October

It has been four months since the last post and it has been extremely busy on the allotment and in our lives!  All the potatoes are out and we have multiple sacks with the 'Desiree' being the most prolific.  In general, all plants that were watered, weeded and got some feed produced massive potatoes (size of half-an-adult's head...) and there were 8 to 10 potatoes per plant.  Maris Piper and two rows of Aran Pilot went in on the 10/4 and 16 weeks later they were monsters! The poorest crop were the three rows of 'King Edward' near the neglected end of the patch. This wasn't a truly scientific analysis, but it seems the lack of water, food, too many weeds left behind (including bind!) prevented monsters here. Or it just might not have been a good spot, or weather for this variety. Ah well, 3 sacks full should be enough!

This weekend we caught up with the allotment neighbors and the latest gossip.  There have been pumpkin and cabbage thefts reported!  Our neighbor removed her prized gigantic Halloween pumpkin, so no one steels it before her grandchildren can carve it.  I can see how the pumpkin can be stolen, especially an oversized prize item, but cabbages?  Apparently the thief has torn the white-fly netting and pulled out the entire row of cabbages! One of the allotment holders recalls seeing people with flashlights n the allotment patch at 11pm at night on her walk back form the balling green. However, she was scared to confront the cabbage thief.

We have several small pumpkins - or squashes, although I am not entirely sure which is which.  Tonight we made a delicious risotto using half of one of the pumpkins. 

The other fruits of plenty are our tomatoes.  Cherry tomatoes as well as the larger variety - 'money makers' are producing lots of fruit and recent warm weather has helped them ripen - or confused them into thinking it's still summer.  Despite the chiller nights now approaching, it has been unusually warm for October and it has helped our tomatoes and chillies thrive. We have so many little chillies! Most dishes in our household have a bit of a kick now.  Surprisingly we still found some raspberries and strawberries - and some not very autumnal flowers, such as sweet-pea! Also in the late summer surprises is the capsicum plant with two large green capsicums. Still growing as we're just waiting for them to turn colour - or for us to decide to eat them!  However, I will keep a stronger lookout for any capsicum thieves in the area!

Rain!

Finally a proper rain! At a 45° angle and rather windy, but a non-stop rain through the night and day.  This will be fantastic for the allotment and save a lot of water.  It is a sort of a wind and rain combination that reminds me of being near the seaside...

I do hope the newly planted sunflowers as well as our tomatoes and chillies are securely staked not to break in this wind.   Anyhow here is a link to a series of u-tube videos for "staking": http://www.videojug.com/interview/garden-staking-2

Mint, Strawberries & PIMM'S

A while ago, perhaps in March or so, we planted mint.  To be honest, it was not much of a planting, I opened a bag of seeds and scattered the seeds randomly along the very edge of our allotment, where only wild weeds and raspberries live.  But now we have a mint plantation! I have been using mint for raita - a traditional Indian yoghurt and mint dip.  The actual raita recipe varies very much, but mine is the minimalist version - natural yoghurt & mint (lots).

At the end of the April we harvested a handful of our first strawberries; some were eaten there and then and some went into our PIMM'S jug.  For those not familiar with this quintessentially British cocktail beverage - it is a gin based (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimm%27s) alcohol and has a lot of spices in it and makes a good base for a punch and summer cocktails. 

Here is what went in it:

• 1 part PIMM'S;
• 3 part lemonade (chilled);
• a LOT of mint;
• some cucumber;
• slices of one whole orange; and 
• several diced strawberries. 

Cheers!

May & June 2011 - You say Tomato...

Several of our tomato plant on the windowsill.

At the start of the May we planted out tomatoes and chillies. Very risky business.  It was frowned upon by our allotment neighbours as it was too early to plant out tomatoes, but it now appears that we might just be amongst the first to have tomatoes - HA! 

Cherry tomatoes, which we planted from seed.  By now we have left only two of the strongest stems in each plant and they are growing like mad!  All the additional greenness around is just weeds.

May has been interesting.  It started off quite warm and dry,  followed by cooler weather and some close-to-frosty nights.  So for a while it looked like our tomatoes will not survive.  In fact, I thought we lost them and told everyone that the plants froze - but I lied! They were sturdy little things and it now looks like we might possible have tomatoes and chillies! Yay!  Every single plant survived (dramatic music, please).

We planted them in neat rows (East/west - to make the most of the sun) and planted basil as a companion plant near by.  Hope the like each other... Last year none of the basil seeds survived.

We planted out the plants on little mounds, fearing they might drown in endless rain in an English spring, but now I wish for rain! Our neighbours (who planted their tomatoes much later) on contrary have put little mounds around and planted the tomatoes in a ditch with a wall around.  Not sure how this helps and I have never seen it done before, so I might have a word with them. 
A work colleague has given me seven more cherry tomatoes and one more Money-maker (that's a bloody big tomato for those not in the business). These babies are now sitting on the windowsill and waiting their turn.

Jalapeno pepper

Spring 2011 Drought

It has been a very dry and warm spring - followed by a slightly cooler, but still pretty dry early summer!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13668342

10 ways with rhubarb

10 ways with rhubarb

Here is a great list of what to do with rhubarb. A lot can be added, but this is a good start!

Tomatoes

We have lovely allotment neighbors and have had continuous good advice on planting out times, weed control and plant compatibility.  We were advised to not plant out our tomatoes and chillies yet as there might still be some overnight frost in April and early May.  We have bought eight small tomato plants (larger tomatoes: 2 x Moneymaker, 2 x Beefsteak, small (cherry) tomatos: 1 x Cherriettes of Fire, 2x Allicante, 1 x Red Allert), four chillies (Jalapeno Peppers, 2 x Apache Hot Chilli Peppers) and have grown four small tomato plants from seed.  All of which are were basking in the spring sunlight on our kitchen windowsill and now moved to an outdoors greenhouse since last week.

April - Spuds Planted & Rhubarb Crumble

Half way in April we have made a ginormous progress on the allotment - it has been unseasonably warm too.  Some of the weekends have been +20C and more and we have had two weekends in a row of sunny allotment-friendly weather.  We spend almost five hours digging over the soil and planting last Sunday (10/04) and good few hours yesterday (16/04). We will be taking a break over the Easter, but plan to plant peas, sweet peas (flowers, for those who don't know), beetroot, carrots, lettuce and more during the Royal Wedding weekend.  Major project will be to develop a small area for picnics as at the moment there is nowhere to sit down.
So what have we done so far in April?  As on the 10th of April - about half of our (over 200m2 allotment is weeded out/planted in. Potatoes planted out on the 20th of March started coming out and I covered them with more loose soil to encourage more potatoes forming.  These were Desiree and Maris Piper.  I hope that planting potatoes in this staggered time-line produces a continuous crop and not too many potatoes in one go. 

Last year I planted a small lupine flower at the footpath end of the allotment.  This spring it has tripled in size and I hope there are more of those wonderful purple flowers to come.  Daffodils have finished flowering and I am glad that I managed to cut a few of those for home - lovely, lovely scent!  Onions planted in March have grown about 20cm and carrots have started coming out.  So far there is no sign of pumpkins or zucchinis (courgette).  I have watered all vigorously as the soil is very dry - hardly any rain at the end of March/start of April.

We planted (in order of rows): some basil (cheap seeds form Lidle) and dill one row of each amongst last year's parsley, which is still growing strong; mixed row of potatoes (Arran Pilot and Desiree, potatoes fell out of chitting trays and we could not figure out which is which);  a row of dill (had dill from seeds collected last year and half from new seeds bought - interesting to see which one grows and how fast!); a row of Maris Piper; two rows of Desiree and finally one more row of King Edward.  The last few rows of potatoes were planted in the soil we did not use last year, so it looks much better and much less sandy.  And finally, at the fence end of the allotment, I made a little pile of sand and compost and planted five National Trust pumpkin seeds we received in the mail. I don't think there is anything particularly historically significant about these seeds...

The biggest issue with weeds has been dealing with bind weed.  It appears like a small innocent plant on top of the soil, but has large root system that chokes and kills the surrounding plants.  This has been the only instance when we have used weed killing spray.  Ordinarily we do not use any poison whatsoever - we even dig out dandelions and other large unwelcome weeds.

We collected parsley and rhubarb.  I made some lovely fresh rhubarb compote to go with vanilla ice-cream and last night tried this rhubarb crumble variation:


Rhubarb Crumble
In a medium sized deep 1L baking dish (we use ceramic so nothing sticks) place about three or four large chopped rhubarb stems. Cover with crumble mixture and bake for about 20 minutes on 200C in a fan-forced oven. 

Crumble Mixture:  
1/3 cup brown sugar, 
1 tsp baking powder, 
1 tsp cinnamon, 
100g unsalted butter, 
75g plain flour, 
1/2 cup rolled oats 

Mix sugar, baking powder and cinnamon add flour and then crumble in butter with fingers. Stir in rolled oats. (I don't have a photo of the finish product as it was too tasty!)

Yesterday (16/04) we finished planting out all the seed potatoes we have!!! Yay! At the end of the allotment, next to strawberries, we planted a row of Desiree (12 spuds, numbers for our own record), King Edward (12) and a mixed row of five Arran Pilot and seven King Edwards.  Below photos show how we measured out the distance and dug in little sticks to where the potatoes are to make weeding easier.  Also, we added a little string around the sticks where we planted half potatoes.  Some of the larger potatoes, which had multiple shoots were good enough to be cut in half.  We though this was quiet unorthodox, but after a chat with some of the other allotment holders - turns out, this is quiet common.  Anyhow - at least we will know if this splitting is any good.



Also, yesterday I noticed that potatoes planted on the 27th of March (Arran Pilot and Maris Piper) are coming out too. 

End of March

This is a much warmer and sunnier March than we expected and we have managed three consecutive weekends of hard labor in the allotment.  By hard  labor I mean up to 3 hours of weeding and planting each weekend.  Last weekend we weeded an area of 4 x 4 meters.  Found a giant earthworm too - several of them, around 30 cm long each! 


We planted two more rows of potatoes Arran Pilot and Maris Piper, a row of mint (for fruit salad and chocolate desserts) and an area with four mounds of pumpkin and four areas for zucchini (courgettes for the locals).  Pretty impressive for one weekend and the whole allotment instantly looks more manageable and less like a vast wilderness.  Arran Pilot is a first early potato, successful in all soil conditions including light soils.  Planted in March they should be ready by June - one step further to a more self-sufficient household.  Here is a great link for the various potato varieties: http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-flavour-type.php


It is fascinating to see the rhubarb leaves come out of the ground and open up.... The below photo was taken over a week ago and last we checked several of the leaves had opened.  Rhubarb is best eaten until June, so I hope there is enough for several desserts + some for freezing.

About raspberries: I don't think they had been trimmed in years. Winter meant the dead crop had to be reduced, and then brutal decisions about keeping only half-a-dozen of the strongest stalks per bush. Doesn't look like there are any shoots left for next year - fingers crossed! All three rows now look much neater, and more open to let the air flow. Was fascinated to see each plant had lots of ladybugs hiding in the crevices - tried to relocate as many as possible to the newly trimmed plants. Long term project will be to set up wire fences to support the crop. But that's a low priority now. Key was to remove last year's fruiting stalks and any that had white flaky bark (dead).

It was hard to do anything with the soil as it was dry and dusty.  It has been at least a fortnight without rain - alas rain came today and saved us from running around with watering cans - nice!  It has been warm and cherry, apple and other trees are blooming - together with the ridiculous cheeriness of the birds it's all a bit dizzyingly nice!


Finally, we did not walk away empty handed.  Collected a bunch of thyme, parsley and wonderfully fragrant daffodils.

Spring 2011!

Welcome 2011. After a long break we are back in the allotment and everything is growing extremely fast - mostly weeds at the moment!

 In February we went to inspect the allotment and found some interesting things - like these zucchini plant left-overs.

With the growing season starting soon, we have stocked up and bought many seeds and seed potatoes. We also have an inventory of the seeds bought and collected last year that can be planted.  From the last category we have: lupine, marigold, dill, poppies, watercress and coriander.  The list of seeds purchased is rather long, so I might account for the things we have managed to plant in the last two weekends. It has been unusually warm and spring-like.  Around +15C during the day, but still a threat of frost at nighttime.

One of the first things planted this year are potatoes. Here is a picture of them occupying a large space of the kitchen floor.  This process is called chitting and allows them to grow little green shoots, which helps them grow faster. We planted a row of Maris Piper and a row of Desiree potatoes.  Maris Piper and Desiree are both main crop variety which will be ready to harvest in June-July. I think Desiree was the organic variety, but I am to lazy to walk to the garage to check the bags and labels.

But before the spuds went a row of carrots (Mr Fothergill's, Early Nantes 5) with a row of onions (Homebase home-brand Stuttgarter Riesen) next to the carrots them to keep the carrot-fly away.

The front of the allotment is full of new marigold seeds and a mix of field flowers to attract bees and other good insects. Plus a Lidl (cheap supermarket) budget brand summer flower mix.  Marigold is meant to deter animals and I am hoping that means no dogs and cats would be wondering around the allotment.  

We've planted quiet a few rows of Gigante di Napoli parsley - seeds left over from last year, purchased at the Real Food Festival in Earls Court, London.  Last year this parsley grew like mad.  It was not exactly 'gigante', but very tasty.  In the parsley box, we've planted some dill randomly amongst the other herbs surviving the winter - not sure if these seeds collected from last year's plants will actually grow.  The main plan this year is to continually plant herbs throughout the summer, so I have small batches of them to use all the time and not a plantation of dill or parsley in one go. We have made a patch ready for the pumpkin seeds, but did not get very far with planting - perhaps this weekend...? Meanwhile all the weeds are flowering and attracting these bumble-bees that sound like small helicopters!


Never mind, since the weeds are all prostrate - ground covering - and seem to come out reasonably easy. With such a large plot of weeds, the plan is to only clear the area immediately for working on, but that's still quite a lot! But with so much space, we'd be made not to go nuts with planting food! Every week, something new, and every month a new set of spuds and root veg! That should be a great harvest!