Preparing the way

As well as planting the potatoes we did some tidying. Jamie edged the plot and I mowed the paths to get the grass cuttings for adding to the potato trenches.

The excess earth from the potato trenches was dug into the other plot quarters and we dug a circular trench (1m round) for the runner bean wigwam. We filled the trench with 2 bags of Countrycare Products mushroom compost which we use for water retention but have found previously that it all disappears over the year so the beans and worms must like it!

Look at these silly ducks - they seem not to have noticed the canal running alongside our allotments so were drinking out of a tiny puddle!

There were quite a few other people on the site even though the weather wasn't too great. We spotted Malcolm converting his old divan into carrot cloches covered with fleece.
Aren't zoom lenses good?  :-)

And lastly, if anyone in a position of power reads this blog - we really need a shed!!

Jamie carrying everything to reduce the number of trips to the container

Spuds are in!

Today we planted up two rows of First Earlies. Three different varieties:

• Belana (4)
• Red Duke of York (2)
• Orla (2)
• Chopin (8)

We mixed up shredded packaging paper (thanks, Amazon!) and grass cuttings for the bottom of the 25cm deep trenches. This should help with water retention and the grass will add some acidity. That layer was topped with the Westland Organic Farmyard manure (from Hungerford's Garden Centre) which has been sitting on the plot for a few months - it had lots of worms in it and we gave it a drenching.

A small layer of earth was added and then the chitted potatoes were put at a depth of about 12cm and then covered completely with our very dry earth.

 The dry edges of the trench were crumbling away as we dug although it did drizzle for much of the day. We still haven't mastered the art of straight lines!

Onions and Shallots

Our onions and shallots are looking pretty happy. Nearly all of them have sprouted; we'll give them a week and pull any which don't want to grow as they may be diseased. Some of the shallots leaves get caught up in the skins so I gave them a helping hand and released the leaves so they can stretch out properly. We've put the newly-sown leeks in with the covered shallots so they get plenty of light.

Freed shallot

Happy onions

I found this fly on the outside of the shallot enviromesh but am pleased to say it isn't an onion fly! It's a Bibio johannis apparently so generally eats decayed vegetation and grass roots.


Bibio johannis



And lastly, we marked up the rows for our spuds - we intend to get two rows planted up tomorrow. We've planned about 45cm between each row to leave enough dirt and room for earthing up.
We've shredded lots of paper and have grass cuttings to add to the bottom of the trenches, mainly for water retention.

Sow & Sow!

We had a good day on the plot today. It was a lovely morning, especially when the sun was shining and only got a bit chilly later in the afternoon. Still cold overnight though -4° at some stage in the last week!

We actually managed to do some sowing in between talking to our plot-holder buddies who had all turned up today. We've sowed:

• White Gem parsnips; just 14 under enviromesh (to protect from carrot fly) but 3 seeds per hole - it's brutal but we'll cut off the two weakest seedlings if they do all germinate.
• Early Nantes 2 carrots; 3 short rows under enviromesh as we intend to eat them small.
• Purple Haze carrots; 1 short row next to the Early Nantes rows.
• Silverskin onions; 2 rows under enviromesh (to protect from leek moth) - sown crowded so that they hopefully form lovely small, round onions for pickling!
• White Lisbon spring onions; 1 row in the bed with the Silverskins. Hope to succession sow these this year.
• Oarsman leeks; 30 in individual pot trays.
• Marionette mix marigolds; 2 trays covered with vermiculite. Not just because they're pretty - they will be near the tomatoes which should mean they mask the smell to put the whitefly off. Also they're so bright they encourage other friendly beasties to the plot e.g. hoverflies, bees, etc.

  

  New cold frame for some of our seeds

Back home

We're home from hols and apparently missed some amazing hot (20°+) and sunny days over the last week, though the thermometer showed that the minimum was -0.5°.

Whilst in Tenerife we saw that the locals are growing lots of potatoes. Some had even harvested some - well it is the island of eternal spring.

This was near La Oratova (up the mountain-side) where they get a lot of cloudy, misty weather so we figure they must mainly stick to growing early varieties to avoid blight. Lovely to see something so familiar growing amongst grape vines and orange trees!

Quick trip to the plot this morning to see what we've missed. Our shallots and onions have a lot more greenery showing. The salad seeds and radishes have sprouted - but no sign of the corn salad or broad beans yet.
We watered everything as there's been no rain but under the surface the earth is still quite damp.
Now we need to start sowing, but not today!

Signs of Life!

Our first shoots have appeared - a couple of the onions have sprouted. None of the other onions or shallots have joined them yet, but the temperature did get to -3° over the last couple of days so I don't blame them for staying wrapped up! So warm today that I'm sure it won't be long now...

The strawberries and raspberries have got new leaves sprouting so hopefully by the time we get back to the plot (not till beginning of April) we'll find a few more spots of green and not just weeds!!
Then we'll be ready to start planting spuds and sowing some more seeds - goodo!

Have you seen this film?

http://film.britishcouncil.org/grow-your-own

This is quite an old film now - 2007 - but if you haven't seen it and you have an allotment then you should watch it.
There are certain to be a few characters you recognise from your own allotment site!

Well, we liked it :-)

Potatoes - more chitting

Robert on the allotment gave us some unwanted Chopin potatoes - so they've gone to join our other spuds which are still chitting in my mum's spare (cold) bedroom.
We hadn't heard of Chopin potatoes and couldn't find them on the Potato Council website, but found this article about them and they sound like a good one to try.

Chopin Potatoes

9 weeks on our other potatoes are looking healthy, with the chits not getting too long - they've got another couple of weeks before we intend to put them in the ground.

We've planned out the potato quarter now, so I can't accept any more potatoes from anyone! It's so hard to say no to freebies though!

We've muddled the varieties in the rows a bit because we want to clear the belana when they're very small and some of the others to make room for our leeks. Because we're going to be planting the leeks at the bottom of the quarter we don't want to make it too acidic but the top two rows we are going to be adding Thompson & Morgan "Brimstone Rapide" to the soil. This should hopefully result in the potatoes which are staying in the ground for longer not being as scabby as they have been previously. Not that scabby potatoes taste bad, but they don't look very pretty!

(I've updated the plan on the Crop Rotation plan tab)

At last - some sowing!

Finally, we've sown something - nothing too exciting yet, we're not risking it after the late (late May) frosts we had last year.
So, Jamie sowed 12 broad beans (Suttons), where the Aqua Dulce died, and put their protective cloches on straightaway to stop the mice getting fed before us. We always put a handful of seed compost at the bottom of each hole before dropping the bean in.
We'll get more broad beans sown later in the year too as they're so tasty.

Plastic bottle cloches

And I sowed 3 small rows of salad crops in the raised bed: corn salad (2 year old seed so not sure how good that will be), radish (Dragon F1 Hybrid) and mixed lettuce (I've bought 2 bags of salad leaf from Tescos recently and I really begrudge doing it!!).
This cloche is covered with a green plastic cover and it's quite dark but the salad seems to do ok in there.

The intention is that I'll sow additional rows of each item in about 3 weeks so there'll be a bit of succession growing - though I recall saying that last year and it didn't work out right.

Digging

Jamie did a lot of digging over the last week and has finished the potato quarter - hooray!

Potato quarter

And yesterday he dug a little patch, adding some sand, for spring onions and silverskin onions. Hoops at the ready for enviromesh.

I cleared the area by the bench, took the crazy mint pot home and transplanted the out-of-control sage at the end of plot 8A - just because it would be a shame to throw it away. So I tidied up the herbs and have a pot waiting for par-cel and need another big pot for basil. I split the chives up and have planted them directly into the ground with quite a lot of room for spreading. We're going to sow coriander directly into the ground by the carrot and parsnip trenches.

Herb garden looking a little sad, but it'll be fine...