Not All Weeds are Weedy

This one certainly isn't - Horsetail (Equisetum arvense). It's an interesting plant which has been around since prehistoric times and will likely be around on Plot 3 (our new one) forever! It grows through spores from cone-like tips, earlier in the season, and through its creeping roots (rhizomes) now.

You can see that the blue-black stem looks dead but left in the ground a shoot will soon appear ...

...followed by green growth. The resultant fairy forests really are very pretty, but not in the middle of our vegetable plot. The weed has ~2m deep roots and pulls nutrients from deep down in the earth, so doesn't actually cause a whole lot of problems to other plant growth (hmmm...watch this space).

The 'leaves' break into sections. These leaves are silica-rich and can be used for strenghthening your nails and hair and stopping bleeding. All this information may be tested at some point...though probably not through ingestion (at least not by me!). More likely It's used in Japan for polishing wood and metal - I did use it once to polish stainless steel - but I think the vinegar and bicarb were doing most of the work!

We got about 2 bags of weed and roots out of that area and then dug a couple of barrows of manure in. That should encourage the worms to do their bit and then we're going to plant some broad beans on that part of the plot.

We found a lot of these tubers - they look rather like oca. I think they belong to a weed, but not sure what sort. It looks like forget-me-not but I don't remember the roots looking like that.

Fresco Como una Lechuga!

(Corrections are expected and appreciated!!)

Este blogpost es para mis amigos de curso de español. Hablo siempre de mi huerta tan aqui lo es! 

Eses nosotros dos huertas; de 125m² en total

Hace el sitio en Hungerford desde 2009. Jamie, mi pareja, y yo hemos cultivido vegetales aqui desde el principio. Hay mas que 100 otras jardineros al sitio.

El Marsh Lane Sitio

Este año hemos comenzado una huerta nueva - otros 50m². Es muy dificil cavar.

Huerta Numero 3

Aqui cultivamos nuestra ajo y ensalada.

Estan las patatas de Tenerife. Le parece frio si hace mal tiempo! Son mas pico que los otras patatas.

Papas arrugadas

Estoy esperando este año cultivamos muchas vegetales y podamos hablar de las! Cebollas, tomates, ajos, habas verdes, pepinos y calabacíns. Delicioso!

Si teneis suerte habéis unas fresas pronto!

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.

Sow Far Sow Good

We didn't expect it to be so hot today but it was lovely and mostly sunny. A great day for getting a lot of our seeds sown...Here goes...

Scarlet Empire runner beans, Oarsman leeks and Revenge sprouts in modules.

Best of All swede direct into the ground.

Albion Parsnips and 3 varieties of carrot (Purple Sun, Eskimo & Primo) direct into the ground. The parsnips have bottle cloches for protection and, as usual, are sown 3 per station - we'll only keep the best seedlings. The carrots are in 2 rows under enviromesh.

American cress (like watercress, but doesn't need running water (apparently)) into a pot, which will stay behind the greenhouse, as it likes a bit of shade.

Some Empress of India Nasturtium  and Radish Rats Tails in an empty spot near the compost bins.

Paris Silverskin onions in the raised bed with the beets. And, the beets I planted out last week are Cylindria, not Boltardy as I've been thinking!

Tenerife spuds

Here's a timelapse of part of our day ...

Wrap Up Warm

Tonight it would seem we're going to get a frost. The sky is completely clear and it does feel a bit nippy, so, better to be safe than sorry...
That's our potatoes completely earthed up. The little Tenerife ones have an additional fleece covering - we could hear them shivering already :-{

We had some more fleece so covered the strawberry plants which have the most flowers. The other plants may get frosted, but it's only the flowers that will be affected at this stage.

Aw, and my poor little lettuces - not sure that this cloche will help. But surely it won't be a harsh frost...

Hopefully the seedlings in the greenhouse will be ok...


 

Know Your Enemies

I got screeched at by a couple of jackdaws! They weren't happy when I stopped them jumping along behind the frog which was trying to hop away in the long grass - poor froggy was only a little fella. Anyway, he got away safe. I wish the jackdaws would concentrate on slugs and snails, not the good guys!
We did a lot of weeding, tidying and feeding today - our strawberries have had a bit of tomato feed and are now netted as tiny strawberries are just beginning to develop.

This is the site after it's been tidied

Jamie completely dug and weeded the quarter where our parsnips and carrots are going - alongside our onions. I planted my purple-podded mangetout outside. I'm growing them up an obelisk. They're well-protected at present otherwise the pigeons wouldn't be able to resist. I don't intend to leave the bottle cloches on once they've got a bit bigger. I've planted all 11 plants, so the obelisk may get a bit overcrowded if they all survive. I'm hoping I'll be able to get at the pods...I'm guessing the flowers grow on the outside facing the sun so that's where I'm hoping the pods will end up!

I also planted out some of the Little Gem and Tom Thumb lettuce outside. I'm not protecting them as we have plenty, but may have to take action if pigeons, pheasants or slugs step up...

All the Boltardy beetroot are planted out now too - this is a part of allotment life that I love; filling in the gaps with tiny plants and watching them grow into food - hopefully mostly for me and Jamie! They're under cover, but only because they're going to share the small raised bed with Silverskin onions, which should be sowed soon.

Our Tenerife spuds are emerging in the bags! Not showing enough for a photo yet, but tell-tale humps in the soil. They obviously prefer the warmth of the bags more than in the ground at the moment.

And here are our bell pepper and chilli pepper. They've grown a lot since we bought them in Wilko a few weeks ago. They're staying at home for the timebeing...

Rhubarb Rhubarb!

Don't worry, I'm not talking about the bloomin' election media! I've had quite enough of that! But here are our two huge rhubarb plants providing us with our first food from the allotment this year (not counting salad and herbs).

I 'lomo-ish'ed the photo in Picasa

The slugs and snails have discovered our greenhouse. A snail nibbled three of the gherkin seedlings - he got winged over the hedge! I'll be re-sowing the remaining seeds soon.

Adding slug pellets too late

As you can see, I'm not risking my lovely little Florence fennel seedlings and have put slug pellets in the trays.

I also put slug pellets in the raised bed around the salad crops yesterday because I saw a few leaves had been eaten. Today I found about 10 dead slugs and snails :-( Not nice. At least they're leaving some seedlings alone at the moment...these are Cornells Bush Delicata squash

and beets.

The beetroot really ought to be planted out this weekend, but I'll transplant the squashes into larger pots and let them grow on in the greenhouse for a while yet.

We cut the grass and cleared some of the edges as that's where the slugs and snails love to hide - that is the trouble with having grassed paths, although they do look good.

Ooh! The Pain!

Ah, I needed that bath! After about 6 hours on the allotment - on the new plot. Phew, digging is hard work again! I'd like to show an 'After' shot but it's so insignificant you'd barely notice the difference! So, here's a picture of the one and only flower on the plot - a calendula left over from last year. It shines out like a beacon. Jamie transplanted it from the edge on Saturday.

Of course, when I say 6 hours on the allotment - the digging didn't quite fill that time. We had the good idea of taking wine and olives to have lunch on the little table and chairs that were left by the previous tenant. It was a great idea - but didn't make the digging any easier..!

We've just about finished digging the first 1/2 metre in from the path; so much couch grass! So much tree/hedge root! So much work! Lucky it's Jamie's plot ;-)

Nice to see the site from a different perspective

I have a panorama photo Google app on my iPad, so I took that to the site and made a 360° panorama of Plot 7/8 which you can see if you click here.

I then made another of the whole site  which captures a few of the plotholders too. 

I should have taken photos into the sky a bit so that it wouldn't have this curved letterbox look.. I still rather like them.

The garlic is growing well on Plot 8. It was looking a little yellow, so I watered it with Epsom Salts yesterday - the salts add magnesium to the soil which allows the plants to take in the nutrients they need and improves photosynthesis (so the leaves should 'green up' a bit).

These are my transplanted lettuces from yesterday. I was pleased the ones outside the wire survived the night, I thought the pigeons or other birds may find them too irresistible.

He's Only Gone and Done It Again!

Jamie that is. He's taken on another plot... well, Plot 3 has recently been given up and the site has quite a few empty so he's doing the site a favour <ahem>. I'm pleased too, the greenhouse is taking up a bit more space than expected so I may need to transfer my courgettes onto Plot 3 too - it's intended to be the pumpkin patch.

Jamie's sprayed Round-Up on the back of the plot to clear some of the couch grass and dug along the hedge-edge to mark the boundary - it's about 2 poles (50m²) and has some raspberry canes and a rhubarb plant already growing on it.
The ground was so dry yesterday that Jamie found it very hard digging but there's been lots of rain today and overnight so we may get to work on it tomorrow.

Look who made themselves at home on our bench while we weren't watching! There are so many pigeons about but luckily the hedgerow and tree buds are mostly keeping them fed at the moment.
Our seedlings are coming along well in the greenhouse. There's life in most of the pots and trays, though still waiting for the Defender courgettes to make a show...

Purple-podded peas

I transplanted some of the thinned lettuce seedlings in the raised bed. I also sowed a few more spring onions and radish - I've been nibbling a few radishes recently, but not enough to make a proper salad yet.

The strawberry plants are covered in flowers. Unfortunately the black centres mean that the flower got frosted so that won't be producing an early fruit for us. Hopefully we'll not get more hard frosts - though we're not safe until June really... :-(

There's no stopping the British potatoes but the Tenerife ones are too afraid to come out from the warm earth yet - hope there is life in them under the ground and in the bags.

I'm looking forward to making some chive flower vinegar again, it is so pretty and nice to have oniony-flavoured vinegar for salad dressing.

Nearly ready...

We've found a few smashed eggs around the site. Look at that pretty little egg. Sadly, that looks to be the egg of a Song Thrush. What a shame! We need them to deal with the slugs and snails. :-(

Broad Bean Damage - The Culprit

I joined Jamie on the allotment in the afternoon and spent most of the time weeding and staring! I was particularly looking at our broad beans which have been nibbled all along the leaf tips, as usual. We've previously blamed ants, pigeons, pheasants, caterpillars, slugs,,,, But now I'm convinced it's caused by Bean Weevils.

The adult causes the leaf damage, which isn't too catastrophic on a reasonable specimen, but can be fatal for the plant if they start nibbling too much when it's small. Also, the bean weevil larvae damage the bean and roots which is why some of our seeds develop poorly and die before they've really got going :-(

Not a great pic, but I hope you can see it's stripes

This document has some good advice, so I hoed all around our plants so they look a bit happier and I gave them a shake to get rid of some of the weevils, but I don't see why they won't make their way back!
This is another of the critters that I thought may be to blame for the broad bean damage - Red Velvet Mites - there are a lot of these around at the moment. But these are actually a friend of the allotment holder. They eat other insects (hopefully weevils, but I'm not sure) and help with decomposition of organic matter.

I was looking round garden centres in the morning (managed to avoid the temptation to buy) while Jamie dug the last potato trench and planted the Tenerife potatoes - a row of 9 on top of manure, pine needles and shredded cardboard. The poor little spuds won't know what hit them - they've probably never been so cold! We had some lovely rain (the first in a couple of weeks) to water them in well in the evening.

We had a few left over so we've planted them in potato bags - two in each bag. We've never grown potatoes in bags before so we're interested in seeing how they'll do. The Rosabelles and Kestrels we planted two weeks ago have just popped out so hopefully they'll have a bit of growing time, with no frost, before we need to do the first earthing up.

I cut a flower stem from one of our rhubarb plants - lots of rhubarb around site has flowered - they are brilliant looking but we don't want ours to bolt and stop producing edible stems yet! I put a pot over the hollow stem where I chopped it off - I've been told that water can get in and rot the plant at the base. Not sure if that's true but it sounds reasonable.

I dissected the flower as they're so mutant-looking! The un-developed flowers are rather interesting up-close too.

Our seedlings are looking ok in the greenhouse with some of the other ones emerging. Still the greenhouse is proving extremely popular with flying insects - the place is literally buzzin' :-)

What do bees and flies talk about??