Rainbow Chard

Preserving frenzy

2011-10-10T21:35:00.004+01:00

Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration but I've dome two lots of prserving in the past two days which seems like quite a lot to me! Firstly over the weekend I made elderberry and apple jelly. Haven't tasted the proper jelly yet but did clear round the saucepan with a teaspoon. It was quite a strong flavour so prob should be used sparingly. Weirdly, the cooled 'scum' from the boiling liquid had a much fuller (and more pleasant) apply flavour. May be something to do with the air bubbles. The recipe was from Wild Food by Roger Philips.

Tonight I'm midway through making tomato ketchup based on a Jamie Oliver recipe. It's reducing as we speak so I thought I'd take the opportunity to catch on a bit of blogging. Tomatoes, coriander seeds and basil are all home grown. Let's hope it tastes good. Have to sieve it now....

Syrup & Shed

2011-08-29T22:38:00.004+01:00

Elderberry Syrup

I made a batch this weekend, after harvesting the berries from trees on scraps of council land round near we live. Very satisfying - no effort went into growing these at all!

The recipe is really easy too - You need elderberries, sugar, cloves, water

Remove the berries from the sprigs (you can use a fork to speed things up but I always end up pinging the berries round the room by accident), wash them (freeze them at this point if you don't have time to make the syrup straight away), put in a pan and just cover with water. Simmer for about 30 mins until the berries are soft. Strain out the pips and skin and measure how much liquid you have ( Save on washing-up by straining straight into a big jug, or even better, a pan with measures up the side). Put the liquid back in a pan and then add the sugar and cloves - you need 1 lb sugar for every 1 pint liquid and 10 cloves for every 1 pint of liquid. Slowly melt the sugar, then leave the liquid to cool ( I leave it overnight but cover with a tea towel). Remove the cloves.

Lastly, pour into sterilised screw-top bottles (I then keep these in the fridge, just in case), or you can also freeze it. It's great with hot or cold water and is meant to be good for preventing/getting rid of colds. Good for hot toddies too, with a little bit of whisky.

The shed

Here's our lovely shed. Small but beautiful. It's now a bit darker in colour as the other weekend I treated it with Ronseal eco woodpreserver. Haven't made much progress with sorting out shelving etc yet but there was a skip out the front of our house recently, from which I scavenged some shelf brackets. A project for the autumn I think.

Stormy Wednesday

2011-08-03T22:10:00.002+01:00

Well, I was expecting to go to the plot tonight and slug(!) several wateringcanfuls (I think I made that word up) of water around the neediest crops but an unexpected storm came along. Ok, so it was due now (10pm) but arrived at about 6.30 instead. The blackberry picking will have to wait for another night.

I harvested the first winter squash yesterday, as it was looking a bit tempting for light-fingered 'visitors' to the site. I would have preferred to leave it for a while longer on the plant but hope it'll ripen more in the lean-to at home instead. Two of the squashes are planted through black plastic so despite the storm I'll probably give them some water tomorrow as the rain doesn't really get to them.

The shed is now in place and looking great! I'll post a pic soon. I bought some Ronseal Eco shed and fence preservative (water-based instead of solvent-based) on Friday and gave it a couple of coats over the weekend. A couple of fit friends from work helped move the shed last Weds. The ingenious suggestion from one of them made things a lot easier. After lifting the 'shell' off the floor and base, we levered the floor and base out of the ground (it was set in the ground on metal legs) and flipped them over to take out the screws and remove the legs. Some of the screws were stuck fast so the guys just broke the screw heads off. So then we could move the base and floor. That was the easy part.

Moving the shell (sides and roof) was a lot harder than I was expecting, I think because the weight is in the roof making the structure a bit unwieldy. First attempts at moving it involved sort of sliding it along planks which kind of worked but was difficult. Then came Ed's suggestion - lifting one side of the shed on to a wheelbarrow (with a plank across it to support the full side of the shed), which I wheeled backwards whilst the guys lifted the other side. It worked! And altogether the whole thing only took about an hour. Phew!

Now I'm trying to work out the best way to store things/put up shelves. It's quite a small shed (just under 6x4ft) with a lean-to type roof so will be quickly filled!

This week my best harvest has been crystal-lemon cucumbers that I'm growing in the glass lean-to at home. I've been having one a day, taking it into work as a refreshing snack. Yum. The skin's tough, so I peel the whole thing with a trusty penknife. There's another 3 fruits ready, so snacks for this week are sorted! Interestingly, the crystal lemon plant in the back garden has pretty much died without even growing much at all, so just goes to show the difference a bit of protection and extra heat makes.

Good news, bad news

2011-07-17T22:35:00.003+01:00

Bad news first - someone has been stealing veg and fruit from our allotment site. Today I heard reports of a man having been seen wandering around the plots. I think it started about 3 or 4 weeks ago and seems most people have had something pinched. How selfish! I've had some carrots taken, which doesn't sound like much but these were going to be my best carrots ever. Last year I thought they were going to be good but then the carrot fly got them so this year I've had them covered over. Also as I try and sow successionally, he took all my carrots that were ready now. I was really looking forward to those!

I don't think there's really much we can do unfortunately. We've reported it to the city council and police. I've put up a sign saying 'please don't steal our veg' etc in the hope that using the word 'steal' might actually make them realise it's not a nice thing to do. and guilt them out of doing it again. Unlikely but you never know.

And onto the good news...after four and a half years I'm finally getting a shed - yes! A couple near me are giving up their plot (have said they don't have the time to look after it) and I'm buying their shed which is only two years old. I also get to keep everything in it including lots of bamboo canes, two folding chairs (JB is particularly excited about this), a tub of chicken poo pellets, two bags of manure and a few tools. Although it's quite small ( about 4x6 ft) I reckon it's a bargain at 50 quid. I've cleared the area where it's going and have put some slabs in place. It's currently set on metal legs (which have led to it becoming wonky) so I'm going to take them off. The only way to do this is by getting underneath the shed and unscrewing them so I need to prop it up really well before starting! (Don't really fancy getting squished by a shed). Should hopefully get it moved on the next couple of weeks, with help from some friends. (I did actually use it today to shelter from the rain, sitting on my 'new' chair (which took up about half the shed)) . Soon it will have a new home on my plot.

And a pleasant surprise today - I noticed quite a few french beans were ready in the back garden so they were a welcome addition to tonight's roast veg (including home grown potatoes, onions, garlic, courgettes, and one small aubergine). Yum

Return

2011-05-30T21:31:00.002+01:00

Been away for a few days and eager to get on the plot to see what's been happening.....but RAIN stops play. Hurray for the rain, strawberries will have to wait. Hope the slugs have left some for us.

Rainy (ish) Wednesday

2011-05-18T20:23:00.003+01:00

I was going to spend a bit of time of the plot tonight but, it's well, RAINING! Yes! We've had so little rain recently that it's a good reason to miss the plot this evening. It seems to just be a bit drizzly but still it's better than nothing.

The first pea pods are forming so shouldn't be too long til we get to enjoy them. Yummy yum. We've had a lot of radishes and some lettuce thinnings. The chard from last summer is still cropping a bit too. The first little row of spinach will be ready to start picking soon aswell.

Some of the potatoes got frosted which was a shame but seem to have recovered. It was strange how the frost effects were quite different across the plots at our site. Must be due to microclimate differences I guess.

I'd decided to leave some leeks to flower but at the weekend noticed that they were riddled with leek-moth holes and I even spotted a crysalis. So in the end I consigned most of them to the compost heap but left the few that seemed to be ok, squishing a few of the maggoty caterpillars on the way. I did consider going through and squishing all of them but nobody else on the site seems to bother controlling them so doesn't seem much point. I have now buried the composted leeks under quite a lot of grass cuttings though. Plus they'll start composting and might not be habitable by the caterpillars for much longer.

Peaking potatoes

2011-04-17T21:50:00.002+01:00

My earlies have broken through! I earthed them up straight away though, just in case of frosts. This year I've planted Amorosa, so we'll see how they get on. I've been pretty bad at keeping records of how varieties have done in the past, so this year I'm going to change my ways! Particularly as some varieties have definitely been better than others...but which ones!? Fresh start from here.

Talking of potatoes (as I often do), I also put in one lot of the late mains (Isle of Jura). Another lot of late mains to go (Setanta). The bed needs clearing of PSB (purple sprouting broc) before that and giving it the ripped cardboard/chicken pellets/horse poo combo. I think my horse poo supply isn't going to last all summer, sigh!

And talking of peaking...the asparagus is also just breaking through. I was at the plot this morning and then went down late eve to water and I'm sure they'd grown by about half a cm in one day. Better keep an eye on them this week. Mmm this will be the first year of harvesting.

Lots of action now on the plot including red currant berries already forming, loads of flowers on the black currants and gooseberries. Also lots of weed-action and grass-path growing so will have to try and keep on top of that. JB helped with some weeding this evening which was much appreciated.

I've been sowing lots of seeds at home too including the pumpkins and other squashes, brassicas, chinese cabbage, lettuces and basil. Some seeds only took about 3 days to germinate...whooosh! You could almost hear them grow.

2011-04-06T22:13:00.004+01:00

Funny time of year really, so full of potential. Work on the plot has been a bit slow, I'd have liked to have spent more time down there recently but nevermind eh.

I've sown a couple more short rows of parsnips, intercropped with spinach and lettuces (the spinach and lettuce will be harvested before they start competing too much with the parsnips, plus as parsnips grow down and leafy things grow up, they don't get in each others way. Well that's the idea anyway!)

My early potatoes are in. I dug a trench and added in a load of ripped-up cardboard, horse manure and chicken manure pellets, and watered the trench before filling it back in. I let it all settle for a week or so and then dug individual holes for the seed potatoes. This weekend I'd hoped to put in one lot of main crops but ran out of time.

These are some of my garlics. I grew most of them on at home first, in toilet roll tubes as I didn't have the ground ready earlier. On the plot I'm keeping them covered up with old net curtains to try and avoid the leek moth problems of the past couple of years. It doesn't look very pretty but fingers-crossed it'll help avoid problems (though the wind does keep whipping the curtains off every now and then so there's a chance they might not be fully protected).

This is one part of the plot, with two dwarf apple trees in the foreground, underplanted with strawberries (new this year). There's a bed of leeks in the background, which're still pretty small but tasty. I gave them a sprinkling of chicken maure pellets the other week which seems to have helped them get a bit bigger. I guess they might start bolting soon so will have to eat them up shortly. More softened leeks on toast with blue cheese mmmmm. (we did make leek and blue cheese pizza at the weekend too).

Seeds n stuff

2011-03-17T22:27:00.002Z

So far I've sown some toms, peppers, aubergines, a few brassicas, and some peas and leeks. The onion sets are in (didn't bother with autumn onions this year as only about half survived the previous winter and then they got leek moth so didn't do so well), as are the garlics. Oh almost forgot, have also sown a couple of short rows of broad beans and parsnips.

I keep getting a guilty feeling that I should really sow some more though.....the box of seeds keeps looking at me. I need to have a major pot-washing session though before I can get on, which is a bit off-putting. Maybe this weekend?

I've had a few portions of purple sprouting broccoli from the plot, which have been REALLY tasty. Tonight I had some with feta cheese. Mmmm. And there's still more to come. Trouble is I need to start clearing them away for the potatoes. Hmm I think the pots will just have to carry on chitting a while longer!

2011 already?

2011-01-02T19:07:00.002Z

Visits to the plot have been few and far between over the past couple of months. When it hasn't been covered in snow it's been damp and soggy, so although there's plenty of weeding and other jobs to be getting on with, they'll have to wait til the weather picks up a bit.

We're still getting the odd bits and bobs off the plot and today I dug up a few little leeks to have on toast with cheese for our lunch. They were pretty tasty, size isn't everything!

I also dug up a few parsnips which JB is making into a hotpot with our own potatoes and garlic from the shed along with other hot pot staples that we haven't grown ourselves.

Last but not least, harvesting a red cabbage required hacking away at its stem with a hand fork (forgot to take any cutting implement!) and was pleasantly surprised the cabbage had survived the weather quite well. The outer leaves were a bit manky but the innards are alright. I'll cook it in the slow cooker (only used it a few times so fingers crossed it'll turn out alright).

Autumn has definitely arrived...

2010-10-25T22:15:00.002+01:00

...we had the first pumpkin soup of the year tonight. I was a bit heavy-handed with the fennel seeds but it tasted pretty good! There's enough left-overs for tea tomorrow too which is always a bonus.

Last night we had the first sprouts and also a few leaves of kale - yum! The weather was quite good yesterday too (makes a change) so I made a start on proper raised bed edging for the asparagus bed. The bed has been in place since we got the plot but I haven't looked after it very well and most of the crowns died in the first year as it was so dry. Three survived and were quite healthy-looking this summer (despite all the weeds), so can probably be harvested next year. Last year a fellow-allotmenteer gave me some replacements which I potted on, so this spring I'll plant them out. The bed had a lot of couch grass winding it's way in from the sides, so I'm hoping the proper edging will help prevent it happening again.

Well although it's been a long time since the last blog, I have been down the plot quite a lot - mainly harvesting - I think the biggest success this year was the cucumbers (outdoor ridge variety) which did amazingly well. I think they liked the horse poo. The sweetcorn was pretty good too, which again had horse poo to help it along.

I've made a start on clearing the beds though there's a lot more to go. The summer raspberry beds look much better after a spot of weeding and I've replaced the wire supports. There's still a few autumn raspberries slowly ripening, good for a nibble or two when working on the plot.

I still haven't put up the greenhouse though. The way things're going it may have to wait til spring!

Mini haul from the back garden

2010-08-23T19:52:00.001+01:00

Baby carrots & chard from the back garden. Plus pots, onions, garlic, courgettes & custard marrow from allotment all going in tonight's tasty curry :)

Fruity!

2010-08-22T21:51:00.003+01:00

Wow, it's been a great year for blackberries. We've picked box after box and still more to come. So far we've had a tasty crumble, smoothies, topping for muesli, cake (thanks Phil!) and a large batch of blackberry syrup. Now, I got a bit distracted when making the syrup and it's more like jelly...oops. It does just about pour out of the bottle though (if you don't mind holding the bottle upside down for about 5 minutes). I left it on the hob for way too long and it thickened too much (my tip is do NOT watch a film whilst making this he hee!)

Another 3 tubs in the fridge today too. I think I might try making bramble jelly tomorrow....

Lots of other goodies coming from the plot - courgettes, chard, potatoes, beans, custards marrows (look like flying saucers), cucumbers....lots of tomatoes at home in the lean-to and sweet peppers on their way.

It was really windy here Friday and my bean wigwam at home started toppling over (my fault for letting it get top-heavy)....but we saved the runner beans by weighing it down with concrete slabs attached to the poles by old shoe laces. Not pretty but at least I didn't lose all me beans like last year!

I still have yet to put most of my leeks out as have to dig up the rest of the potatoes first. But hopefully this means I'll have missed the leek moth - apparently the second lot of eggs hatch around the end of July....we'll see!
Lou (with fingers crossed)

Yesterday's harvest

2010-07-23T23:10:00.003+01:00

Ah yes, summer is definitely here now. The first of the dwarf and purple climbing french beans. Still lacking in rain round these parts though.

Recent times....

2010-07-11T19:56:00.002+01:00

Sage in flower

Lovely sunset

Amorosa potatoes. Very tasty and no scab

Perfect peas

Broad bean soup...

2010-06-29T22:43:00.002+01:00

..was enjoyed by us for tea tonight and nearly all the ingredients were home grown, yey! I got a recipe out of Andi Clevely's "From Welly to Belly' and adapted it a bit to fit what we had. So the home grown element was Onions (had to use 4 of my teeny onions to get a decent amount though), garlic, and loads of beans. We also put in a couple of potatoes to thicken it up a bit (could have used our own but still had a few from the organic stall on the market left) and a swirl of yoghurt. Very tasty. A handy tip from the recipe was to put in two (cleaned) bean pods for extra flavour (but remove before whizzing). it also suggested sieving the soup before serving but that was too faffy for me, so it had bits 'n all.

We've been very busy on the plot, making the most of the nice evenings (bit too hot recently during the day at the weekends) . JB has been doing a grand job of keeping the paths cut and weeding where needed.

I've taken up all the garlic as it had rust and a bit of leek moth damage and I wanted to use the space for a squash. The garlic has done better than I thought. The large cloves planted in the autumn had bulbed up nicely and the smaller ones planted in late winter (bought from the organic veg stall on the market) had grown into one giant clove each. They're all drying out in the lean-to and I'll probably save the giant cloves to plant again next year, which should then bulb up properly (this method produced the best bulbs for me this year).

We've also started to eat the very delicious peas. Mmmm so sweet. Best eaten straight off the plant. Just pop 'em in your mouth. The ones on the back garden are all swelling up first followed by some on the allotment (the ones at home seem to do better though, not sure why but could be that they don't get nibbled by the pea and bean weevil at home), Have got another two lots at different stages of growth (some only just germinated in loo rolls) to try and have a longer supply than the usual 'Yey peas!...aw now they're gone'.

The strawberry plants which survived the winter (probably only about half in total) have been producing VERY tasty berries. A really intense flavour, probably because I don't really water them that much so the flavour doesn't get diluted. Also in the garden have a few wild strawberry plants spreading themselves around, which produce small, but incredibly flavoured fruits.

Red currants are nearly all ripe. Will have to start harvesting soon, though I remember last year they kept pretty well on the bush for quite a while. The black currants are just starting to ripen, as are the raspberries. Excitingly we have one apple growing on our 'new' tree (the tree we've had for over a year but only managed to plant out this winter). I've let it keep the one apple on, as it had a good root system so hopefully it won't be too much of a strain on the tree in this first proper year (You're meant to remove all fruit in the first year to help it establish). However, the tree down the other end, planted two winters ago hasn't got any fruit on - I think it's too far away from the other tree for pollination, so we'll need we need to get another apple tree between the two, to act as a stepping stone for the insects.

A lot more going on, but will save that for another time....and will take the camera to the plot too. A picture says a thousand words, as they say, and my typing seems to be getting worse so anything to help is great!

Investigating...

2010-06-11T22:58:00.002+01:00

...been doing a bit of online research into the leek moth / onion fly problem and found this really good blog. www.growsonyou.com/Sid/blog/2316-leek-moth-and-allium-leaf-mining-fly-the-sequel

I've definitely found the cocoons of the leek moth but I do suspect we have onion fly too. Interesting to learn via the blog (with posts starting in 2008, running through to this year) that the leek moth first only affected the south of England and has been moving north. I know a lot of Norwich plots which had it bad last year....

My squishing / removing of affected leaves seems to be working ok, though it's only been a few days. There are supposedly several generations per season of onion fly!

Onion fly / leek moth remnants

2010-06-08T22:55:00.005+01:00

The salvaged autumn onions and a couple of garlics (and big pile trimmings/squished larvae!)

Brilliant*

2010-06-08T22:40:00.002+01:00

*....please note, huge amount of sarcasm intended.
Not brilliant at all. We've been quite busy recently and haven't had much time to spend on the plot but I popped down on Monday eve before it got dark....to discover....those flaming leek moth or onion flies had decimated the autumn onions. Argh!

So instead of clearing the last of the spring greens in readiness for a courgette/bean wigwam combo I lifted all the autumn onions (which had bulbed up a bit but not much, so only teeny onions), and started going through their stems, squishing all the larvae. Then thought, oooh better check the rest of the aliumy things, to find they had also made a good start on the main onions and garlic too. My main onions had been looking super-healthy before but on closer inspection you could see the tell-tale signs of see-through patches of nibblings coming from within the stems, and on the worst affected, sort of onion 'dust', which is presumably the larvae poo. Sob! To attempt to salvage some of these I went through and broke off the affected stems and squished the larvae, in the hope that the remaining stems might be able to help the onions bulb up at least a bit before I take them all out. However, I've got a feeling that the oniony smell from the broken stems will just attract more flies or moths and will shortly be left with nothing. *BIG SIGH*

DEFINITELY getting some fleece/mesh before planting out the leeks.

A week of firsts...

2010-06-01T22:39:00.002+01:00

OK, only two days rather than a week, and only two firsts, but hey who's counting!

Number 1: first broad beans picked and steamed yesterday. yum yum yum. Only five pods so far but so tasty. These were from beans I sowed in toilet roll tubes in an unheated greenhouse last autumn, which I ignored for too long and they got really leggy and so I was going to just compost them. Decided at the last minute to plant them out in the back garden and hooray, they've started cropping.

Number 2: A bad one this time....I noticed a couple of the garlic plants were looking a bit yellow and manky today, which on closer inspection revealed the larvae of either the onion fly or leek moth munching their way through the plants. Nooooo! I hastily squished all the larvae and had a good look at the other plants to check they weren't affected. So far so good but I'll need to read-up on the little blighters to see what can be done. I did the squishing over at the compost heap as didn't want the garlic smell to attract more flies/moths to the various onion and garlic patches (in an attempt to avoid the pests this year I've planted smaller blocks of onions and garlic in different beds, and left some weeds to grow up and confuse the flies/moths - the idea being they are less likely to land on a plant they're looking for and will move on, and if they do find them, not all the plants get got because they're not all in one place. Hopefully it might work a bit anyway.)

I will definitely be investing in some protective netting when the time comes to plant put the leeks though....

Mr Frosty...

2010-05-11T22:32:00.002+01:00

....no, not the flavoured ice-crush-making machine from the 80s, but Jack Frost who has been paying us a visit.

I spent yesterday evening earthing up the potatoes and covering the strawberries (well the ones that are in flower, anyway) with old straw. There wasn't enough soil to earth up all the spuds as I hadn't left as much room between the rows of the earlies as I had for the main crops. Luckily I remembered my mum had given us some old net curtains so I covered up the remainder with them.

THEN I realised I shouldn't have put the curtains straight onto the potatoes as this wouldn't protect them so much, so took it all off again, bent some chickenwire over the rows and put the curtains back on, weighing them down with bits of wood. Phew!

After all that we didn't get frost in Norwich! But other parts of Norfolk did and some of my workmates said their potatoes had been damaged.

The next couple of nights are supposed to be frosty again, so I decided to leave the plants protected for a while longer. Hope it works! And I hope none of the other plants I've got outside are susceptible to frost. Potatoes and strawberries were all I could think of. All other tender plants are still in the lean-to, though I do need to start hardening them off, so they toughen up a bit before planting out. Exciting!

Weathering the weather

2010-05-03T15:25:00.002+01:00

Today really won't make it's mind up. Rain, sun, hail, rain, sun, hail (repeat til fade...).
Cool clouds though, moving real quickly It's pretty cold too, in between the sunny spells, as we're near the North Sea and that's where our weather today is coming from.

So far have decided against a trip to the plot 'cause we haven't got any proper shelter (sitting under the buddleia, under an umbrella doesn't really count) but according the the forecast the rain may stop soon. Hurrah!

In-between the showers I've been sorting out the spot for the bean wigwam in the back garden (we have a couple of little raised veg beds for growing salads etc). So, I dug out a pit and filled it with cardboard and newspaper plus some weeds (dandelion leaves, alkanet (member of borage family with lovely blue flowers and itchy, furry leaves which grows all over the garden) and other bits and bobs, plus some 'spent' compost (from last years tomato plant-pots, which had also just finished with a follow-on of salad leaves and coriander). The soil in our back garden is very shallow, only just over a spade deep, because there used to be terraced houses here, (which I think got bombed) and the foundations were never removed. I've been gradually improving the soil over the last couple of years and it's not too bad now, plus making the beds raised has helped.

As beans are particularly hungry, I might add some chicken manure pellets (we were given a massive tub last year) and will probably dig in a bit of home made compost when planting out the beans (sown yesterday in toilet roll tubes). The wigwam is made of hazel poles coppiced from a friend in the countryside a few years back. I think they're almost past-it though, but hope they last this year. Last year the wigwam fell over because I was being greedy and let the growth become really top heavy, rather than pinching out the tops of the plants. Most the of plants were ripped out of the ground having just been about to start producing. Sigh! The year before they grew up into our little laburnum tree and I was hoping they would do the same but I shouldn't have risked it. Nevermind. Try again this year.

I might also do my courgette/bean combination in the back garden. This worked really well on the allotment last year (courgette plant grown in the middle of the wigwam, which shades out the weeds). The back garden is quite shady though, even though it's south facing, due to the large Holm Oak in the alley behind. Well, it's worth a go anyway.

Wow, I think it hasn't rained for about 15 minutes now. Time for a trip out I think. Actually the only reason i put on the computer was to look up rocket pesto recipes (had to clear away a load of rocket to make way for the wigwam). The rocket was sown last year and had come through the winter quite well, but as the leaves had gotten a bit tough I reckon they'll be best made into a pesto rather than just have in sandwiches. There was also some lettuce which had survived the winter, being protected by the rocket and some self sown chick weed. So we had the lettuce in veggie sausage sandwiches, with home made (well, machine-made) bread and last years marrow & ginger chutney. Not bad eh!

For Peat's sake...

2010-04-20T19:21:00.002+01:00

I was reading the latest Plantlife members mag and noticed that 2010 is meant to be the year that the UK government target for 90% of the total horticultural market to be peat-free is met. Just how likely is this? Apparently in 2007 it was only 54%.

There are so many reasons why we shouldn't be digging up peat. The price of providing gardeners with a light, moisture retentive substance includes: destruction of an incredibly rare habitat along with all the associated plant and animal species, plus peat bogs act as a really important carbon sink (i.e. they store up masses of carbon dioxide. When the peat is dug up the carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change). It's the equivalent of burning fossil fuels.

So what can we do to help? Only buy peat-free compost. Check the labelling very carefully. This includes any potted plants, as a lot of nurseries are still growing with peat-based media.

I could've kicked myself recently. We went to the local garden centre (Nottcutts) to pick up a couple of bags of my usual favourite, New Horizon recycled compost. They didn't have any (not even a space for it) but they did have a different brand made from composted bark, labelled peat-free. Previous composted bark compost I've bought has been a bit rubbish, and as there was no sample available, I made a little hole in a sack to see what it was like. As expected it was really big chunks, not suitable for seed sowing etc. But, lo and behold, there was an organic compost which, when making a little hole, was brilliantly light etc, so we bought a couple of bags. Too late, it dawned on me that this was probably full of peat (which is of course 'organic'!), despite it not saying it had peat in it. In fact it didn't say what was in it at all, other than it was from 'organic sources'. It certainly did not say 'peat free'.

So my lesson has been learned....don't fall for misleading labelling. On searching the web I've found another garden centre nearby that does sell my New Horizon compost. I will be emailing Nottcutts to ask them to stock New Horizon again too and point out the dodgy labelling of the 'organic' compost.

I think we all have a responsibility to buy peat free (even better if you don't need to buy compost at all and can produce all you need yourself.) It's not good enough to say that the alternative composts don't perform as well as peat-based ones. The environmental price of buying peat-based is too high.

Lecture over. And excuse the bad peat pun in the title, I'm sure it has been much-used elsewhere.

PS had first of the spring greens tonight. Yum.

It's all happening...

2010-04-17T23:14:00.002+01:00

.....early potatoes have peeped through the soil (earthed up today in case of frost), red currant and black currants are in flower, first carrot seedlings are up, PSB (purple sprouting broccoli....not Pet Shop Boys) has had second crop, all the main potatoes are in, all the onions are in, broad beans are up (though getting nibbled by the pea and bean weevils), radishes are up and starting to swell, lettuces have germinated, peas starting to come through..the list goes on

And yet there is still so much more to do (sense of panic anyone?). Things still to sow include; sweetcorn, courgette, PSB and other cabbagey things, pumpkins and other squashes, runner beans, french beans, beetroot, khol rabi, basil, cucumber and rainbow chard of course...the list goes on

...and a greenhouse to put up of course.

So what will tomorrow bring? Mulching, mulching, and more mulching. It's dry as a bone out there and the soil has capped and all those eager little seedlings won't be able to break their way through, so mulching it is. Hmmm, mulch...that's a funny word. Ahem, anyway....mulching and seeding sowing, that's what tomorrow will bring (weather pending).

PSB....aka....

2010-04-07T20:40:00.003+01:00

...purple sprouting broccoli. Our first harvest today. Was it worth waiting nearly a year (sown May 2009). Oh yes! So tasty, lightly steamed with poached egg on toast (home-made bread too). Just need to get us some chooks to complete the picture.

Most upsetting

2010-03-24T21:21:00.002Z

...my favourite fork broke today. I'd popped down the plot after work to do a bit of clearing (in readiness for potatoes) and was trying to loosen up some well-established bramble roots, when there was a nasty crack and the handle shaft snapped at the point where it goes in the metal bit. *Sigh* I knew it was coming though, it started to crack a couple of weeks ago when I was moving a rose plant.

I s'pose that's what you get for leaving your tools under a bit of plastic on the plot. But my excuse is that we haven't got a shed and we do have to leave some of the bigger tools down there as it's a long way to carry them all down each time.

Then the tines of my other fork started to bend! Thems some tough brambles!

Might have to pay a visit to a carboot sale to pick up some 'new' tools.

Saskatoon!

2010-03-14T21:43:00.002Z

Saskatoon!

Preparing the ground for the saskatoon

Tiny Saskatoon!

In goes Mr. Saskatoon!

The saskatoon in situ

Another exciting thing happened

2010-03-11T18:48:00.002Z

Yesterday my little Saskatoon plant arrived. *Hmmm what's a saskatoon?* I hear you ask.
Well I only heard about them recently, via the magazine Grow It, (was given a subscription for Christmas). They're from Canada and are a bit like a blueberry but not as fussy, and grow into a big bush. I ordered a single 1 year old bare rooted plant to give them a go. (from http://www.johnstoa.co.uk/saskatoon.htm). This chap John Stoa has been trialling growing them up in Scotland and has had good results.

As it was bare-rooted it really needed to be planted out straight away so we nipped over the plot at lunchtime. JB has the photos.....

A day of dismantling

2010-03-07T19:41:00.002Z

It was a lovely sunny day here today, though freezing in the shade. My friend Liz and I headed out to look at the greenhouse over the other side of the city (the greenhouse belonged to someone she knows at work and wanted to get rid of it cause of their little kiddies running around in the garden).

It all looked good, there were a few panes broken but nothing too serious, so we set to work taking it apart. I didn't have a clue how to get started but luckily she's pretty clued up on these types of things so we got on quite well. The panes of glass came out first, quite easily really though there were more than you expect. We were careful to keep hold of all the springy clasps and things which holds the glass in place (a few times it involved scrabbling around in the grass after they'd sprung off in all directions!)

So, on to the frame. This was a lot more tricky trying to work out which bits to take out first so we basically just went for it. At one point I was holding up the roof supports to stop the whole lot collapsing on us! Some of the bolts were pretty stiff and some snapped too so will need to find some replacements.

A couple of hours later and her estate car was full of almost a whole greenhouse! All was going to plan (apart from being a tad cold) so we made our way to the allotment back over the other side of the city. Brrrm Brrrrm Brrrmm....SMASH! Yep, although we thought the panes were nice and secure, after a few minutes of driving there was the unwelcome sound of breaking glass and we pulled over to see what the damage was. A bit of adjustment and extra padding was all that was needed and after a stop off at my place for a well deserved fry-up lunch we carted it all on to the plot. A quick trip back to pick up the last couple of bits (the door and part of the roof frame which didn't fit first time round) and now all that we need to do is level the ground, get some slabs, put it back together again. Easy peasy (ha hah). And of course there's nothing else to be getting on with on the plot either HAHAHAHahahahaha *sound of manic crazy laughing*)

Oh I did take some photos but they are trapped on my phone at the moment.

Exciting!

2010-02-28T19:17:00.002Z

We've been offered a second hand greenhouse!!!!!! Aluminium with a few panes of glass missing. Whoop!
This has come out of the blue so have not planned at all.... Space not cleared on the plot so will have to stash until we're ready. Hopefully might pick it up next weekend. Yip! Also, am not sure whether we'll need to sort out a base for the frame to sit on...An allotment neighbour has got a greenhouse so will investigate what they've done. I'm hoping to get away with not having a base as that'll be extra work on top of all the other stuff that needs sorting.

On another note, it has been absolutely miserable here today so have been confined indoors. Sowed a few more seeds - celeriac, sweet pepper, Brussels, leeks. Last year the leeks I sowed in Feb didn't germinate so will be pleased if they work this year.

The toms sown a couple of weeks back have started germinating though. Have got these indoors on table top nearish a radiator for a bit of extra heat. Fingers crossed for the rest of my little seeds.

Seed-sowing-started

2010-02-15T22:38:00.002Z

Another month has gone by...huh! Takes you by surprise.
Anyhoo, still the same here in Norwich..snow...frost....occasional sunny day (which never coincides with a free day of course). However, I've managed to get a bit of work done... we've got really light soil so can be worked quite soon after wet times. I've been getting on with making raised beds out of pallets, making a 'U' shape, with each bit of the 'U' being the width of a pallet, so the middle of the bed can be reached easily without being tempted to tread on the soil. I'll take some pictures soon.

Am quite pleased with how they're turning out...there's a bit of work involved with breaking the pallets apart and lugging them down to the plot (using the framework of a grannies-style shopping trolley to transport them!).

I also took the opportunity this weekend to start sowing seeds indoors - tomatoes, peppers and aubergine. And tonight have sown broad beans in toilet roll tubes (so they can be planted straight out). I also planted out some of my main crop onion sets into cut down toilet roll tubes. I wasn't going to bother with this but some of them have already started sprouting so I don't want to waste them. These will sit in our unheated lean-to but the toms etc are indoors.

I was quite sneaky and took a spur of the moment half days leave this afternoon to make the most of a dry day. I wanted to get on with making the raised beds (these need to be completed asap cause I need to sow parsnip seeds soon and more garlics). Then lo and behold, tonight it's snowing! Looks like it was a good decision...hope everyone else out there is faring well and hope for better weather this weekend!

January already?

2010-01-06T21:39:00.004Z

Wow, it's been a month since we last blogged...the last few weeks sure have passed quickly.

Like most of the country, we have snow in Norfolk at the moment, and have done for the past couple of weeks, so it's pretty limited on the allotment front at the moment. HOWEVER, our seed potatoes arrived just before Christmas...I should have taken them out of the box as soon as they arrived but left it for over a week, and on peeking in the box, found they had already started sprouting...and not the right kind of sprouts either - they are pale and stubby, rather than the dark green more leafy type shoots which are needed. This has happened because they have sprouted in the dark rather than the light. I've now moved them into the lean-to, in cut-down cardboard boxes to make open 'trays' and put them out of direct light, plus broken off some of the bigger shoots. Hopefully some of the green shoots will start to develop soon. I know it seems quite early to start chitting but I began at about the same time last year and things turned out ok (it's so cold in the lean-to they don't chit too quickly).

Also, rather excitingly, last week we visited a friend who has a horse and collected lots of lovely well-matured manure. Mmmmmm. JB was worried it would smell the car out but I was pleased to be proved right that nicely matured manure doesn't actually smell! Access at the allotment is a bit poor, so I had a 'fun' time trying to reverse around a tight corner onto the site so we didn't have to move the bags too far. Just about made it on the second attempt and didn't skid on the slope, hurrah! Was a tad embarrassing as two kids were watching the whole time. It was easier to reverse in than reverse out though.

This is the allotment before Christmas: The tracks on the path are fox and cat :o)

These are the autumn onions, hope they're alright under there!

Conjoined parsnips

2009-12-07T18:13:00.002Z

Funny parsnips that were joined at the hip, but tasted very nice nevertheless!

Squashy

The last butternut squash, which we roasted with the parsnip, potatoes and Brussels sprout tops. Yum yum!

Here they are!

2009-12-03T09:26:00.003Z

All our lovely seeds arrived safely in the end. But some of these are actually presents so they're not all for us!

Where are my poor seeds?

2009-12-01T22:22:00.002Z

....my big delivery of seeds came on Thursday but as we (and the neighbours) were out, I re-arranged delivery for Saturday with Royal Mail......nothing turned up.....decided to give them an extra day....Monday- nothing turned up. Rang RM and their records show it was successfully delivered to our house on Saturday! Yeh maybe in a parallel universe, but certainly not in this one!

So now have to go through the hassle of finding out what's happened to it. Customer Services haven't contacted me to say whether they've found it or not....RUBBISH!!!

Gawd....maybe tomorrow will bring more joy....

Seeeeeeeds!

2009-11-23T22:51:00.002Z

I have made my main seed order, through the organic gardening catalogue www.organicgardeningcatalogue.com ....it was rather a lot of money so I shan't reveal how much it was but a lot of the seeds will last more than one year (that's what I tell myself anyway). Plus I bought a couple of 'starter' seed mixes for two of my brothers, who have recently started growing some of their own food. I'm a member of Garden Organic, so you get 10% of your order, which is a bonus.

The weather has been nasty here, as with most of the country, but as the soil is so sandy, it's still workable even after heavy rain. I got in a couple of hours yesterday, between showers, continuing to clear the area for the apple tree and moving carpet around to the most needy areas.

I've noticed that there a lot of little seedlings popping up all over the plot, plus a carpet of green has appeared on my neighbours plot too. On closer inspection they seem to be poppy seedlings which have more than likely come from all the poppies we let seed this year....oops! Well, they're easy to hoe out and the poppies were beautiful, so worth the extra hoeing I think! Not sure that my allotment neighbour will agree......

Today

2009-11-04T21:47:00.003Z

I was raking up some leaves on the plot and JB said 'what's that?' and out jumped a huge frog. Yippee! A very welcome visitor to the allotment. I moved him (or her) to a safe area of the plot, under the buddliea, near a log pile and the little pond I put in last year. It was really strong, pushing it's way out of my closed hands...JB stroked it's head when it peaked out between my fingers.

I hope it stays!

2009-11-02T19:29:00.003Z

Well, am being a bit poor at the blogging at the moment, so apologies. We have been popping down every now and then (mainly to pick things and do a bit of weeding) but haven't had much chance to get really stuck in to anything....the weather this weekend didn't help. Plus I keep forgetting to take the camera...

Today the weather was really nice, so I decided to use up a bit of lieu time I'd built up and take the afternoon off to spend it on the plot. I stayed as long as possible, until it was too dark to see very much (actually used the light from my mob screen so that I could see what I was picking! (rainbow chard!)

I've been breaking/cutting up pallets to make edges for the beds, which look pretty smart once they're in. Still lots more of that to go though and I will take some pics soon. I was going to put some of the edging in this afternoon but then couldn't decide on exactly what I was going to do with one of the beds so made a decision to put off decision making til another day, and instead did some weeding/digging! I cleared quite a big area, in preparation for planting out a small apple tree. The area seems to have been an old turf mound-come-rubbish dump, so is a weird mixture of lovely topsoil, with bits of rubbish (old carriers bags/tin cans/crisp packets/bits of metal etc). I'll level it all out once I've dug out all the bramble/couch grass/rubbish. We're also planning to have a bit of a wildflower area here and maybe plant a rosemary/lavender hedge (and make a bench to sit and enjoy all the lovely aromas and colours).

If the weather's nice again some time this week, I think I might use some more lieu time to have a bonfire for all those brambles. It's a pretty big heap and I want to have one before the weekend as local youths tend to get in to the allotments at this time of year to set off fireworks - don't want them setting light to my heap and having all the fun. Also need to check for hedgehogs of course!

So what's new?

2009-10-13T23:03:00.003+01:00

Well, it's that time of year when everything's winding down...or is it? So I have some big plans for this autumn/winter: apple tree to plant out (clear space first), collect lots of leaves for making leaf mould, clear more of the plot, dig a new bed, make more raised beds (starting collecting pallets for this), make a bench and cold frame.

Hmmm seems like quite a lot actually! Maybe will slim down the plans somewhat.

The autumn onions sets are in and have started sprouting. I've put them in where the corn/dwarf beans were and have covered them with old net curtains in case there are any onion flies or other nasties around still. So far so good. Will plant out some garlic too but need to make the raised bed first.

Roll-on the weekend!

Whopper parsnip

2009-09-23T21:12:00.004+01:00

Okay, so it's not your traditional allotment competition-size parsnip - no metre long parsnip chips for us - but still we were pretty impressed with it! There's always that element of mystery when pulling out roots - will it be a whopper or a mini-me of its true self, or will there be anything at all!

Luckily in this case it was pretty decent sized and made a lovely parnsip and potato mash, drizzled with olive oil and nicely seasoned!

Tommy

2009-09-21T21:47:00.006+01:00

Happy tomatoes. The large ones are a heritage variety (Cherokee Purple). We bought the plant from Homebase of all places for 99p earlier in the year. They were very tasty and I might try and buy some seed for next year.

Courgette doing a good impression of a pear :0)

Close- up of the cherokee

... and sliced mmmmm

The leeks have had it

2009-09-08T21:43:00.003+01:00

Yes, it's worse than I thought, there's no saving the poor leeks. I have neglected them and this is the comeuppance!

So I tried squishing all the onion fly larvae / maggots and thought I was doing pretty well but decided to dig a couple up to see how far the maggots bore into the stem. Unfortunately it's a long way and at most there's only a couple of inches of stem unaffected. Plus there's no way of getting all the maggots out without pulling up the whole leek.

So my next plan is to pull all the leeks up and just salvage the bits which haven't been munched, squishing all the maggots along the way. This will take a long time though as I did a few tonight and it's slow going, making sure you've got all the nasty maggots. I guess most people burn them.

Hey ho - next year I will probably get some netting, which is apparently the only prevention. It seems as though everyone on my site has got the same problem though - one guy even worse than mine - I don't think he'll get anything.

A friend with a plot on another site in the city has succumbed to leek moth. However a couple of people at work who live out in the countryside a bit haven't had any problems.

Hope you all are more successful than me!

Disaster!...

2009-09-07T21:19:00.003+01:00

.......have discovered that ALL my leeks are riddled with onion fly larvae. How did I not notice sooner? Didn't get onion fly last year so didn't look out for it. SOB!!

The onion fly larvae (i.e. maggots) bore their way through the leeks and there can be loads of them all in one leek. I read-up on the little nasties last night and the advice is to dig all the leeks up and destroy them. However! Seeing as they are in literally all my leeks, I've decided to pick through them all and squish all the larvae in a last-ditch attempt to rescue the poor things. I'm not sure if this will work but it's worth a go I think. I spent quite a while yesterday squishing the little bleeders and found more today, so am not holding my breath they'll survive!!

To cheer myself up I thought I'd see how the parsnips have done and dug a couple up - yippee they are really good and made a celebratory roast - roast parsnips (obviously), potatoes, courgette and beetroot. Very tasty.

Tomorrow: another session of maggot squishing.

Marrow, apricot and ginger jam = YUM!

2009-09-04T20:51:00.004+01:00

So here's the recipe I obtained last year (can't remember where from) and can recommend it completely. For a bit of extra kick, add in more ginger (I'm pretty liberal with it myself). As said before it's really lovely mixed in with porridge....mmmmm. If you want something more spreadable, chop up everything quite small.

1 3/4 kg marrow (peeled, seeded and cubed)
1 1/2 kg sugar (I use demarera)
225g dried apricots (chopped)
2 level tablespoons ground ginger
4 lemons (juice of) - I use the bottled juice and guess how much

*Layer the marrow cubes and sugar in a large non-metallic bowl. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to stand for 2-3 hours
*Put the marrow and juices in a large preserving pan with the apricots and ginger
*Slowly bring to the boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar
*Add the lemon juice and reduce the heat
*Simmer for 1-1.5 hours until the marrow is translucent and the syrup is thick
*Pack into warm sterlised jars and seal

Colin the courgette

2009-09-03T19:45:00.002+01:00

Our new friend from the allotment!

Autumn already?

2009-09-02T21:43:00.005+01:00

Well, the past few weeks have whizzed by again. Still not had time to do a decent days work at the plot but have spent lots of time picking things and making chutney and jam, which is what it's all about really! Had the last of our sweetcorn today - our best year so far, definitely thanks to having manure I reckon.

Have dug up the first two rows of the main crop potatoes and sorted them into 'use first' (like the ones I inevitably speared with the fork) and 'keepers' (ones which have no scab or any other blemishes etc). I've doubled up paper shopping bags to act as potato sacks. This has worked in previous years and the tatties have kept well, in the shed. We have some right whopper pots (variety Cara), They're really tasty but have a tendency to over cook easily.

I thought we might have had blight but the discolouring of the leaves started off yellow rather than brown so it was probably (hopefully) just the plants reaching the end of their life! I cut off all the tops just in case. I have one more row to dig up and decided to leave them in the ground a bit longer as it's meant to toughen the skins up for better storage.

Today we used our first ready pumpkin to make this lovely soup:
Just peeking in the background is a jar of rather tasty marrow, apricot and ginger jam, which I made a batch of last weekend. I made it last year too and it's right nice on toast, or mixed in with porridge (mmmm I'm looking forward to those cold mornings already!). Anyone want the recipe?

Here's a pic of the other squashes collected today:
Am desperate to sow some oriental greens (have not grown these before). Just need a bit of time to weed where these squashes were growing and pop them in. This weekend?

Photos!

2009-08-07T23:44:00.010+01:00

Some photos from this week. Have spent the evening looking up runner bean and courgette chutney recipes. Glut here we come!

Sweetcorn under planted with dwarf french beans

Yumm!

This is my wigwam set-up with courgette, lettuce and beans

First pumpkin of the year - seems rather early - this is actually ripe now! (hollow sounding when tapped)

Part of our wildflower area

The compost bins with courgette and pumpkin plants are doing well :0)

Soooo...

2009-08-04T22:41:00.004+01:00

....we have been allotmenting a fair bit the past couple of weeks (when the weather has allowed - generally it's either too rainy or too sunny...can't strike a happy medium!), again we've been grass cutting/weeding round the edges as well as harvesting quite a lot (dwarf beans-a-plenty, courgettes, a few carrots, lots of lettuce - JB particularly likes the little gem which I've grown us for the first time this year, and so on.

However, most excitingly......dah dah dah dah dah DAH (*drum roll*) we had our first tomatoes (cherries) and SWEETCORN!!! Yummy yum yum it was really good and the plants have done way better this year so quite a few more cobs to come. I think they have liked the manure plus being under-planted with dwarf french beans (not a weed in sight as the beans have shaded them all out).

I'm also quite proud of my wigwam set-ups, with a courgette planted in the middle, 4 poles (buddleia cut-offs) with runner and purple french beans winding their way up, and finally, to make best use of the space, rows of lettuce planted in a square at the base of the wig wam. Might be easier to see what i mean with a photo.

Hopefully if the weather's good we'll get down there after work tomorrow and will then report back with some pics. I have feeling we'll be needing to find some runner/french bean chutney recipes soon.

(PS This is Lou, I accidentally logged on as JB aka Ms Idler)

So little time

2009-07-24T23:56:00.002+01:00

Well, we've been super busy recently and haven't had much time for allotmenting apart from picking all the things that're ready (courgettes, dwarf french beans, runner beans and purple climbing french beans...bean-tastic!, masses of lettuce, peas, beetroot. pounds and pounds of red and black currants, raspberries and more..phew!)

Hope to spend some time up there on Sunday...so much weeding and grass cutting to do!

Home made...

2009-07-08T22:21:00.009+01:00

borscht.....

From these beauties

Yum

Improvised jelly straining set-up.

We now have many jars of redcurrant jelly (with a hint of cinnamon). Really easy recipe from Deila Smith's website originally I think. Basically, equivalant amount of berries and sugar, cook the berries first, add the sugar and disolve, (at this point I also added in cinnamon) then boil for 8-10 mins .....except I forgot the boiling bit and hence they are a bit runny but I have decided to call it redcurrant syrup ;o)

bird's eye view

How colorful is that? Loverly rainbow chard.

Redcurrants...

2009-06-28T15:08:00.004+01:00

....now total 12lbs! With still more to pick.
Started on the blackcurrants too - 4.5lbs, having only picked about a quarter so far. Our little freezer is almost full. Will have to start on the jam/jelly making soon.....mmmm

Harvest Time!

2009-06-23T22:29:00.011+01:00

Yay we had a good afternoon down at the plot on Sunday and got stuck in to some serious weeding (though of course there's still lots more to do) and also....harvesting! The autumn onions were just about ready and had started going a little bit mouldy on their bums so Sunday was the day for them to come out. Same goes for the garlic. Plus we need the room to put other stuff in. Don't think either of them will keep very well but am drying them out as much as possible in the lean-to at home.

Here is our stash from Sunday. In the back garden we've also got some peas that are ready (sooooo tasty) and a few raspberries and wild strawberries, on top of masses of lettuce (not literally of course).
Potatoes, broad beans, onions, garlic, strawbs, beetroot, carrots and a couple of radishes. Oh and I nearly forgot we also picked over 5lbs of red currants, with loads more still to pick.

Our main onion crop (Jetset)

Our first teeny courgette (Nero) of the year (this is one of those I accidentally planted instead of a pumpkin. Seems to like it in the compost heap)

Rainbow chard!

Sweetcorn - varied success, some doing better than others. Undersown with dwarf french beans.

PS - whoop I have my own log in so now you know if it's me or JB (Ms Idler)

Great idea to share land for veg growing

2009-06-23T19:47:00.007+01:00

Just a quick post to flag up a great new website designed to help people share land for growing your own - http://landshare.channel4.com/ - offer part of your plot for a share if you can't manage it all, or sign up to find land or as a helper if you just want to get stuck in.

We've been away on holiday for a week in Dorset, and came back to a rather weed-infested plot at the weekend. Luckily we timed it so that nothing was over whilst we were away and the strawberries, red currants, potatoes, onions and garlic are ready for eating! We'll post some photos shortly...

Our first potatoes of the year!

2009-06-04T22:46:00.005+01:00

We thought we'd take a chance and dig up some potatoes to see how they were doing. They'd flowered and were looking ready, and so out came the fork...

Luckily all wasn't in vain - there were a few decent sized potatoes and some wee 'uns also:

But, the ultimate test has to be how they taste, and it's fair to say that these were the most delicious, melt-in-the-mouth potatoes we've both ever tasted! They were earlies - Colleen variety - make sure you buy them next year!

Simply boil in a little bit of water with a few sprigs of mint, drain, add a little pepper and a knob of butter, and enjoy!

Compost

2009-05-31T21:57:00.003+01:00

Mmmm this is our lovely home made compost. It's gone on our two raised beds in the back garden. Hope the sprouts/cucumbers/courgette/cabbages/lettuces like it!

ooops...

2009-05-27T20:00:00.002+01:00

...have possibly planted out four courgettes instead of two courgettes and 2 pumpkins. The pumpkins were meant to go in the non-active compost heaps. Will have to have a really close look at the plants to check (labeling had gone awry) and possibly swap some over before they get too settled. Oopsie!

Flowers 'n all that

2009-05-24T22:47:00.007+01:00

Some pics of the flowers on our plot at the moment...

Sage

Borage

Comfrey

Shepherd's purse

Potato! Soon we eat!

Progress

2009-05-12T22:09:00.009+01:00

Alas, no time spent at the plot this weekend due to a fantastically fun trip to see friends in Sheffield, but managed to finish work a bit early today to get down there.....earthed up the potatoes, cut back some brambles a bit and did some weeding.......not enough, but it's a start!

Autumn onions in the front, which are starting to bulb-up a bit, yippee! With some early potatoes behind.

Sweetcorn - mixed success, some are doing ok but 3 have pretty much died off so today stuck some seeds in the ground as a last ditch attempt! On Thurs sowed some dwarf french beans in between the corn. Not sure how long they'll take to germinate.

Broad beans - look closely and you'll actually see some bean pods! And little lettuces too.

Wildflower area (this is borage) but has quite a few other species too. Help look after the bees!

More onions!

Poorly peas....the ones at home on loo rolls have started germinating though.

The rest of the early potatoes :0)

The long weekend.....

2009-05-04T21:43:00.004+01:00

is already over and I only managed to get down the allotment for a couple of hours! But I was being quite productive at home potting on all the toms, squashes etc and also sorted out the home made compost. We've got two of the plastic dalek style bins at home and the older of the two bins was ready to put on the veg beds at home (plus the other bin was getting really full). I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the compost (though there were still the odd big bits which I picked out) but was really chuffed with the compost in the newer bin. I turned over the newest top stuff into the now empty old bin and found lovely compost about a third down...excellent! That will go on another part of the veg bed once it's cleared of spring greens and spinach, ready for a nice courgette plant :0)

At the allotment I planted out the sweetcorn, runner beans and purple climbing french beans grown in loo roll tubes at home, plus sowed some dwarf french beans in between the sweetcorn. This worked really well last year as the beans shade out weeds and also fix nitrogen in the soil for the corn. Well, it worked ok until there was a population explosion of teeny snails which decided they really enjoyed eating bean leaves anyway. THis year we've cleared a lot more of the plot so hopefully we won't have as much of a slug/snail problem

Anyhoo here's some pics of the seedlings (click for a bigger view)

Tomatoes overseeing the little teeny basil on the top row plus lots of brussels and cabbages on the middle.

Squashes all lined up

Good and bad

2009-04-29T19:39:00.002+01:00

Good: Got a free fork, spade and two rakes from a skip

Bad:Went to allotment at lunch to take the compost from work, to find our allotment neighbour on our plot helping himself to twigs from our buddleia for pea sticks. He didn't even apologise...how rude!! He also knocked off our bird feeder without noticing...bah!

If only work didn't get in the way....

2009-04-25T21:36:00.007+01:00

....we would get so much more done on the plot! Alas, all we've been getting on with this week is a bit of weeding really, but if the weather holds out tomorrow we'll hopefully do a bit of clearing and bed preparing. The seedlings back home are mainly doing ok, some a bit too well and will have to undergo an extended hardening off i think! Things from the plot that we are eating at the mo are radishes (sown this year), chard and some final leeks. In the back garden we've also got perpetual spinach, beetroot and spring greens and some lettuce in the lean-to :o) Oh yeah...it was actually the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening that I looked up the weevils in and not organic gardening catalogue.

Here's a few pics

Strawberries coming into flower

Potatoes coming on, with a bit of winter spinach behind and some onions

Broad beans in flower (sown Nov) plus garlic and onions. Yum. Although apparently broad beans don't like being near garlic...doh! Too late now!

Lessons learnt No 2

2009-04-19T21:52:00.002+01:00

That the little naughty things eating the bean and pea plants are actually the aptly named 'pea and bean weevil' and not flea beetle as previously mentioned. Looked up the little blighters in the Organic Gardening Catalogue yesterday.

As suspected the weevils affect early sowings the worst whereas later ones grow faster and don't mind being nibbled as much. The book also recommended that to discourage them you shouldn't grow vetch as a green manure...bah! Anyway I lay the mis-identification blame on my allotment friend who was very confident they were flea beetle ;0)

Blossomy

2009-04-18T21:42:00.005+01:00

We spent a couple of hours down the plot today, mainly weeding and cutting the paths (using the cuttings to mulch the raspberries), though we've still got a fair amount of clearing to get done. Need to make another bed or two for all the brassicas we've got coming on at home..sigh! If only work didn't get in the way of allotmenting!

Apple blossom on the dwarf tree (Charles Ross) we planted out earlier this spring. We went for an M27 (I think it was)...anyway it was the second smallest you can get. We were going to get the smallest but as we have poor soil, the nursery (Reads Nursery at Hales Hall, Norfolk) , recommended we get the next one up. We pruned the 'maiden' to about 1m high as per advised in one of the million books we've got.

Here's some of the black currant blossom. ...the bushes are covered in it!

...and some red currant blossom....and even some teeny berries!

Lessons learnt No1.......

2009-04-17T21:45:00.018+01:00

....don't leave your delicate cabbage seedlings on the top shelf in the lean-too when it's a really sunny day or this will happen...! Fortunately it was only the seed leaves which frazzled and the first true leaves were ok...phew! They now have a much shadier spot on the second shelf.

These are three aubergines (black beauty) potted on (the little ones) plus two of the tomatoes (money maker)....The tomatoes got a bit damaged before I potted them on....ahem...ok, I admit it, I trod on the tray with the seedlings in and they flipped over and got a tad crushed. Whoops!

Non-crushed peppers (California Wonder)

Droopy Brussels with a rogue lettuce. I think the soil was a bit loose for the Brussels, which prefer more compact soil and have since firmed the compost a bit. We don't mind having funny shaped Brussels stalks anyway!

Sweetcorn and pumpkins...more have germinated since!

Left to right... courgettes, climbing french beans and cucumbers :o)

Top shelf L to R....more peppers to be pricked out, toms (gardeners delight) - these are a month ahead of the moneymakers and are much bigger, then the same lettuces etc as before.
Lower shelf - rescued cabbages, more Brussels, red cabbage and lettuce.

Raised bed in the back garden....L to R - rocket gone to flower which we'll collect seed from, spring greens...don't know at what stage we eat these!...peas just planted out, with a few lettuces too.

Second raised bed in back garden with just erected wigwam for runner beans (and anti Minxie sticks (our cat)), with a raspberry trained to the fence.

At last...the allotment!

Onions, garlic and broad beans

!

Broad beans just coming into flower, with teeny lettuces in between

The sweetcorn...still alive!

Mixed results

2009-04-13T22:03:00.004+01:00

Lou here. Been doing lots of pottering at the plot. No photos but will add them in soon!

The first lot of potatoes have come through. I think I planted them a bit too shallowly (is that a word?), so have added lots more top soil from the big mound I'm clearing, which has the added benefit of protecting them from any upcoming frosts. It's was a shame to cover them up though! Hopefully they'll push their way up again soon.

The peas are not looking too hot after being attacked by flea beetle, which cuts little semi circles from around the leaf edge. I wouldn't be that bothered but as the peas've only recently come through I'm not sure if they'll survive. Oh well, will sow some more if they don't make it. The vetch (aka winter tares) was in the bed adjacent up until last week, and as we were clearing the bed we noticed the vetch had flea beetle damage quite badly, so the beetles were probably gutted their lovely home was cut down and went for our peas instead..bah! Talking of peas, I planted out the home germinated peas into the back garden today...they look much more healthy so may stick to sowing in toilet roll middles and then planting out from now. We'll see, may have to experiment a bit.

Planted out 7 sweetcorn that I'd germinated at home. It's a bit early I think, but have been hardening them off and have put cut-down plastic bottle protectors around each one. I'm trying to avoid the mistake I made last year which was too leave them growing at home for too long, and the roots got really badly intertwined and they didn't like being ripped apart from each other (even though I was as gentle as possible!) and did very very badly. Sowed a different variety in tubes recently too, and one has come through already!

Ooh the pumpkins have also germinated but none of the other squashes have. Spent some time potting on the tomatoes too...haven't grown these from seed before so am quite pleased with their progress. Also pricked out some pepper seedlings and potted on a couple of aubergines (am not too bothered about the aubergines...I'm not very good at getting them to set fruit, though the flowers are pretty). Sowed some purple sprouting broccoli which should be ready this time next year...that's planning ahead for you eh!

Thanks to the rain and sun the weeds on the plot are growing fast and hiding lots of slugs and snails. I found a snail hot spot under the rosemary bush and gave them a swift squish to get the nasty job over and done with quickly. At least the birds will get a feast.

Lots more has been done too but I will not rattle on without any photos to spice it up!

Seedy

2009-04-06T22:07:00.007+01:00

Lou here - Just a few little pics of some of our seedlings. Also sowed a load on Saturday as it was a 'fruit day' - purple climbing french beans (Blauhide) and runner beans (Scarlet Emporer) in toilet roll middles - grew the purple french beans last year and they were very pretty and very tasty, crystal lemon cucumbers (recommended by a friend) and courgette (Nero) in pots, pumpkin, kiri and butternut squash (these seeds saved and dried from fruits we got in a veg box a couple of years ago) in pots, and sweetcorn (Sweet Nugget) in toilet roll tubes - have put all these in the lean-to.
On the allotment Ms Idler has been doing lots of weeding and I've been preparing the ground for the potatoes and also some more red onion sets that a fellow plot holder had spare.

Peas in the foreground and dwarf french beans behind. The peas are to go in the back garden, where we've got a couple of small veg beds (which we made when we moved in, before we got the allot plot). At the allotment I directly sowed some peas (Ambassador) about a month ago and they've just started to show through. We also sowed another row at the weekend. Mmmm peas.

Some more seedlings in the lean-to. Top row is sweetcorn in the tubes, red cabbages, summer cabbages, leeks, with lettuce and coriander in the big pots behind that have been growing since autumn and keeping us in some salad over winter. Second row is sprouts and lettuce...plus mess, mess and more mess.

Tomatoes

Some of the leeks. Have got some other pots though not that many have germinated yet. Will probably do some more just in case!

Some of the potatoes chitting. these are Maris Bard (first early). As it is roots planting time from 4pm tomorrow through to 11pm thurs will get them in over the next couple of days :0)

Broad beans (actually planted these out on the allot yesterday). In the black pot behind is an apple tree waiting to be planted out (am still clearing the space for it).

It's about to kick off!

2009-04-03T22:25:00.002+01:00

Lou here again.....Well it's been a bit quiet down on the plot for the past couple of weeks. The weather's been a bit rubbish and as my folks were visiting last weekend we didn't manage to get down there. My mum and dad were impressed with all my seedlings coming along at home though and I sent them off with some little tomato plants.

And now the biodynamic northern planting period has just started so it means we can get sowing! It's a bit of a funny one though, there's a few days where the planets are all squewiff or something so you can't do any planting. But anyway this weekend is fruits which includes squashes, beans and sweetcorn, so will get sowing tomorrow and take some pics. On the allotment I'm trying to concentrate on clearing a big overgrown mound of couch grass and bramble, so we can level it out and plant out an apple tree and make a wildflower area. Oh yeah and will plant out some broad beans that I've grown in toilet roll tubes. I've been hardening them off in the back garden. Bring on the weekend!

Springy things

2009-03-22T21:10:00.002Z

I meant to say yesterday about all the buzzy and flying things that have appeared for the first time this year. There were quite a few butterflies including 3 small tortoiseshells all flying together and lots of buzzy bees and some ladybirds becoming active. Lots of birdie action too with long tailed tits checking out our hedge and gold finches in the boundary trees. And just as I was about to leave the plot there was a loud squawk and I looked up to see two herons flying over : ) No pics though I'm afraid. Til next time then.........ooh except to say I've seen at least two other blogs with 'busy, busy busy' as the title....must try and be more original with my titles!

A sunny sunny day

2009-03-21T20:03:00.010Z

It's the southern (hemisphere) planting period at the moment, which means no sowing, transplanting or pruning if you follow the biodynamic guide. and live in the northern hemisphere. Plenty of other stuff to get on with though including....

I took this sort of 'cloche' down to the plot today. I'd made it a few years ago from willow and some clear plastic, plus some string and some of those metal foldly pins (can you tell I've forgotten what they're called!). I don't think I've ever actually used it before but it might help a bit. I've put it over some radish and beetroot seedlings, which I'm growing as a catch crop before putting up some wigwams for cucumbers or something similar later in the year.

The beetroot seedlings (Detroit, sowed on14 Feb) They've only just come up and I had been worried I'd sowed them a bit early but maybe that biodynamic stuff is working eh!

Same goes for these radishes (Scarlet Globe)

The cloche is held down by some of these pegs, which we made when coppicing the buddleia. I think they'll come in very handy.

This is the asparagus bed. We got some lovely crowns last year from the Organic Gardening Catalogue but didn't have any manure etc to prepare the bed so we just put them in without it (though we did clear all the couch grass and brambles of course!). Unsurprisingly the crowns didn't do very well, which I think wasn't helped by a long dry spell during which I neglected them a bit too (whoops). After that period I watered them well and mulched the bed with straw. So last week I couldn't wait any longer to see if they'd survived and carefully dug down to one...and phew! It was ok. So to give them a helping hand, as previously mentioned, I've put some manure on top of the bed. Fingers crossed!

Horse poo!

2009-03-18T21:41:00.006Z

I spent a few hours on Sunday shovelling horse poo, and much fun it was too! A fellow allotmenter knows some people with a stable and we were assured there was a massive bay of horse poo of varying ages to help ourselves to. On arrival with a friend and his old landrover it came as a little surprise that the bay was empty!! Apparently a farmer had come and cleared the lot earlier in the week. Bah!!

But all was not lost as some big plastic barrels had been filled with manure ages ago (for reasons unknown!) and inside was lovely well-rotted manure..huzzah!
Mmmm manure.....

I put some on the raised bed (rear one in pic above) where the second lot of early potatoes are going to go. You can see the difference in colour!

Does anyone know whether I've put too much manure on?? Or is it a case of 'never too much' for potatoes?

This is the first time we've actually had anything to improve the soil in any great bulk, so I'm very grateful to have it. I dug some in to the soil before planting out some autumn raspberry canes (given to us by a friend who was tidying up their allot) the other day and after work today I put some on top of the rather poor asparagus bed (hoping the worms will do the work and incorporate it into the soil for me plus to avoid damaging the asparagus crowns). More pics soon!

Busy busy busy

2009-03-14T22:28:00.012Z

Have had a good couple of days on the plot. It's been 'roots' in the biodynamic calendar so have put in one lot of early potatoes (Colleen), where the old strawberry patch was, plus the previously mentioned onions, a couple of rows of carrots (Cubic), some peas and a row of parsnips (Imperial Crown) with radishes (Rudolph) - the radishes germinate quickly and show you where the parsnips are, which take ages to germinate. We only grew one short row of parsnips last year cause we didn't have much ground cleared. They were really tasty though, so are growing loads more this year. We're growing them in between rows of broad beans with the hope that some of the nitrogen fixed in the soil from the beans will make them grow bigger.

Here's some piccies!

The peas, with some pea sticks

Onions (jetset). I think I put them a bit close together but hopefully as they're staggered they'll be ok. Just need to be able to get inbetween for weeding.

Early potatoes (Colleen). Have got another variety (Maris Bard) for putting in the bed behind but they weren't as well chitted so have left them until next months 'roots' period.

The black currant leaves breaking. Nice. We've got 3 bushes (which were already on the plot when we got it) and have started managing them on a three year rotation (i.e. cut one down to the ground each year) as this ensures you get nice new growth regularly which produces the best berries.

Early stage of pond making. Had a biggish white container and have lined it with thick black plastic (just for looks). Then put lots of stones in the bottom and a brick to for a platform in case anything falls in that doesn't really want to be there (like a hedgehog, not that we've got any, but it would be GREAT if we did!)

View of pond area

Also put in an old washing up bowl next to the bigger tub and have put more stones around the edge. I knew I find a use for all those bloomin stones! You can also see the habitat pile made from some of the buddliea coppicing.

Close-up of the pond. We've got a pond in the back garden so I whipped out a few plants and some water from it for the new ponds, to get them going.

And lastly, just for interest, here's a new apple tree (Katy) we've put in. Note sneaky use of an old inner tube for the tree ties. There was a big flowering currant here before, which I eventually managed to grub out (with the help of an Azada - a really useful mattock-like tool purchased from Get-Digging, a Norfolk based mail order company) . It was a shame to see the currant go but it was massive and taking up too much space, plus you couldn't eat the berries!

I should say at this point that this and the last few posts have been from me (Lou) rather than Ms Idler....she's busy busy busy doing other stuff but I haven't got my own log in yet. So there you go!

The plot thickens

2009-03-11T22:36:00.023Z

Thought I'd put on some pics of what the allot looks like now....oooh and also planted out the onion sets today but didn't have a camera with me. We're growing Jetset which we got from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. Grew them last year and they seemed to do well.

Will just bung the photos on tonight but then add more info another time.

Here it is...

This view shows about 3 quarters of the length of the plot, facing south east-ish. There's a really overgrown bit behind me! Under the nets is white sprouting broccoli, which the old-boy whose garden backs on to our allotment gave us. We didn't know what it was going to be, he just said it was 'broccoli' so up til recently (when they started producing white floretty things) it was a bit of a mystery. And we didn't even know you could get white sprouting broccoli! It's very tasty.

Next to them are a few little leeks, which again are v tasty, but they didn't get very big. This was probably because we didn't add any compost or manure before planting them out (because we didn't have any)....just cleared all the brambles then put them in. They were ok for a first attempt though!

Blackcurrant starting to come into leaf...better photo to follow (this was taken on a camera phone)

We've got four raised beds, which I made from salvaged timber (oh plus a new one I recently made for strawberries). Unfortunately the planks had been treated with preservative but as the wood is so old, it's only the very centre of the planks that still has any left, so thought it was safe enough to use. Some of the planks had flaky paint on too but I made sure those sides faced outwards and didn't touch the beds themselves.

There are autumn onions (Radar) in the front half of the two nearest beds, and behind them, a few strawberries leftover that I couldn't find a home for (transplanted some and gave away quite a few). Actually these were all free because we uncovered some whilst clearing the plot and planted them up and..hey presto, runners a plenty and lots of little strawberry plants!

In the left rear bed is the winter tares (aka vetch) green maure and in the right rear bed are some leftover chards which will hopefully come back to life now spring is warming up.

Have cleared all the brambles from here this winter, ready to make way for a pond (well small tub sunk in the ground, anyway)

Part of the northern end of the plot...Lots more work to be done!

Summer raspberry canes, with compost bins in the background. The raspberries were also discovered whilst clearing the plot, but surprise surprise they were all over grown with brambles and we didn't realise they were there to start with (so most of the crop was wasted the first year cause the canes had flopped to the ground and the fruit got slugged and mushy). So I cleared them all out, and put them in rows and made supports with more scrap wood.

The compost bins are the ol' allotment staple...made from pallets! We made three, so there's one 'active' bin (i.e. one we chuck everything in) and the other two are at different stages of composting. To make the most of the space, I grow a pumpkin plant in each of the older bins. Seems to work well. Plus as we've been clearing lots of couch grass, the pumpkin plants help to keep the couch roots shaded and stop them re-growing. I've read that a lot of people burn their couch grass roots to make sure they're dead but we had far too many for that, so made kind of turf stacks from them instead. Some of the outer roots grew a bit, but on the whole they've died off, and the top soil from them has been pretty good.

There are two big buddlieas in the south eastern corner of the plot, which are a great habitat but take up a lot of space. So we decided to coppice the front one, and sorted all the branches into useful bits (long ones for wigwams etc). Any that were too thick, or bendy have been stacked in a habitat pile, for creepy crawlies.

Slightly different view, putting things into perspective.

The other bit of the northern end of the plot....including the new strawberry bed. That's the last of the salvaged wood, so no more raised beds for now. Hopefully we'll get a shed at some point to put up here. Oh, that white tub in the left is what will become the pond.

Things're growing!

2009-03-02T21:56:00.007Z

Yippee, the sprouting broccoli is finally sprouting and the tomato seedlings have germinated! Plus the Brussels sprouts and some lettuces have germinated too. Leeks are a no show so far. Maybe I should stop checking them every five minutes.

Broad Beans are go!

2009-02-27T21:51:00.007Z

These have also just recently shown themselves after planting at the beginning of November. We've put some wire mesh (found in a skip!) over the top to stop the birds getting at them. Hopefully it will do the trick.

Garlic

2009-02-27T21:51:00.005Z

I'm pleased these garlics have come up. They were planted in November so it's a relief to see them peeking through and that they haven't rotted in the ground. One of the benefits of having a well drained soil!

Seed sowing

2009-02-12T09:04:00.001Z

Managed to sow some "fruit" seeds by the 8pm biodynamic deadline! Sowed broad beans in toilet roll tubes, aubergine and tomato seeds - two seeds per module, wrapped them in bubble wrap, put the beans in the lean-to and the others near the radiator indoors to germinate. Next group in the biodynamic calendar is roots.

Vetch - green manure

2009-02-11T22:29:00.001Z

Vetch is the other green manure we're growing. It is nitrogen fixing and provides ground cover to help prevent nutrients leaching from our sandy soil over winter.

Sowing seeds

2009-02-09T17:28:00.003Z

We're going to try biodynamic sowing this year, as Lou was given a book on it for her birthday - The Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar by Maria & Matthias Thun.

It's quite specific with what you should sow when, sometimes to within a matter of hours! We'll have to see how well we stick to it. Tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday should be fruit - their classification includes tomatoes, beans and aubergines.

Well, we'll give it a go...

Green manure - Agricultural mustard

2009-02-06T14:43:00.002Z

We've sown green manures to help improve the soil. This is agricultural mustard which improves the soil structure when it's cut down and dug in, but doesn't fix nitrogen. We've got a really sandy soil so hopefully this will help it hold more water.

Bonfire

2009-02-04T21:14:00.007Z

We had a bonfire at the allotment at the weekend, in order to get rid of lots of the brambles, branches and other odds and sods. Nice cold weather, coming towards dusk, no-one will have their washing out.

All going well, getting rid of lots of stuff, the potatoes are in the fire cooking, when along come two PCSOs to check it out. Apparently someone had called the police because of the smoke. It wasn't even that bad, and who in they're right mind is going to have their windows open in these temperatures? Hey ho.

They were fine with us carrying on however, just wanted to check someone was there with the fire, so we did get to eat the fire roasted potatoes in the end.

New beginnings

2009-02-04T17:23:00.002Z

So winter's properly here. A few inches of snow are causing calamity in the UK, work colleagues struggle to make it through the elements... unfortunately we live a mere ten minutes from our work so we have no excuse. Happily however, the allotment is ideally located between home and work, just a few minutes walk away, and easily-poppable to during lunch in the week. This week has been a mix of snow, defrosting and then bright blue skies and warming sunshine, so it's difficult to know whether to make it over to the allotment during lunch or not. More snowstorms are forecast so once again not much allotmenting taking place.

Lou has been drawing up the seed chart in readiness for the sowing onslaught later. We have differing opinions on how to do this. She prefers the good old paper and pencil method whilst I've been trying to persuade her that a spreadsheet will easily show her what's to be sown first. We've hit a stalemate and gone for both...

2009 will definitely be a year of MORE! We recently ran out of last year's potatoes and it has felt very strange actually having to buy potatoes from a shop. So that's what normal people feel like... The ever-growing list of what we'll sow this year follows... garlic and broad beans are in...

Radish (scarlet globe, nerckarruhm, rudolph, sparkler)
Aubergine (black beauty)
Pepper (californian wonder)
Lettuce (salad bowl, cut and come again, cruha, roxy, corn salad)
Leek (atlanta, carentan, hannibal)
Chives (Grodau)
Basil (Sweet Genovese)
Cucumber (Marketmore, Crystal Lemon)
Courgette (Nero di Milano)
Broad Bean (Witkiem, Super Aquadulce)
Dwarf French Bean (Speedy, Slenderette)
Climbing French Bean (Blauhilde)
Runner Bean (Scarlet Emperor)
Spring Onion (White Lisbon)
Onion (Ramrod, Siberian, Jetset)
Sweetcorn (Incredible F1, Sweet Nugget)
Beetroot (Detroit 2 Bolivar, Golden)
Leaf Beet (Rainbow Chard, Swiss Chard)
Spinach (Giant Winter, Perpetual)
Carrot (Rothild, Nantes 2)
Pea (Rondo)
Cabbage (Wintergreen, Marner Lagerrot)
Savoy (Vertus)
Brussels Sprout (Nautic F1)
Borecole (Westland Winter)
Broccoli (Purple Sprouting)
Swede (Magres)
Kohl Rabi (Logo)
Celeriac (Prinz)
Parsnip (Turga)
Pumpkin
Butternut Squash
Squash (Kiri)
Potatoes (Cara, Colleen, Maris Bard - all chitting)
Tomato (Gardener's Delight)
Green Manure (Fenugreek, Vetch)