In the Morning

Early morning visits are the norm now. We have a pleasant hour on sunny mornings, enjoying the wildlife, removing covers in the polytunnel, watering all the seedlings then back home to log in to work. The temperatures have been in low single digits in the early hours but warm up quickly during the day and the polytunnel gets really hot, so we go back in the evening to cover the seedlings up for the night.

Hawthorn - before and after pollination

The hawthorn in the hedgerow has bloomed over the last week and the scent is quite over-whelming. So beautiful especially with the blue sky and sunshine we had this weekend. It was windy so we were being continually showered with confetti.

Jamie mowed the paths while I stared at the tadpoles; there's at least one frog in the pond too, but it's laying low at the moment except for the occasional splosh. Jamie's sown our Lark sweetcorn and we're pleased that the Jack Be Little pumpkins germinated in the week - the plan is for them to trail around/over the sweetcorn plants. The Baby cucumbers, Bush Delicata squash and Mangomel melon are also in that tray. They need to grow at least another pair of leaves before we plant them outside.

I’ve transplanted the Radish Rats Tails and some of the larger of the Asparagus Pea seedlings. The six biggest plants I’ve actually planted out, but I’ve given them some cloche protection as they’re tiny and looked too vulnerable out in the big wide world!

Talking of the big wide World, we went to Newbury for the Vegan Food Market on Sunday. It made a nice change to be out for something other than the allotment or an appointment!

What a treat, people-watching in the lovely warm sunshine. And look at the plant-based hot dog I had - the Colorado Mountain - so delicious, makes me wish I was growing gherkins again as it was stocked up with them and other amazing fillings with a plant-based sausage in there somewhere!

The rest of the weekend was allotment-based and we got a lot of tidying done. Trying to keep our edges neat so the snails have fewer places to hide. I found about 20 giant snails in my 3 chive plants during the week!! I flung them over the hedge (the snails, that is) and they haven’t returned…yet.

The chive flowers are so pretty. I usually start making chive flower vinegar at this time but I’ll let the bees enjoy them for a while because there aren’t many other flowers available on our plot at the moment. (Note the neat edging).

 

We do have a few flowers but these aquilegia are by the polytunnel so aren't very noticeable - it's another area that could do with a tidy and improved edging.

 

All the potatoes have burst through - the ones in the bags have the same amount of growth as these in the ground. We did top them with a bit of soil the other night because we thought there may be a frost, but it was ok. The temperature at Marsh Lane is about 3° lower than in the town so we're keeping a close eye on the forecasts.

I sowed all our beans into root trainers yesterday. Eight of each variety: Yin Yang dwarf beans (home-saved), Scarlet Empire Runner Beans, Blue Lake Climbing French Beans and Firetongue Climbing Borlotti Beans. Hopefully they’ll germinate in the polytunnel and then the climbers will be planted to grow up the old polytunnel frame (previously the squash tunnel).

That was a most enjoyable weekend but now it's time for work. Have a good week all and happy growing! Here are The Coral.

Little Things

Still no rain and as everything is growing it's getting thirstier. Small fruits are appearing in the greenhouse: a couple of cute aubergines

Each of the pepper plants have multiple peppers on them - all green at the moment, but we should have yellow, red and orange.

We're so pleased that we finally have some carrot seeds that have germinated - they took a long time coming but we can just see them in a couple of rows now. Much more speedy to grow were the Pink/Purple Sun radishes - these were only sowed a week ago.

And our little salad turnips are coming along nicely - I'll let them get a bit bigger.

Unfortunately the rows of radishes which looked so great a week ago have mostly got too big and are no longer tasty so they're destined for the compost bin. Fellow-plotholder, Neal, let me have some of his lettuce seedlings so I've put them in the ground - they look pretty dead, but they usually recover...

They're filling the gap between our carrots and our Brussels sprout plants - our three plants had become two after some beastie got into our nursery plot, so we had to fill the gap with one of Ivan's spare seedlings. We've also planted up some runners from our strawberry plants - they were delicious but rather short-lived - not sure whether it was the weather or the variety. We need some plants which will provide delicious fruit later in the season.

We bit the bullet and bought some chemicals to spray the broad bean plants which look like they may survive the aphid attack to produce full beans... We bought the pesticide because we noticed blackfly moving onto the leaves of some of our other beans and it doesn't seem like the natural deterrents are working...

These are our Edamame (soya) beans. And at last the Asparagus Pea plants are getting slightly bigger, but they're usually quicker to grow than this.

This is the structure for our Rocky cucumbers to climb up - one chicken wire door each. I wonder if the cucumbers will hang down like we want them to...

But I still haven't worked out the climbing frame for the squashes.... how long have I been talking about this?!

So lots of things are growing, but most are pretty small at the moment which is why they need so much water. But these clouds that were building towards each other just dissipated and brought us not a drop...

If you're in the area - come and visit us!

Here's a track about all these little things, which will hopefully not take too much longer to be big things! (from Danny Elfman)

Lens-Shaped Things and...

...other stuff.
I had to use that title because of these clouds we saw just as we were leaving the site at about 9pm this evening. I understand they're called Lenticular Clouds e.g. lens-shaped or lentil-shaped! Cool, huh?

Hmm, so what else is lens-shaped..?
This stone - we're certain this is a worked stone tool (we're always hoping to find such things!). Jamie found it on Plot 3. It's lovely and smooth on the flat sides.

 The edge definitely appears to have been worked - that can't be natural surely??

Er.... Lens-shaped...?

No, but pretty

Ok, I've run out of lens-shaped things, so this is what we achieved during our very long day on the allotment.
Jamie did a lot more digging on plot 3 and made a raised bed to go on that plot. We want to grow more chinese radish on there under cover so they have nice white skins.
I sorted out the greenhouse and we're now all planted up - no room for anything else. In fact, there may not be room for the things we've got in there if they grow well!

I'm feeling rather smug about the frame over the gherkins as I cannibalised several old cages to make it. I've hung strings down from the roof for the gherkins to begin their climb before they grab hold of the mesh.

Three Cornichon Paris Vert (mini gherkins)

Thanks to plotholder, Jonathan, for this healthy looking plant. Long cucumbers, so it's got some mesh to grab onto and hopefully the cucumbers will hang down through the shelving.

Burpless Cucumber

Thanks again to Jonathan for these two Tomatillo plants. They're like cape gooseberries, with Chinese lantern style fruits. Good for salsa when they're green (apparently) and jam when the fruits go purple. These are liable to grow out of control - they really need a metre to spread all round, so may need moving if they don't use the mesh as intended...

So, including two peppers (one chilli and one bell) and 2 tomato plants, there it is. All planted up. We've put some marigold in front of the tomato plants - to encourage bees/hoverflies for pollination and deter whitefly.

Yay! The asparagus peas have developed flowers. So pretty.

The plants always look sad initially as they grow flat to the ground, but they should bush out in time.

And here's the start of the courgettes...

Planting! And Sunshine!

The sun shone for much of the day and by lunchtime the wind had ceased so we were safe to do quite a lot of planting, including this row of  Russian Giant sunflowers along the back of Plot 7. There are 7 plants which range in height from about 20 - 50cm at the moment.

Plots 7 and 3 have each gained Defender courgettes, with pots which may make it easier to water once the plants get big. They're planted on top of a hole filled with manure, for moisture retention and nourishment.

Plot 3 has the first of its Jack of All Trades pumpkins, plus a Curry plant (herb) which we bought yesterday. It really does smell of curry and you can apparently add it to vegetables and rice for flavouring. It's very pretty with silver leaves and it gets yellow flowers which can also be used in cooking.

Curry Plant

This pumpkin plant has rather a long stem and given that it's been such a windy year we're protecting it for a while with a netted cloche. Hopefully it will soon be big and strong enough to not need the protection.

We planted out the two grafted Lizzano tomato plants - they're happy outside in pots but the pots need to be tall as they trail and get huge (at least they have over the last couple of years). The top pot has the bottom cut out of it, so the plant has all that soil (plus manure) to grow roots into.

Lizzano Tomato

Jamie's sown the Rocky cucumbers, at home, for planting out later. We're hoping they'll grow up a trellis.
I planted some asparagus pea plants on Plot 3 and transplanted some spare lettuce seedlings that haven't really got a home - better to put them in Plot 3 than compost them...

Asparagus seedling

We found this little nettle weevil in my hair when I got home! Cute!

Bye!

Signs of Things to Come

So after catching the sun yesterday (naughty - I didn't put any suncream on) I was quite relieved that it wasn't so sunny today (that isn't something anyone would normally hear me say, but I've got transplant clinic on Wednesday!!). We had a lovely few hours on the site this afternoon and enjoyed chatting to other plotholders.

We sowed some wild flowers at the back of Plot 8 and Jamie sowed night stocks at the front, by the bench, so hopefully we'll have some warm fragrant evenings on the plot this year! Maybe eating strawberries - look at that little beauty! (PLEASE don't let there be another frost!!)

Not so busy today. Though I did plant out a few asparagus pea plants - along the front of the plot as the flowers are so pretty and they need to be accessible to get all those delicious pods picked when they're still small and tasty.
Also, rainbow chard (a couple of plants of each colour: yellow, pink, orange & red) which are the other side of the same quarter, again for easy access as I like chard raw in salads so eat it regularly. And it looks really stunning if the sun catches it right.
The remaining seedlings I've potted on as replacements if the planted plants disappear or as spares for fellow plotholders if they want them... They're looking a little sad immediately after transplanting but they should cheer up in a couple of days.

This is our Tiger Nuts pot - known as Chufa in Spain. They make a lovely drink called Horchata which I really enjoyed in Tenerife. Hopefully in the late Autumn we'll get some chufa and be able to make our own... The grass-like plant has to be kept wet, hence the green trug-thing...with the escape route for the insects which are always drawn to water then drown in it! I saw a frog today too so perhaps he'll fancy a dip.

Our rhubarb is still going strong, giving us plenty of stalks whenever we want it - these raspberry red plants are definitely worth growing as the rhubarb stays red after cooking.

Colourful Days

The last two weekends have been good allotment weather - weirdly warm for the time of year, even at night. On the last weekend of October we made up the new bed for another row of strawberries. We piled up a mixture of home-made compost and the well-rotted manure. Then covered the row in weed suppressant.

Jamie cleared the Desiree potato rows and disposed of any which looked slightly dodgy, but we got a fair few gigantic ones which make delicious mash and one potato makes plenty for both of us!

We did a lot of weed clearing - there's so much grass which is where all the slugs are hiding. The plot looks much prettier again now! And look at the asparagus peas! They just won't stop growing. 

Our Tundra cabbages are looking good, considering their sad start and are just starting to form heads. We had to remove quite a few caterpillars from under the netting.

So, we left with some pretty veggies including a couple of Hooligan(!) squashes from fellow-plotholder, Jonathan. Thanks!

November arrived and still the temperatures aren't falling but it rained hard overnight on Saturday. Sunday afternoon was ok so we got our eight strawberry plants into their new bed.

The rhubarb plants have died back completely and the area looks good with no weeds and two (Jamie-neat) circles of manure & compost mix.

I picked a lovely bunch of carrots for tea and some lunch soups. I also picked some par-cel which Jamie added to our mash - our flat smells of celery, mmmm, yum!

Some of the carrots have a bit of carrot fly damage.

We left as the sun started to go - too early now the clocks have fallen back. Aah look how pretty and berry-laden the hedge is.