couple of cherry tomatoes, a couple of large beefsteak type, some plum (standard and baby) and then some unusual varieties like Green Zebra and Orange Banana.

Broad Beans were fairly easy as I only had two varieties, Crimson Flowering and Bunyard's Exhibition, so I sowed a dozen of each.

Last year I got a few packets from Seeds of Italy which I was very happy with, so I also sowed a few cells with Lettuce Bisca Rossa which had provided us with several nice salads over summer.

I am also trying some shallots from seed this year, the variety is Zebrune, and so I sowed 21 into individual cells.  I normally use sets, but wanted a bit of a challenge this year :)

I have put the mini propagators on the box room windowsill to germinate - hopefully I will start to see some life within the next week.

Fennel, Chicory and Manchester Carrots!

I had a quick visit to the plot tonight to finally get most of the seedlings into the ground.

These have been waiting in their pots for far too long, so I decided that I would have to squeeze them in wherever I could.

Fennel

I stuck my seven Fennel plants into my square foot bed planted one per square.

I have never grown this before, so I am looking forwards to seeing how it develops.

Italian Lettuce

Also in this bed are some Italian lettuce and also some Chicory.

I purchased a few seeds from Seeds of Italy this year, the plan is that most of the crops grown in Italy come from the Northern regions where the climate is similar to ours here in the North West of England.

Chicory

Chicory is another plant that I have never grown before, I believe it can be harvested through the summer for it's leaves to add to salads, but if the root is lifted and kept in the dark over winter it will form the chicory 'chicons' that we see in the supermarkets.

I'm really looking forwards to trying this out.

Little Gems

The Little Gem lettuce that I planted out about four weeks back have finally started to bulk up a bit.

Until very recently these plants had been shaded by some perpetual spinach and some chard that I had let go too far - the lettuces' progress seems to show that I made the right decision when I pulled up the giant plants to give these some more room.

Nantes Carrots

The Nantes Carrots have suddenly grown to a tremendous size, the fronds are now almost 2 feet high.

At one point I thought that I wouldn't be getting any as they took ages to germinate.

I also planted up loads of Manchester Carrots last night - hopefully these will not take as long to show.

Rocket with two rows of Celery in front

The Rocket I planted at the same time as the Celery has not responded well to the hot spell we are having - virtually every plant has bolted and produced a flower.

I have pinched out all the flowers and given them a good soaking - hopefully this will let me keep them a bit longer.

The Celery plugs in front of the Rocket are also doing well but are still growing slower than I had expected.

Nearly Ripe

Some of my strawberries are now ripening - I have had nearly 1.5kg so far over the past week, with probably ten times as many still to come as the various varieties I have ripen.


I think that I will be making strawberry jam this weekend.

\My first grapes

All of the fruit on the plot is at varying stages of ripeness.

Only one of my raspberry canes has ripened whilst the others are still at the tiny green berry stage.

The grape vine that I was given last year has loads of tiny bunches showing, and the gooseberries have lots of fat berries which are starting to change from green to red.

Black currant berries

Even the tiny black currant bushes have loads of fruit.

White Currant

Red Currant

The white and red currants that I was given last year have masses of fruit on them which is nearly ripe.

This is the first time that I have grown these, and as it was so easy to propagate from cut stems last year I think that I will probably have a few more this time next year.

Onions and shallots

The onions and shallots are swelling nicely, but some of the yellow onions have started to flop over which normally means that they are ready to lift.

These will be very small bulbs, but hopefully the rest will be able to grow a bit more before I have to lift them too.








Most of the shallots have split into four bulbs,but some have split into five or even six, and there are a couple of threes, but these are quite large bulbs.



I grew shallots from sets last year for the first time, but this year's offering looks to be a far better crop.

Shallots showing the split

This is probably due to the soil that they are planted in - last year they went into a bed that had been double dug, but was quite full of heavy clay.

This year they have been planted in a lasagne bed which had been used for my potato buckets last year, and so has had plenty of  compost dumped on top as the buckets were emptied.

Cara, Sarpo Mira and Pink Fir Apple Potatoes

Speaking of potatoes, this year's crop is doing well.

I have already had a few first earlies, both Red Duke of York and Maris Bard, which have been in the ground for just about 12 weeks.

My second earlies and maincrop are now outgrowing the first earlies and I am looking forwards to a good showing.


Now that I have started this season's harvest in earnest I have decided to keep a running total of how much it would have cost me to buy what I have grown from the supermarkets.

So far I have saved £16.50 - mostly on strawberries.

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.

Seven Week Itch?

It is now exactly seven weeks since I signed up for my allotment, and so much has happened since then.

I started out with loads of ideas, plenty of book and internet knowledge but very little in the way of practical skills or experience in how to create and manage a full sized plot.  In fact, it wouldn't have been an exageration to say that my learning curve was pretty much vertical in those first few weeks.

So, what have I learned in this short space of time?

 Pigeons like to eat anything green.  They made short work of the Savoy cabbage that I planted in bed 2, but fortunately I was able to get them covered over quick enough so that they have been able to make quite a dramatic recovery.



Covered bed

I also learned that even if some of your seedlings have been left alone by the pigeons, you can't rely on them always being left alone.  I had put all the spare seedlings to one side, on top of the pile of wood and they hadn't been attacked so I made the mistake of not making sure the netting was over them.  The pigeons found them and totally decimated them, including my three patty pans.

Len, one of the old hands on the allotment, told me that the pigeons prefer to land and walk to their food, which has explained why nothing in my square foot bed has been touched, as the network of strings marking out the squares must have put them off.

The hardest lesson so far is that there is always another pest on the plot ready to carry on where one has finished.



The mauled remnants of my seedlings



After the pigeons had taken most of the seedlings on the wood pile I covered them with netting and planned to plant the survivors on my next visit.

Two days later when I came to look at them I found them crawling with slugs that had taken almost everything that the pigeons had left behind.  They had even got into my onions and cored them out.  I am still hopeful that one or two may survive despite the mauling they have had, but I have moved everything to the front of bed 2, surounded by slug pellets and protected by netting, where they should have been from the start.

Purple Milan Turnip Seedlings

It hasn't all been bad, though.

Most of the planst sown direct have germinated, and are showing strongly.  The ones that surprised me the most were the turnips - first to show with almost 100% germination they are going strong.



Chard going wild



Some of the transplanted seedlings have also done really well, with the chard and leef beet being the most vigorous.

Lots of Leaf Beet

The plan was to keep them under control by regular harvests of the young leaves by my son Will, but he hasn't been to the plot for a couple of weeks so they have got a little bit out of control.  I am going to have to pick and freeze a lot of leaves over the next few days.

Lettuce doing well

The All Year Round lettuce which I didn't have much hope for when it was planted out is flourishing.  A couple of the more sickly plants didn't make it, but out of 16 plants I have 11 strong plants putting out lots of great tasting leaves.

I have taken a few leaves to have for the next day's dinner a few times now, and I am impressed by the flavour.  Definitely one to grow again, I think.

Courgettes Nice de la Ronde and All Green Bush

The two courgettes that I did manage to get into the ground are also doing OK, but nowhere near as good as the chard, lettuce and leaf beet.

There have been a couple of flowers on both, but so far only males until I looked this morning and found a couple of female flowers ready to open, one on each plant so I might get courgettes this year after all!

Brussel Sprouts and Purple Sprouting Broccoli

  Under the netting the brassicas are coming along nicely, most of the brussels, PSB and curly Kale are all about 18 inches tall now, apart from one brussel that has yet to grow past five inches tall!

The plant itself looks healthy enough, it is just a midget compared to the others.  Hopefully it will catch up soon.



Recovering Savoy Cabbages

 In bed 2 I have the Savoy cabbage that were attacked by the pigeons.  Fortunately they all seem to have survived and have put on quite a bit of new leaf this week.

They are still quite a bit behind the three I planted into bed 1, though.

Step dad Ken is still convinced that bed 2 will do best for cabbage.  Personally I think it will be a close thing but I hope bed 1 wins so I can say 'Told You So'



Nearly Ripe Cherry Tomato

 

More Tomatoes Ripening

 Another transplant into bed 2 were my cherry tomatoes from home.

These had outgrown their pots and desperately needed planting out, and have done really well so far, with three  fruit from each this week.  A bit more sun and I will have plenty more ready.

Jack O'Lantern Male Flower

Stars of the show for me so far must be the two pumpkins.



Jack O'Lantern Vine

 I have never tried to grow anything like these before, and now they have got themselves established you can almost watch them growing.

A set Fruit?

Mammoth Vine

Both plants have now got what looks to be two fruit that have set, and with the current climate of sunshine and downpours it couldn't be better growing weather.

Mammoth Fruit

Once they start to get a little larger I will have to make sure that they are supported off the ground to try and keep them rot and slug free.

The first fruit from the Mammoth that I hoped had set hasn't changed size at all, so it may be better to cut it off and leave the other two to grow, but I will probably wait to make sure first.

Water, Water, Everywhere .......

We spent some time at the plot tonight trying to figure out the best way to deal with the sodden ground that covers most of the back half of the allotment.

The plot is bordered by cinder paths, so yesterday afternoon I dug a test pit through one to see if we could persuade the water to start to flow in that direction.  The pit was about 18 inches deep.

Test Pit

This was what we saw there tonight.

This was good news as it meant that it would be possible to persuade the water to flow away from the plot.

We started off with a few shallow channels in the mud to encourage the water on the surface to flow.

This was followed by a deeper, wider channel which soon became filled with run-off.

We were unable to follow up on our discoveries as the boundary fence near to the corner of my plot is due to be replaced, and so any drainage channels that we dig would be likely to be destroyed when the contractor brings in his equipment.

On the plus side, we are going to ask if they will dig the channels for us with their equipment whilst they are there.  If you don't ask ....

Whilst we were there I took the opportunity to plant a few more specimens from home - three tomatoes and two chillis.


Two of the tomatoes are already producing fruit - I was able to harvest three red and three yellow cherry tomatoes from them.

Tomatoes and Chillis

The chillis and third tomato have come from the bedroom windowsill - I know it is probably far too late in the season to be planting these out, but as the only other option for these plants was the compost heap I am going to give them a fighting chance.



Rhubarb

I also planted up the rhubarb that Diane gave us a couple of weeks back.  It was planted into a hole that had at least six inches of manure in the bottom, and was finished off by another spade-full on top.  This is only a temporary home until we can get the water problem sorted,




Now for a quick spin round bed 1.

The lettuce are really doing well now, despite them looking rather sick when they were first planted out.  The Kale and PSB are also doing well, as are the Brussels, with the exception of one plant.  This little one looks healthy, but is only about half the size of the others - I wonder why?



Leaf Beet, Cabbage and Turnip



Flowering French Beans



The Leaf Beet, Chard and Savoy Cabbage are all coming on strongly, as are the French Beans which are now flowering.  The leaves on some of the peas continue to look a little yellow, but they now have four pods.

The majority of the seeds that Will sowed nine days ago have now come up - all the turnips and most of the pak choi, but strangely enough not all of the spinach have (apart from the ones he spilled and didn't pick up).  It may be that he planted them a bit too deep perhaps?

One bad note - the pigeons have decimated the plants that I had waiting to go in - I forgot to cover them up again when I left on Sunday, and they have eaten about 90% of the seedlings.