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.

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.

Mid Season Planting

The current weather has been brilliant for our crops, but unfortunately it has also been equally as good for the weeds.

Flag Iris looking good

As the weeds have grown where they wanted to, and not where we have placed them then they have an obvious advantage over our crops.

Sad reminder that nature tends to win

The natural cycle of things also cannot be stopped.  Earlier this year I planted out some swede seedlings that I had bought at the end of last season but didn't manage to get into the ground until March.  This weekend I had to admit defeat - every single swede had bolted and was producing yellow flowers which meant that they would never bulk up to produce a crop, so they all had tocome out.

I replaced them with six seedlings of cabbage 'Primo' that I had picked up at the plant sale at the Uppermill Museum a couple of weeks back, and they have joined the three surviving Brussel Sprout plants that were already in the bed.  As you can see from the picture above, one is doing really well but the other two have suffered with the slugs and are really weak.  I hope that they survive as it is a bit late to start more from seed.

On a more positive note, the white onions, shallots and Japanese onions that were planted out in April are, on the whole, doing well.

There have been a couple of casualties but I am pleased that I decided not to over-winter these.

The raspberry bed is filling out really well, and has been covered with white flowers over the past two weeks.

Now the bees from the Apiary have done their work lots of the canes are dripping with ripening fruit.

Last year some of the canes seemed to be either Tayberries or some other variant, this year I will try to look after the canes a bit better and actually cut them back after I have harvested the fruit

Grape growing wild!

The grape vine that I was given at the end of last season is doing well.  At one point I was afraid that it was dead, but just look at it now!

There are even several bunches of mini-grapes forming.

On the Beechgrove Garden TV program this Sunday they recommend pruning back the vines to one leaf past the grapes and each sideshoot to one leaf past the main stem.

I will give that a try over the next week

The strawberry beds are doing well with mostly green fruit as yet, but the ones I spaced out and planted through weed fabric look to be the easiest to harvest and best for less weeds and control of runners - if it works well I might re-plant the whole strawberry bed after the summer.






The current and gooseberry bed is looking very lush and green, but the currant plant nearest the camera has absolutely no fruit what so ever!

The leaves are different to the other currants on the plot, so I will have to wait until I get some fruit before I can identify it properly.

Waiting for a space

On my table I have loads of broad beans and peas just waiting for a space to become ready in one of the beds.

There are also a few brassicas that were originally in the poly tunnel but were attacked by a slug.  Hopefully they can recover enough to be planted out.

Cucumbers, Squash, Basil and Chives

On the stand on the decking I have got a few strawberries that were rescued after a communal tidy day a few weeks back.

They have been joined by a few  Crystal Lemon Cucumbers, Hawk Squash, Purple Basil and a pot of Chives.

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In my original square foot garden bed there are two perpetual spinach and a chard that have gone wild, and are now far too big for the bed.

I will take them out and plant up some new seedlings as they take next to no time to grow and I will try to keep on top of picking the leaves so they don't get out of hand so easily again.

Walking Onion bulbils

My walking onion (Egyptian Tree Onion) is thriving - there are loads of bulbils forming on the top of their leaves, the bulbils, leaves and bulbs are all edible, but I am leaving it to grow as it is a perennial.

Most of the long stems have been broken by something - not sure what but I hope it wasn't me.

This year I have three beds of potatoes in the ground, the varieties I am growing are Maris Peer and Red Duke of York (1st earlies), Cara and Sarpo Mira (2nd earlies) and Pink Fir Apple and Orla (Maincrop).

White Currant

Last year I was given a couple of currant bushes, one red and one white, which I stuck into either end of a bed just to give them a temporary home.

Both bushes have taken, and I am very happy to have them absolutely dripping with fruit.

Red Currant

The redcurrant bush was so large that I had to clip it down quite a lot to get it in the back of the car.

Rather than throw these clippings away I stuck them in the ground around the bush.

Every single one survived and grew on, so I will have loads of redcurrants for my wine making later this year.

Compost pile

Last year I had been using two dalek compost bins, but the amount of green waste I was producing soon filled these and more.

I was fortunate to be given a few pallets by another plotholder which I screwed together to make a compost baywhich as you can see is also nearly full already.

First Week Back on the Plot

Last weekend I went to my local pound shop and picked up a few choice goodies for the allotment.

I got four bags of seed potatoes, 2 x Pentland Javelin (first earlies) and 2 x (second earlies), each with 8 tubers of each.

I also got two nets of onion sets, one Sturon and one Stuttgarter, both of which look to have about thirty bulbs in.

There were several packets of seeds including sweetcorn, chillis, mizuna, coriander, several peas and beans, little gem lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a pack of sunflowers.  I was also fortunate to pick up several fruit bushes from Aldi at £2.50 for three.

I managed to get a couple of different packs of grow at home mushrooms so I can compare how they both perform.

This year I have decided to keep detailed records on how well I do, financially, with my allotment.  The cost of anything I spend to use on the allotment is offset against the equivalent price I would have had to spend to purchase any produce that I can harvest.

At this point in time I have spent £34 in total, but I have harvested a few bits of the overwintering veg (including the cabbage pictured to the right) which would have cost me £4.75 if I had bought it, so my net cost is is £29.25.

This isn't a problem as I fully expect the majority of my costs to be incurred in the first part of the year, but when the main harvesting begins at the start of summer I hope that I get into a surplus quite quickly.

 The fruit bushes from Aldi were 3 x Red Goosebery Hinnomaki, 5 x Raspberry Tulameen (this should have been only 3, but there were five separate canes in the pack), 3 x Blackberry Thornlass Evergreen and 3 x Redcurrant Jonkheer Van Tets.

As the area designated for fruit bushes is still very waterlogged I have planted them into a temporary home in one of the raised beds along with the blackcurrant 'twigs' that Diane gave to me before Christmas.

When we had the heavy snow a couple of weeks back the netting over my brassicas in bed 1 was pretty much destroyed, so I needed to remake the entire frame and re-hang the netting. 








This time I covered the entire bed rather than just the bottom half as unfortunately the pigeons had got in and rather shredded the remaining two savoy cabbages.

These had been doing rather well when compared to the savoys in the other raised bed, so I am quite diasppointed as I had a bed with stepdad Ken about whose cabbages would grow the biggest - mine in a 'lasagne' bed, his in a traditional double dug bed.

Up until now mine were doing best - I just hope that now they are covered they will be able to recover as the weather starts to get better.

The Jumbo Garlic bought at the supermarket is really looking good, with shoots a good five inches tall, but the garlic purchased from a supplier has yet to show at all.

Not really sure why, but it's all a learning curve still.






The leeks which I brought from home very late last year have survived the snow and are doing well, and are now about 8 inches tall.




The bed full of onion sets is starting to look pretty good, with virtually all of them now showing strongly.

The two bags of onion sets I have just bought will be going into the ground later, after the chance of frost has passed.



I am going to my first ever seed swap tomorrow at the Peveril of the Peak pub in Manchester, so I am hoping to return loaded down with plenty of new and unusual seeds.

Winter Slowdown

There's not been a lot to blog about recently.

It's been cold and frosty, then wet and windy and it looks like we are going back to cold and frosty for the weekend.

The onions on the plot have pretty much stopped growing now, the garlic is putting out loads of roots but no shoots from the other end (I only found this out becasue the pigeons have pulled up a couple of cloves - they must have mistaken them for worms).

The winter cabbages are beginning to heart up nicely and the first should be ready for harvest by Christmas.

No sprouts as yet, but the purple kale is looking wonderful.

The tallest of the perpetual spinach is suffering with the frost - I may have to cut it back hard as it is flopping all over the chard, which is doing remarkably well despite the hard frosts we have had.

The remaining two Pak Choi have survibed the frosts well and are looking good.

The rhubarb has finally admitted defeat and is dying back - this should be fine where it is until January when I will transplant it into the rhubarb bed near to the pond.

At home I have a couple of Romanesco Caulis forming nice curds, but a couple of the others look like they will be going to seed instead - not a problem as I will try to harvest the seed for next year.

My Cavolo Nero have recovered from being ravaged by caterpillars in the Autum and are producing lots of nice-looking leaves and are almost ready to start picking from.

All four apples on my trees were still on as of last weekend, and I was debating as to whether I should leave them or pick them - high winds have made that decision a bit unneccessary for the green apples as both were blown off, but the reds are still hanging on.

Until I can get the drainage problems at the plot sorted out I cannot build any fruit beds so the bare rooted strawberries that I bought have had to be sat in water for far longer than I was anticipating - I hope that they survive. 

I had them in the kitchen to start with but I had to move them off the worksurface so they ended up on the boxroom windowsill where I thought they would do well with whatever little daylight they could get, but I have noticed tonight that the fresh green leaves that appeared whilsat they were in the kitchen have started to fade and go brittle - maybe the cold from the glass has been too much?

I have now moved them away from the window in the hope that they will hang on until I can get them into a prepared raised bed at the allotment.

Autumn Blues and Water Problems

As we move through Autumn there is less and less to do on the allotment.

The summer plants have all finished and been removed to the compost pile, the over wintering brassicas are all in and looking healthy.

The overwintering onions and garlic have been in for about six weeks.  The onions are showing strongly, with about three to four inches of growth on the white onions and one to two on the red.

No sign of any life from the garlic as yet, neither the purpose bought stuff or the jumbo ones from the supermarket.  That seems to be the same with everyone else on the allotment though, so I am not too worried at the moment.

The perpetual spinach is still performing strongly, as is the chard.  I am hoping to be able to keep harvesting from these until Christmas.

I have had a first harvest of leaves from the purple kale which I planted out in early August, the plants are growing strongly and should have no problems in surviving the cold.

The Brussels planted at the same time are still causing me some worry - there are plenty of leaves and the plants themselves look strong, but there is no sign of any sprouts forming on most of the plants as yet.  I hope that I can get something off them for Christmas day - that would be really nice.

The rhubarb is finally starting to die back - recent frosts overnight seem to have done the job - so once the rhubarb bed near to the pond is completed they can be transplanted once they have gone completely dormant.

I am still having major problems with the lack of drainage on the top half of my plot - most of it is very sodden with standing water and lots of mud on the surface.

It looks like the drainage channels that I dug have been partly successful as the neighbouring plots and communal areas that used to be waterlogged are now pretty dry, so the water from them has apparently drained into my plot.  The solution appears to be just carry on with more of the same, and make the channels already dug deeper and a bit wider.

Another plot holder has arranged for a mini digger for the afternoon to help him to turn over his plot as it is completely full of tree roots, making hand digging almost impossible.

Once his plot has been done the digger is going to deepen the drain through the orchard area away from my plot, and will then dig channels through my plot to meet them.

The orchard drain will simply have a length of perforated drainage pipe laid at the bottom and then be back filled.

My drain will have a 3" layer of 3/4 stone under a drainage pipe, with the rest of the trench being filled with 3/4 stone.  As the majority of the drains will be under flagged paths I am hoping that this won't cause me too many problems with my planting next year and that it sorts out my water logging problem.

If it doesn't, I really don't know what else to try.

On a more positive note, we spend most of yesterday afternoon digging over bed 7 which had been getting a bit swamped with grass, and mixing the soil well with manure from the larger of the two piles.

Once finished this will be where I plant my bare-rooted strawberries for them to over-winter as I couldn't put them where I intend them to live permanently as it is currently too wet.

I have eighteen plants - six each of Malwina, Mae and Elegance.  They are supposed to crop at different times through the season, so I am hoping to have a succession of strawberries all summer long next year.

I have also got started on moving the first manure pile as I want to put a couple more raised beds where it is now - my son Will did a grand job in shifting loads of it for me, and with very little complaining about the smell (then again, it is now quite well rotted and lovely stuff) and there is now nearly enough space to drop frames for raised beds 10 and 11 down.

When I stop to look at what we have achieved so far, I am quite proud of my little plot.  Once the water problem is sorted out there will be no stopping us!

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.