Cloud Watching

A lovely sunny afternoon on the plot yesterday. It wasn't a quick visit, but this is a quick blogpost. Apart from weeding and hoeing I sowed some radish (black ones) and turnip (Atlanta) in the little raised bed on Plot3. It's next to the curry plant, which has such an amazing smell! I think we shouldn't have let it flower, but look how pretty the buds are.
I made this timelapse using Lapse-It on my phone. Just watch the clouds and get lost for a minute....

We planted out calendula and marigolds. The poor plants were all rather pot-bound, but they should recover, although they may not be as bushy as the plants that were planted a couple of weeks ago. I cleared some of the enormous fallen stems from the rhubarb - a real haven for slugs! Right beside our strawberries.

But are these the slugs that do the damage? I'm not sure. These are more interested in decomposing matter, according to the DEFRA slug site - where they mention the UK's largest slug....25cm long - Aaarrgh, lucky it's a woodland slug so we shouldn't stumble across that on the allotment!!

Now That's a Turnip!

I have recently heard at least three people say they get confused between parsnips and turnips. I have a solution, this book cover can now be in your mind's eye whenever a turnip (or parsnip) is mentioned!

An enormous parsnip would be more difficult to pull, even for the whole family :-)

Forgive the unusual post, but it came to mind after reading this Brown Envelope Seeds blogpost today. I've been inside most of the day reading blogs and sorting out our seeds for this year. We have a few more to buy. Hopefully we'll get our seed potatoes bought from Charlton Park Garden Centre in Wantage this week. They do a large selection of varieties and it's possible to buy individual tubers rather than huge bagfuls. It does mean the potatoes will be chitting for a long time, but it should mean we get the varieties we actually want!

Waiting for Rain and getting some!

We went up in the afternoon yesterday in the hope that we'd get caught in a rainstorm, we watched it moving towards up, getting darker and the wind started up but we only felt a few drops. As we got home the heavens opened and we got a lot of rain overnight and this morning. 11mm in total

The plots look so happy after rain and the weeds appreciate it even more! Above is some of the Asparagus Pea which are very pretty (but don't need a trellis).
Below is one of the Uchiki Kuri squash plants - I'm going to need to cut back some off-shoots. It would happily cover 4 poles I think!

We're a bit concerned about one of our Brussel Sprouts plants - it's leaves are going rather curly. We'll keep an eye on it but may need to pull it up in an attempt to prevent any cross-infection.

I'm also unsure of what to do with my Florence (bulb) fennel. After all the panic as the slugs were munching their way through it earlier in the year, it's come on really well. However, how big are they meant to get before eating? I wanted to keep them for soup but they look like they're mature now.

This is the biggest one - as big as my palm and quite pump. Is it ok to leave it to carry on growing?

 

This is my herb fennel. It's really tall and has flowered. The flying insects really love it, so I'm leaving it to grow as it's not really something I will use much for cooking and it looks very pretty.

The runner beans are also looking beautiful with masses of flowers. There are a few beans forming but not sure whether they'll be ready to win 'longest runner bean' this year (or even come second as we did last year...)

Just as it began to rain again this afternoon, we left the plot with a lovely selection of veggies which will cover us for a few meals.

International Kidney potatoes on the left and Orla on the right. You can tell the Orla as the slugs love them :-(

Salad and Accent Potatoes for Dinner

Another boiling hot day meant an early morning visit, for watering the HAHA plot and Neal's plot (while he's on his hols) and then a late afternoon visit for watering our plots. It was beginning to get a bit cloudy in the afternoon but still sweltering and gorgeous!

We picked for our dinner - the first of our carrots - very skinny at the moment and super-sweet. Perfect for salad. The potato plant we pulled is Accent. Extremely tasty potatoes, but again not many tubers - though enough to cover a dinner and a lunch, so not too bad. The Atlantic turnips are delicious - they're the ones that are meant to taste of melon. We don't cook them, just have them sliced; they're peppery and so fresh tasting. Lovely.

 

Seedy Sunday

We managed to get most of our seeds sown this afternoon. It was warm and bright and the wind had dropped since yesterday - Thank Goodness.
Our potatoes have started to appear. This is the most advanced in the second row - it appears to be a Red Duke of York which fits in with the plan, so that's a good start!

These are two rows of Paris Silverskin onions, for pickling, and one row of Apache red salad onions. I'll hopefully succession sow a few more rows of salad onions in here too. As ever, my rows aren't straight, but they're labelled and topped with seed compost so whatever :-)

This is Jamie, very neatly, sowing our carrots, Sugarsnax F1. Three rows under the enviromesh cover. He used a wooden pole to make the straight drills - wish I'd done that for the onions!

We also sowed the following and they've gone into the greenhouse:

• Tom Thumb lettuce (half a tray)
• Lambs Lettuce (corn salad) Cavallo (half a tray)
• Swiss Chard Bright Lights (I've sown these in modules so I can keep the most colourful ones)
• Celeriac Asterix F1 (in modules)
• Brussels Nelson F1 (in pots)
• Cabbages Minicole F1 (in pots)

The squashes are sown 3 per pot (apart from the Cornells Bush Delicata). I really only want one of each type but I'm sure the others will find homes if they germinate and grow.

• Winter Squash Cornells Bush Delicata (in pots)
• Winter Squash Uchiki Kuri (in pots)
• Courgette Ambassador (normal green type) (in pots)
• Courgette Floridor F1 (round yellow type) (in pots)

These were sown into the raised bed:

• Turnip Oasis
• Radish French Breakfast 3
• Radish Chinese Dragon

 

And night scented stock have been sown around the grape hyacinths so they'll produce a lovely evening fragrance when we're sitting on our bench.



First Sprouts and Kohl Rabi

We had a few hours on the plot this afternoon - mostly socialising and a bit of HAHA chat but also did what we intended to do. We took the fleece off the squash. The temperature had got down to 3.5° so the squash are fine but the Leonaris has succombed a bit and the asters are flat to the ground :-(

We pulled the sprout plant which had the mouldy section. I tried to pull it in one go but it snapped so not sure it would have stayed intact much longer anyway! We got quite a few sprouts from it which will go into bubble and squeak tomorrow.

We also pulled a few of the kohl rabi - I forgot to sow the next lot of succession but as the slugs are starting to eat them it's not a bad thing! We grew some in 2009 and 2010 but they have always got ravaged before we can eat them - that's why they're under mesh this year.We should have another harvest and then that area can be cleared - it should be where I'm putting fruit trees in next year..

I also pulled the last good carrots - two are really good; the other two would have been perfect for the funniest veg competition in September!!
All our onions are gone so my carrot and coriander soup is being made with spring and silverskin onions - I'm not sure they'll add much flavour, but waste not want not...! I'm using coriander seeds which I picked and dried yesterday.
The last thing in the trug is two Atlantic turnips (thanks Malcolm!) - we swapped a kohl rabi for them. That's another great thing about the allotment - swapping and freebies!

First full trug of goodies this year

Very pleased to have taken this trugful of food home today - our first broad beans of the year. At last! I can only just remember how tasty they are!!

We pulled two potato plants - 800grams of Belana and just over 1kg of Orla - we're going to bake some of the larger ones tomorrow. All the other salady bits will be perfect for my lunch over the next couple of days. Now this is the bonus of having an allotment that I love :-)
Unfortunately the little turnips were brown inside so they went straight into the compost and one of the radishes didn't make it out of the kitchen as I couldn't resist - phew! - it was a little hot!!

Tiny tomatoes

Our first (very) little tomatoes are showing on the plants and we have beans on our dwarf french - should be ready for next weekend I reckon along with the beetroot which are bulbing up nicely now.

Jamie sowed Peewee 65 petit pois in the root trainer modules last week (7th July) and they're just peeping through the soil now. They're waiting in our net cloche along with the leeks - which still aren't 'pencil width' but are getting quite big... We've just about pulled all the potatoes to make room for them on the potato quarter now, so weather-permitting we'll get them puddled in over the next couple of weeks.

Peas & leeks in waiting

First Trug of the season

At last we got back to the plot. The last week has been mostly rainy and windy with a few glimpses of sunshine. Everyone's feeling down about the weather and it's reflected in our plot. It's really not looking as happy as it should as we get close to Midsummer!

First trug

We pulled our first Belana potato, just as it started to rain again today. They've been in the ground 10 weeks and the flowers have just opened. We were expecting them to have small new potatoes and that's what we got - 11 of them (just 380g). There were about 6 not-fully formed ones too so in a couple of weeks we hope to get a few more spuds from each plant.
We also pulled some little turnips, some chives and another handful of mange tout. Looks a bit nouveau cuisine but hopefully they'll be nice added to salad tonight!

The runner beans have grown a bit taller but aren't wrapping round the canes as they keep getting blown about. But some good news is that the recently sown broad beans and french beans have sprouted. Jamie planted the four leonaris on Plot 8 - they look really healthy. We just need some sunshine now so that they grow nice orange flowers!

Garden Chafer

Found this little chap sitting in the mange tout flowers last Sunday, This is one of the bugs that emerges from the white grubs that we found masses of whilst digging in the last year.

Summer's here!

Jamie went to the plot in the early afternoon. Did some more digging of the new plot but nearly killed himself in the process - well, it was about 25°! I joined him after work but mostly sat in the sunshine and watered a bit later in the evening. Incredible weather! The little greenhouse reached 45° - we took the plants out and left them under mesh overnight. Sunshine should reduce the number of slugs round the place.

Geoff kindly gave us some of his spare mange tout plants so they're planted the other side of the mesh from the sweet peas. I've protected them with mesh as pigeons love them.
I only took 10 plants; Jamie doesn't like mange tout so they'll be something else for my lunchbox - I think I may need more than an empty ice-cream tub by the amount of veg I'm going to have to eat!!

Mange Tout

Our Lizzano F1 tomato plug plants arrived from Dobies - they're supposedly blight resistant and are tumblers so we'll need to put them in a biggish pot so they don't just tumble on the ground and go rotten.

The coriander seeds have just sprouted and I've put chicken wire over the turnips as the pigeons are rather partial to those little seedlings too - forgot they enjoyed them last year!

Happy St Georges Day (for tomorrow!)

We managed to get some work done today before we got drenched and had to run for cover in the container.

Jamie cleared the area where the leonaris flowers are going to be planted - four of the six seeds have germinated at home in the cloche now. He was attempting to clear all the raspberry plants which have re-appeared since the area was last cleared!

I sowed a row of Oasis turnips - we had some last year. They are meant to taste of melon; not too sure of that description but they are a tasty treat whilst at the plot and they're nice in salads.

We sowed ten Speedy dwarf beans in paper potter pots and put them in the cloche. I also filled the gaps where some of the broad beans haven't yet come up.
There were several terns flying around - they make a lot of noise over the canal and Freemans Marsh. They seem to fight a lot!

Tern

We got the flag up for St Georges Day and then went home with very wet clothes :-(

Sitting in the sunshine

Went to the plot in the morning. Only intended to pick a few spuds and a cabbage, but ended up picking some other bits for my sister. I took all the remaining courgettes - there are still a few more flowers but not sure they'll have time to grow as frost is threatened...

It was lovely and sunny and really quite warm so we just sat in the sun for a bit, watching other people clearing their plots.
And we saw a steam train go by - I was shooting into the sun so actually missed the engine, but the smoke looks quite artistic :-)

Still growing

We pulled our second purple spud and got a whole trugful. Also pulled the biggest turnip and ate that raw as a snack. It's one of the Oasis ones that are meant to taste like melon - not sure about that, but it was lovely and sweet. Also picked some sage to add to a baked potato. All the herbs have gone a bit mad and generally won't survive the winter so I'll use what I can before they're chopped right back or before the frosts come!

There are a couple of little peppers on our pepper plants. I can't think that they'll go red but hopefully they'll still be edible sometime soon.

Growing, harvesting and preserving

The weather is making it feel like it's later in the year than it is, but things are still growing on the plot. Our little turnips are looking good, though pigeons (or something) have eaten quite a few of the leaves on some of the plants.

Our Rocky cucumber is going off at right-angles to where we wanted it to grow, but it's got lots of little cucumbers appearing and we've picked 3 in the last couple of days.

A bit disappointed that the crimson broad beans didn't actually produce crimson beans - though the flowers were very pretty. We've got our first harvest of these for dinner tonight along with Kestrel spuds. Still picking loads of carrots (living on carrot soup most of the time for lunch!) and patty pans are for dinner tomorrow.

We also picked masses of runner beans. We're making chutney this afternoon with 1lb of them (using our usual recipe, but with red onions and the runner beans) and the rest will be for Jamie tomorrow and for me to take to work.

Green Manure

We sowed mustard, as green manure, yesterday in the middle section where the onions/shallots were. We grew this last year and it just gets dug in when it's died down after the frosts. This quarter is going to be for the legumes next year. So, at the moment it's turnips, green manure and horse manure under black plastic.. The turnips have just started showing a white bulb.

We're picking one of the red cabbages tomorrow, so this is the last photo of it growing - there's a lot of caterpillar damage, hope there's enough edible stuff left for us!

Turnips planted for winter

Another warm day and annual leave meant we spent a few hours up the plot this afternoon.

We've moved some of the better looking shallots to dry onto the metal cage - we'll pickle that lot first. In the space on Plot 7 we sowed 2 rows of turnips - Atlantic and Oasis (which are melon-flavoured, apparently).
I took all the grotty-looking leaves off the onions and tickled round the bulbs and you can see they look really healthy!

The runner beans have climbed to the top of the wigwam and have lots of flowers - no sign of beans setting yet, a good job really as we've got plenty of broad beans and peas to keep us going.
Tonight we're having our first ever baked spuds from the plot - 2 lovely big Orlas.