ChainMail Article June 2014

It's April showers all the way today so I don't know if we'll get to the plot. Shame really, I want to make some chive flower vinegar.

I'm in the process of writing my next Chainmail article - Hungerford's quarterly magazine. This will be for the June-September edition. Unbelievable! I'm still trying to work out what happened to February and March this year!

Here's a link to my article in the previous edition. Inspired by some of the lovely wildlife visitors on Marsh Lane and who I'd like to see more of!

Potatoes and Beans

We had a successful afternoon on the plot today. It was reasonably warm, though if the chill wind blew while the sun wasn't shining I needed to grab my jacket. The temperature fell to zero over the last couple of nights.

One of our rhubarb plants had sent up this flower head. When the bud starts growing it looks like any other stem, but now the flower has developed it's obvious and easy to remove - to stop the whole plant going to seed.

After cutting the stem off there's a gaping hollow stem.

To avoid it filling with water and rotting I put a cover over the top. The flowers are really pretty, but I'll enjoy them on other people's plots rather than on our's :-)

We achieved today's prime objective and got our spuds in! We've only planted 20 this year: 10 x Chopin and 10 x Desiree. Spread across three rows. The Chopin are on grass clippings and manure while the Desiree also have shredded paper in their trenches. All have a bit of added 6x and of course the nematodes should be doing their thing to keep the slugs at bay.



Rain threatened, but stayed away

Here's Jamie adding Christmas tree sprinkles as a further slug deterrent! (I rather like the shadow in this photo).

Christmas Tree needles

We also sowed some broad beans: 15 x Suttons and 10 x Express - we're hoping these varieties will result in their own succession harvesting...

As usual we protect them immediately with bottle cloches. There's debate at Marsh Lane as to whether the pheasants or mice are the biggest broad beanshoot chompers; they're both unwelcome, but frequent, visitors.

The cat is enjoying all the activity, human, gnome, rodent and feathered!

Gnome Toppling Time

The strawberry flowers make it look like it could be a bumper year, if the frost stays off. I thought it funny that this photo shows flowers on the same plant with 5 and 6-petals - 6 is apparently more common, will have to pay more attention next time I'm on the site

A Hand Bag?!

Here are our leeks we picked today - some real whoppers! Looking forward to having them in a cheesy sauce, with Quorn, topped with lovely mash - yum!

Oh, yes, and it's a gratuitous shot of my iridescent handbag, which I love :)

Time to Get On

We had a great weekend, particularly today - 5 hours on the site in the lovely warm sunshine. 

As soon as we arrived on site Tanya offered us a box of red onion sets. We were resigned to not growing any this year because Thompson & Morgan couldn't deliver our Santero sets. So that was much appreciated - I popped 14 in Plot 8 and the rest of the box went up to the allotment spares table in the communal area on site. Finally, some planting!

Plot 8 is looking loved again, with newly barked paths and dug beds and a weed-suppressed area for the seed house.

The raspberries are covered in fresh green leaves and buds. 

Jamie cleared last year's rotten potato patch and tidied the edges and I mixed some lime and a bit of fertiliser into the bed for the broad beans next week. So, we actually feel like we're getting somewhere now!

OK Slugs - it's War!

The clocks have gone forward an hour to British Summer Time so we should get a few evenings up the plot quite soon! This weekend was a good start, with warm temperatures and no rain.

We bought our potatoes yesterday: Chopin and Desiree. We may get a few more but had decided to be a bit more selective this year.

Https://www.nematodesdirect.co.uk/6-nemaslug-slug-killer

So, today, Jamie watered in the nematodes which have been waiting in our fridge for three weeks. We had enough to share between our potatoes, onions and the raised bed. That should protect the ground (by killing slugs) for 6 weeks and then a second lot will be delivered and a final delivery will complete the programme. Let's see if that does the trick...

Plenty of nematodes to go round!

There were a lot of butterflies (mostly tortoiseshells) around today and I found a good deal of millipedes whilst I was digging a bit more of the legume quarter - still pulling handfuls of roots; we think it's tree roots!
Here's a pretty pied shield bug that Jamie spotted on the earth - it looks like an adult, but I'm no expert (unlike these people!)

Two weekends for the price of one!

This weekend we were planning to buy our potatoes but that still hasn't happened! We were expecting the weather to be worse than it was, though we had a few very heavy wintry showers. We did manage to visit the plot and replenished the raised bed by adding 125l of multi-purpose compost and a generous sprinkling of vegetable fertiliser - my florence fennel should enjoy that!

The grape hyacinths are providing a welcome splash of colour. So pretty and fragrant, so the bees and butterflies love them too.

Last weekend was perfect as a HAHA Working weekend: Blue sky and sunshine always help the volunteers - as do the refreshments! So now we have a reasonably tidy-looking allotment site and a water supply with no leaks - thanks to our Water Boys!

Partying after the work!

Apart from the work party Jamie and I managed to get more of the plot dug for onions, broad beans and potatoes. Jamie finished working on the potato plot during the sunny days during the week too so we're certainly not feeling so far behind now, though there's plenty more to do. This is Plot 8B ready and waiting for potatoes and onions (and nematodes).

Celeriac a-no-go

The fog cleared, as forecast, as I made my way home for an afternoon at the plot. We got a few hours of warm sunshine to work in. It's so great when the weather people get it right!

I'm still mainly clearing and Jamie's digging. I pulled all the salsify and celeriac. We could have eaten some of the salsify, or kept it in the ground to produce pretty flowers (apparently), but the area is needed for the spuds so it got chopped up and put in the new compost bin on top of all the dry strawberry cuttings from last weekend.

This is the reason I'm not bothering with celeriac this year. A poor show. When I cut into these they were brown but they'd never looked appetising because the root didn't bulb up nicely. 

Jamie's having another try at growing celery this year - in containers so we can keep it good and wet (there's not going to be a drought, is there?!)

The birds are in full song at the moment, including this redwing. More bird visitors on my wildlife blog.

Wall-to-wall Sunshine

Such a beautiful day and 17°! So we had a very lovely few hours on the site joined by fellow plotholders, butterflies and bees! We saw large numbers of tortoiseshells and brimstone butterflies.

Tortoiseshells on Dead Nettle

Jamie finished working through the onion plot so that's ready and waiting for our sets to be delivered. I cleared all the dead growth from the strawberry plants and transplanted a couple of runners which had been pegged out in the autumn.

The raised bed is clear of weeds and moss now so I can start sowing some salad - will have to wait till next weekend, at the earliest, though. It may have felt like Summer but it soon goes chilly when the Sun gets low. No evenings on the plot for us yet!



This moss against the blue sky and sunshine is fiery!

By the way, if you saw my post from yesterday... Summer seems to be the time to propagate herbs from cuttings and the cuttings should be ~10cm, not ~4cm like mine. Caroline (a plotholder) told me that rosemary can be rooted in water - well, I can try that if my potted cuttings fail...
 

Springing into Action

At last! We've started! And the birds know it too - the site was alive with bird-song and plotholders again!
Last week Jamie cleared and raked over the Brussels patch, after adding fertilizer and lime - we're putting the sprouts in there again this year. There aren't any pests and diseases there (that we're aware of) so they'll hopefully be ok.

And today the sun shone and the temperature rose so we had a busy day with two visits to the plot. Jamie cleared and dug the area on Plot 8 where the onions are going. Jamie wants to add a bit of chicken manure (because the onion fertilizer hasn't been delivered) to the ground and we're expecting the Santero onions to be delivered in the next few days. We're giving parts of Plot 7 a bit of a rest this year so spuds and onions are out of the usual rotation plan.

I mixed the compost bins. We've seen mouse action in one of the bins over Winter but I didn't come across any in there today. I managed to combine the contents of both bins into one and add a lot of 'brown' waste, that was the remains of the wildflower patch. There's a good mix of wet, dry, green, brown compostible waste which will stay in the green bin for a year now, but we need to keep stirring it regularly.
The worms have had a good winter in the black bin - lots of lovely shiny new pink worms in there! Yes, I do see that slug in there too!

I started clearing the raised bed. It's full of tiny thyme plants which self-seeded. I planted a few up and also a few cuttings from the rosemary and sage. Not sure if they'll work but we'll see - of course, I should have looked up what to do before I did it, but, well, you know how it is!

So another sunny day tomorrow for more clearing, tidying but no sowing yet...be patient...

 

Been Shopping...

Our Kings Seeds order has arrived through our HAHA Seed Secretary's discount scheme. We haven't collected them yet but the news put us in an allotment mood - so we got out the seed catalogues...

Here are a few of the seeds I was tempted by. And note the heart & star mould set - really looking forward to growing some interesting cucumber shapes with that!
I think some of these will be used on the HAHA Plot - they're certainly quite unusual.   The most interesting seeds are part of the James Wong Homegrown Revolution collection. I hope ours grow as well as some of the pictures I've seen online!

Also really looking forward to seeing star and heart shaped cucumbers!!
These I bought from Suttons Seeds

Of course we'll be growing mos of the basics too, but no shallots this year as we've still got plenty of pickled ones left to eat from last year.
These are from Thompson & Morgan.