One Potato, Two Potato,...

So many potatoes to choose from...

We opted for a few different varieties and bought 24 tubers in total:

• Annabelle - First Early
• Kestrel - Second Early
• Athlete - Second Early
• Orla - Early Maincrop
• Chopin - Early Maincrop
• Salad Blue - Maincrop

They only had big bags of Anya, so we didn't bother with them. It's so much better being able to buy the individual tubers.
I'm very pleased with my choice of Salad Blue. I'm looking forward to blue baked potatoes!! I hope they're as successful as our Purple Congo were in 2011, which produced some amazing purple mash.

We're mostly going to be growing in bags this year, hopefully to avoid some slug damage... Hmm, we'll see..
Charlton Park Garden Centre has a good setup, with information to hand and catalogues from the Potato Days they attend at Whitchurch

There they are, all ready to start chitting under their grow lamp in the cool hallway. And a photo opportunity to show off my green fingers (Joanne!)

Oh, and I bought the garlic. I got 1 bulb of Solent Wight (softneck) and 3 bulbs of French garlic Favor (hardneck) - I doubt I'll plant all of those. We didn't eat half of last years cloves, though this year I really do intend to pickle or store some in oil...

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!

Strange Birds

I was pleased to see the sun was due to shine this afternoon, so got prepared for an hour of birdwatching while Jamie went off to clear some old raspberry plants from Plot3.
I had my logbook (haha, funny, huh?), our new monocular, my fancy camera and hot liquorice & blackcurrant drink (so delicious).

I turned the bench round so I had a better view of the hedge. Our robin, looking stunning in the sunshine, arrived for the worms we put out. Good start...

And, then another robin. Lovely, always nice to see robins.

Jamie saw a chaffinch, but it was flying over so I didn't count that..
And that was it, for 25 minutes. I decided to move along the hedge to another location and start a new hour of counting.
It wasn't so comfy; (I didn't like to sit on Tui & Glen's bench), I sat on the ground, but at least I was a bit protected from the chill wind and it's nice seeing the site from a different viewpoint.

Woodpeckers have been seen in that skeleton of a tree in the centre of the photo. I saw a flock of pigeons fly out of one of the trees and I could hear a lot of birdsong. It was very pleasant, but the birds didn't want to show themselves, apart from these:

• 5 Wood Pigeons
• 1 Chaffinch
• 1 Blackbird
• 2 Robins

I don't think they were the same two robins that were by our plot!

Where were all the long-tailed tits that we usually see? Where was the bullfinch? Even the magpies and pheasants stayed away!

Chaffinch

Tut, strange birds!

Courtesy of http://culturainquieta.com/es/arte-digital/item/3834-extranos-pajaros.html

Squelch Squelch!

Last night was Burns Night. We aren't Scottish, but any excuse for a little celebration! So, we had a lovely Stahly's vegetarian haggis with our neeps (swede) and tatties (potatoes). And enjoyed tasting 5 varieties of Scottish whisky. I, sensibly, had pre-booked today off work, but it wasn't really a day to spend on the allotment!

The ground is sodden but we needed some sprouts so just a quick visit.

Plenty more sprouts to pick...

And plenty of work to be done before any sowing, if it stops raining for long enough!

Chop Chop!

Sometimes it helps to be slow. We had a lazy morning and didn't make it to the plot till 2:30 but then the sun was finally managing to break through. We had a pleasant 2½ hours with a temperature of about 9° listening to the red kite calling overhead and the terns (Oops! See comment below) screeching over the canal.
A less welcome sound was of shooting in the distance, but some people do seem to hate deer and pheasants :( It upsets me, but perhaps they were clay pigeon shooting ...

We had our plans for what to do today; Jamie potted on the raspberry bush ('Ruby Beauty' from Thompson & Morgan). It claims to produce lots of fruit even in its first year and we intend to net it so we get to eat more than the birds!
My aim was to clear the two raised beds. The big salad bed was full of weeds and grass so at least now there is an area of clear earth showing! We should cover that until it's time to start sowing otherwise the weeds will take over again quite quickly.

The smaller raised bed still had beets in it... It seems wasteful, but at least the uneaten veggies are perfectly recycled as compost.

Lessons learned: don't grow Cylindra beets in a raised bed and don't leave them to get too big... Look at those prize-winning funny-shaped vegetables! I'm sticking to Boltardy beets this year.

I got chopped out of the photo...but chopping the beets up in a bucket was pleasing and warmed me up so even I took my coat off.

The resulting purple mess was layered in the compost bin with dry waste, like the the dried-out tops of the wildflowers. That should rot down nicely and fairly quickly - though may also prove irresistible to mice!

Another vegetable destined for the compost bin - the swedes. We didn't get to eat any of them - they all bolted :-( Shop-bought neeps and tatties for the Burns Night meal on Monday I'm afraid!