Peaking potatoes

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.

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

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?

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...

...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

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

Fruity!

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

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....

Sage in flower

Lovely sunset

Amorosa potatoes. Very tasty and no scab

Perfect peas

Broad bean soup...

..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!