JANUARY 2012 

LAST UPDATED: 09/01/2012

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9TH JANUARY 2012

Happy New Year!  Not much happening at the moment, although the weather is so mild that it is making me feel like planting things.  I visited the plot last week to cover up the newly emerging (autumn planted) Aquadulce beans. Scarecrow Hatty had an operation to replace her hands and arms, which had both fallen off and she is now awaiting stitches in her hair and hat before returning to work. I have been out buying onion sets and trying to find some potatoes to chit, but in no rush as still waiting for winter to arrive.  

11TH JULY 2011

I'm pleased to report that everything is growing exceptionally well this year due to warm periods of sunshine interspersed with frequent, refreshing showers of rain. Unfortunately though, it's not just my veggies that are growing rapidly, the weeds, the brambles and the front grass are too.  So this morning I set off armed with some sharp shears determined to tackle the front grass, which had grown at least a foot in height in just a few months and to try to find the front mound, which had all but disappeared in the sea of grass. It didn't take that long to cut the grass back down again, leaving just a neat patch of nettles for caterpillars at the front of the plot. However, by the time I had completed the task the shears needed resharpening!  

The back heap  was in right state, covered with weeds with no sign of any of the white clover I had sown, even though I know the seeds germinated.  So I ripped some of the weeds out and sprinkled on masses of old flower seeds that I had saved and wanted to use up: Poppies, evening primroses and phacelia mainly. Some nasturtiums had also germinated and I came across two remaining pumpkin plants when I was weeding. I have come to the conclusion though that pumpkins don't exactly thrive when planted on large mounds, although I am glad I tried this out anyway.  Today, I also harvested my barley crop  (interesting to try, but not a prolific harvest - I expect the pigeons ate most of the seed despite Hatty the scarecrow  being on standby). I also harvested some rhubarb, peas and beans and watered the leeks and Romanesco that I put out yesterday.  Tomorrow, the weeds will be the focus of my attention and possibly the resharpening of the shears!

4TH JULY 2011
This morning, I divided my time between my allotment plot and carrying out some essential tasks in my garden. As the soil is starting to dry up again, I unfortunately had to do some watering to tide things over until it next rains, which hopefully will be soon.  In my garden I emptied the last of my compost around my climbing beans (now right at the top of their poles!) and also fed the garden fruit trees. I decided to grow the climbing beans  in my garden this year, where the soil is more fertile and it is much cooler, as they didn't seem to thrive in the sizzling heat on my allotment plot last year.  

Next, I made sowings of wallflowers and curly parsley in trays for planting out later and I also sowed seeds of sugar loaf chicory and pallo rosso in one garden bed beside the climbing beans. In recent years,  I haven't had much success with growing radishes because the summers have been too dry causing the radishes to quickly bolt. So this year, I decided to give up on normal radishes (these require too much watering) and to try sowing some Munchen Bier radishes instead, which produce tasty seed pods for use in salads (although later sowings may produce some radish roots for eating if I'm lucky).

The above garden tasks completed,  I made my way round to the allotment.  Here, more watering was needed after sowing some oriental vegetable seeds including oriental spinach and pak choi on an allotment bed that I thought was empty, although whilst sowing the seeds I noticed that the salsify I sowed ages ago here was just starting to come through. This should turn out to be a very interesting bed of plants, especially if the Hamburg parsley eventually germinates as well! Finally, I harvested a lot of onward peas and some broad beans for dinner and a garden lettuce and some raspberries for lunch!

28TH JUNE 2011

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the recent lack of updates to this page.  This was because I've been too busy to write any! Everything has been really parched this year, so I've had to fly round with my watering can doing a fair bit of watering, that is until recently when much-needed rain has replenished my water butts and helped me with this important task. I have also been kept busy harvesting all my soft fruit: strawberries, currants, gooseberries and raspberries galore this year, all ripening rapidly in the heat.  And of course I had to rear, provide TLC and eventually plant out all my young plants. By the middle of June though most of the really hard work had been completed.

The front and back mounds are decorated with various squashes, undersown with phacelia, nasturtiums and white clover to attract bees.  My beans are busily climbing their way up the poles, the tomatoes are in flower and the brassicas are developing nicely, undersown with white clover and encouraged to grow by showers of rain. The transplanted sweetcorn seems to have settled in well and I have just sown some more seeds to plant out in early July after my early potatoes have been harvested (a technique recommended in an article in the latest edition of VON's GGI).  I've still got a few plants left to put out such as leeks, Jersey Kale, Romanesco and more lettuces, but everything is now largely under control!

Last week I even managed to find the time to do some weeding and general tidying up of the plot such as tying back the brambles and cutting down the nettle patch. I now have my seed packets at the ready in order to fill in any gaps that appear as crops are harvested. These seeds include chicories, endives, lettuces, land cress, perpetual spinach, several oriental vegetables and curly parsley.  

With only the harvesting left to do this must be the best time of year!  What am I currently harvesting? Lettuces & parsley, lunchbox size cucumbers, red onions, some late berries, peas and broad beans, early potatoes and I'm just starting to get a supply of spinach and other green vegetables coming through.  Here is a recent photograph, although you can't see much as most of the brassica crops are hidden from sight under the recycled net curtains.  The photo is very grey and gloomy with more natural watering forecast soon in the way of thundery downpours!

2ND APRIL 2011

I've been pretty busy sowing seeds since the last update!  First of all, I planted leeks, lettuces, Danish kale and quite a few varieties of flower seeds in trays of compost in my greenhouse, plus some lettuces in pots on the patio. Then on the 27th March I planted tomatoes, pumpkins, squashes, marrows and cucumber seeds, all lurking in my airing cupboard. Hey Presto! Today I noticed that already the pumpkins, cucumbers and tomatoes have germinated.  My chitted early Pentland Javelin and my Kestrel second early potatoes have been planted out and I have sown perpetual spinach and onward peas in two of the vegetable beds.  Weather permitting, I hope to sow some herbs soon: Coriander, Parsley and Basil. (I will go and do it now before it rains!) Then hopefully, I can have a little rest until mid-April.

The F1 Zoom chicory - lurking in the recycling box in my shed is doing brilliantly and I harvested my first large head this week!  The cold spell at the end of last year has held it up, but it is ready at a good time and should keep me going until my first lettuces are ready for picking.

14TH MARCH 2011

I was lucky and it did in fact rain quite hard yesterday. Consequently, I couldn't take these photographs until today! In the photograph below (left),  you can see the tidied plot and there is a neighbouring plot holder hard at work in the background.  Crops that I've already planted include broad beans, garlic and red onions and all of the remaining beds are empty apart from perennial crops such as strawberries and a few leftover kale plants.  The second photograph (right) is a close up of the big carpeted mound at the back of the plot (see below).  I discovered many ladybirds hiding in the vegetation on this mound when I tidied it up.

13TH MARCH 2011
The sun's been shining for most of the week and so I have managed to get out and complete my tidying up.  The beds are all very dry at the moment, but are now ready for planting up.  I  also tidied up the large mound at the bottom. (And this didn't collapse when I climbed on top of it to weed it, even though it has an animal burrow right through the middle of it!) I've covered it with pieces of carpet to smother the  remaining weeds, then I want to use it to plant flowers to attract pollinating insects and perhaps try growing some pumpkins, marrows and other trailing vegetables on it. (I plan to use the smaller mound at the front in a similar way.)  It may rain today if I'm lucky and I've just sent off for some flower seeds.  So if all goes well, I hope to be able to start planting soon!  

6TH MARCH 2011
Brrrr still rather cold out!  Nevertheless, I've managed to make a start on extending the beds and done a little forking over and path tidying.  Today I planted out my Red Baron onion sets and another lot of Aquadulce claudia broad beans. The Feltham First peas were planted in one of my garden beds on the 18th February 2011, although so far these haven't germinated.  The autumn-planted garlic and Aquadulce have survived the winter and are now up and my rhubarb is nearly ready for picking!  Today, I sent off for a good supply of seeds from the mail order catalogues.  This year I am going to try growing some Salsify, Hamburg Parsley and a turnip-rooted beetroot for a change, as well as my usual crops.  Now it just needs to warm up a little!

4TH JANUARY 2011

Went round to inspect the plot yesterday and managed to rescue some chicory leaves and some leeks, but everything looked rather bedraggled after the recent spell of bad weather.  No signs of any emerging broad beans or garlic shoots yet, but hopefully things will start to improve and soon it will be warm enough for me to work outside and extend the beds, on a sunny winter's day.  In the meantime, I think I will stay inside in the warm and browse through my seed catalogues!

26TH SEPTEMBER 2010

Things are slowing down a little as we head towards autumn!  Spring greens were sown earlier in the month and are now growing well. This week I gave all of the allotment beds a good weeding, then I started to extend them a couple of feet to the right in order to realign them. Just under of half of the beds have now been extended and the rest are mulched with card to kill off the couch roots.  

On the 25th September, Bed 14 was sown with barley. (Seed of this ancient grain crop can be purchased from Suffolk Herbs.)  Hopefully, I should be able to harvest the grain by next August and the straw will come in useful for mulching.  Finally, Hatty, the scarecrow was moved to Bed 14 to guard the newly sown seed!  After I had completed all of the work I dug up my first maincrop potatoes today and had them for dinner!  

27TH AUGUST 2010

Well the rain arrived at last, lots of it! And the parched weeds grew vigorously in my absence, so that when I got back from holiday I had to spend about four hours weeding my beds. However, the weeds came out of the moist soil easily, making weeding quite a pleasurable task, especially as it was carried out at a more mellow, autumnal sort of temperature.  It was nice to return home and find plenty of lettuce, parsley, spinach, ripe blackberries and tomatoes awaiting  me, all ready for eating. This week, my garden beds also got a quick deweeding and I made a sowing of indoor salad crops and potted up some parsley plants for overwintering indoors.

2ND AUGUST 2010

I can't believe a whole month has flown by and still NO rain!  I harvested my field bean crop on the 25th July, my onion crop yesterday and have saved some phacelia seed for replanting next year. Some of the field beans were infected with chocolate spot this year, but most of them were fine and are drying for eating over the winter.

I 've been harvesting and eating Red Robin tomatoes since the 20th July and my later crop of Red Alert tomatoes are quite big, although not yet turning red. Yesterday, I placed a cardboard mulch on three, empty allotment beds to keep the weeds down until I get round to replanting them in the autumn. My seed order has just arrived so I have plenty of seeds at-the-ready for planting.  I've tidied my strawberry beds up, potted up some runners for new stock and I'm rooting a few raspberry and blackberry suckers as well. The new pea crop (sown on the 17th July) has germinated well, so hopefully I'll have more peas by the autumn.  Well, I had better get on with the watering!

3RD JULY 2010

It has been very hot and dry lately, so I've been doing plenty of watering. Most of my time this week has actually been spent harvesting! I am now harvesting blackcurrants and raspberries, as well as rhubarb, a few gooseberries and the last of the strawberries. My pea crop was also harvested for drying this week and my early (Foremost) potatoes were dug up. The yield from this variety of potato was the worst that I have ever had and so I'll be using Pentland Javelin again next year.  Not sure whether it was the variety, or the dry weather that caused such a poor yield.

All of the brassica plants have now been planted out including: Waltham, Purple Sprouting Early and Claret broccoli, Danish Kale, January King cabbages. Some swede seeds have been sown and the young leeks have also been transplanted out into their beds. Unfortunately, only one of my squash seeds germinated this year - a Turk's Turban and I was really disappointed that none of the Cinderella pumpkin seeds germinated.  This week, I also made a sowing of sugar loaf chicory and rocket in my salad bed  and sowed another row of  beetroot and the rest of my parsnip seeds in allotment beds.  

21ST JUNE 2010

Just a quick update.  First of all I'd like to mention my peas. I have a whole bed of lovely peas, which I've grown from a large packet of dried, marrowfat peas purchased in a food shop for just 50p. The dried peas germinated very well when planted and are now flowering and producing plenty of pods.  I intend to dry most of these peas and eat them over the winter months. Many thanks to Peter White of VON for suggesting planting shop-bought marrowfat peas!

Next, I'd like to show you the large hole I found in the soil bank at the bottom of my allotment, this week.  I've always hoped that wildlife would find a use for this bank of soil, but I was thinking more of it perhaps being colonised by beetles, or of growing lots of wildlife-friendly flowers on it. The hole goes from one end right the way through to the other side.  It's seems rather too big for a rabbit hole. But neighbouring plot holders need to guard their lettuces just in case this is Benjamin bunny's new home! In the meantime I shall watch it carefully to see what comes out (or goes in!).

Finally, I have included an up-to-date photo of the whole plot.  Everything seems to be growing nicely and I'm starting to harvest quite a few crops. Strawberries galore, tender broad beans and hopefully some fresh peas and new potatoes very soon! This week, the grass has had a good trim and there's plenty of watering to do at this time of year, plus a little weeding.

5TH JUNE 2010

The beans and sweetcorn germinated successfully and now have been transplanted into their final growing positions, where hopefully the beans will soon be twining their way up the bean poles. This year, I planted out a mixture of drying beans, pea beans and Kelvedon Marvel runner beans, plus some more climbing sugar snap peas.  On the 5th June I planted out my Romanesco and curly kale plants in Bed 12 and the Red Alert Tomatoes, although still running behind and quite small, were planted out in a garden bed on the 4th of June and given a seaweed feed and a good helping of homemade compost to make them big and strong.

This week, I've been quite busy keeping up with routine weeding and watering. Today we may be lucky enough to catch a few showers, but if it doesn't rain too hard I'll sow white clover underneath the tomatoes.  

I'm starting to harvest some yummy summer crops including gooseberries, lettuces galore and broad beans, but the strawberries are running late this year and haven't even started to ripen. With most of my plants now planted out, it should be mainly watering and harvesting from now on!

17TH MAY 2010

It's finally warming up and we even had a little much-needed rain last night.  All the bean poles are up and ready and now I'm just waiting for my trays of beans to germinate so that they can be planted out to scramble up the poles. The cylindra beetroot, pea beans and soya beans have now been sown in my allotment beds and the Sunburst cherry tree, I ordered in memory of one of my relatives, arrived safely this week and is now standing in a tub on my garden patio. It's leaves are just opening, but there's no sign of any flowers yet. 

I finally got round to potting up my Red Alert tomatoes this week, which are running quite far behind this year due to my recent bereavements, but hopefully they will soon put a spurt on and be ready for planting out by early June. Not very much in the way of news to add at the moment!

8TH MAY 2010

It's hard to believe that it's May because it still seems so cold.  Nevertheless, this week, I've made sowings of Whitloof Zoom chicory and Rossa di Treviso (a purple-red chicory) in trays indoors.  Climbing mangetoute peas were sown in one of the pea beds and a frame put up. Runner beans, lots of assorted drying bean seeds and sweetcorn seeds were sown in trays of compost in my greenhouse for planting out when it's warmed up a little. Some young parsley plants were rehoused in the salad bed and other herbs such as oregano and thyme were planted near to the allotment composter.  Finally today, I weeded the two front strawberry beds and the onion bed and harvested the first of this year's rhubarb for tea! Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, not quite so chilly and drizzly and I may get round to sowing the cylindra beetroot and putting up my bean poles.

26TH APRIL 2010

It's been quite a busy gardening week! I managed to sow the Cinderella bush pumpkin seeds and the Jaspee de Vendee and Turk's Turban squashes on the 12th of April, as mentioned in the last entry and I'm now waiting for these to germinate.
On the 18th of April I created a new strawberry bed right at the back of the allotment in front of the heap of soil. Here, the young strawberry plants were set out in black mulch material, as shown in the photograph to the left. In the autumn, I intend to plant raspberries at the back of this bed and train them up the poles, but in the meantime this area will be planted with sunflowers and sweetcorn.

On the 20th of April I made sowings of  the following brassicas in trays of compost: Purple Sprouting Early, Claret F1, Dwarf Green Curly Kale, Romanesco, a heritage variety of Danish Kale and January King cabbage.  I also made a direct sowing of Rhubarb Chard in one of my garden beds.

I am pleased to report that the marrowfat and Onward peas  sown in beds 6 and 10 on the 10th of April are now germinating nicely. On the 23rd April, Bed 11 was sown with the following root crops: Detroit Globe beetroot, Gladiator parsnip and Chantenay and Autumn King carrots. A further sowing of Cylindra beetroot will be made in this bed after I have finished eating the rest of the sprouting broccoli.

It actually started raining here yesterday, the first rain we've had for a long time. Although, we could really do with a whole lot more - a downpour or two perhaps, as the soil is so dry. Yesterday, I used my azada hoe to scrape the weeds off the paths and sprinkled poppy and evening primrose seeds over the soil mounds at the front and the back of the plot. I want to plant plenty of wildlife-friendly flowers this year to brighten up the plot!  

My plot in April, showing young broad and field beans and emerging rhubarb in the foreground, with young crops sown underneath net curtains for protection against 'the phantom' that keeps digging holes in the beds and scattering feathers! Sorry, that it looks rather gloomy, but it was threatening to rain when I took the picture.

12TH APRIL 2010

Due to a recent family bereavement I've got a little bit behind with the sowing and planting this year. However, the Red Alert tomato seeds have now been planted in my airing cupboard and the leeks sown in trays of compost in my propagator, along with more lettuces and plenty of parsley.  Now there's only the squashes and pumpkins left to do  and hopefully these will be sown today.

The weather has been glorious these past few days so I've managed to have a real blitz on the allotment plot. Yesterday I planted out the rest of my chitted potatoes: the Kestrel potatoes are in Bed 8 with the earlies and my maincrop potatoes occupy the whole of  Bed 4. I sowed marrowfat peas in Bed 6 and Onward and sugar snap climbing peas in Bed 10.  I also tidied up and finished planting up the strawberry beds (Beds 1 & 2).

Fortunately, the cardboard mulch I put down last autumn has kept most of the empty beds weed free so there was not very much weeding to do before sowing. Consequently, I am nearly up-to-date again once more with just the root crops to sow after I have finished eating up my curly kale and spring greens and have cleared some space to plant them. I will keep you posted and hope to include a photograph soon!

15TH MARCH 2010

Things are warming up. But will it last?!  Yesterday,  I managed to plant out my Red Baron onion sets, in Bed 3 next to the autumn-planted Radar onions and I also did a little general tidying up. Today, I am going to tidy up my strawberry beds.  Spring is in the air!

8TH FEBRUARY 2010

Yes I am still alive, but there's still not very much to report! It's too cold to do much outdoors at the moment and the soil is too soggy for working.  In fact, as I write this there's a bit of a blizzard going on. Will it ever stop snowing?!  I have been doing some garden-related jobs though, including obtaining seed potatoes for chitting and buying vegetable seeds. I also  planted some Red Robin tomato and some Mini-Belle pepper seeds in the airing cupboard last week and sowed some Winter Density lettuce seeds in a tray indoors. The peppers have just germinated.

It was a lovely day last Friday, so I popped round to inspect the plot and harvested some carrots and parsnips.  The field beans and broad beans looked quite happy and new rhubarb leaves were just starting to emerge. Yesterday, I managed to throw a plastic sheet over my early pea and spring-sown broad bean bed, which should warm the soil up so that the bed is ready for seed sowing. I am planting these early crops in a garden bed not round the allotment.  

This is a picture of Fergus - my garden fox.  He's really handsome, unlike the tatty looking fox with a mangled tail that sits on top of my potato haulms round the allotment! I thought you might like to see him as there is not much allotment news at the moment.

13TH DECEMBER 2009

It has been fairly quiet on the allotment lately, so there's not much to report at the moment. I've been having a rest apart from harvesting vegetables and salad leaves for my meals.  

However, Hatty the scarecrow was in a sorry old state. She looked completely bedraggled after being battered by recent wind and rain (left). So I  bought her some new clothes in my local hospice shop and here she is looking smart again. Ready to go to the Scarecrow's Christmas Ball!

Something has been eating the sunflower seeds. A jay or squirrel perhaps? What do you think?

Finally, I am pleased to report that small chicons are developing on the chicory roots I dug up earlier. To the left you can see a chicon developing on one of the Whitloof Zoom F1 roots, kept in a black bin bag in my airing cupboard. And to the right you can see chicons developing on one of the purple-leaved Rossa di Treviso roots that I'm growing in a covered pot of soil indoors.  (See earlier diary entries for more information on growing chicory.) I have now dug up all of the Whitloof Zoom roots. Spare roots are being stored in a dustbin in my shed. If chicons don't develop here, then I'll move the roots into my airing cupboard when there is room for them.

3RD NOVEMBER 2009

Plenty of rain here lately and so last week I was able to finish off section three at long last!  The soil was nice and soft and it didn't take long to roughly fork the whole section over down to a depth of about a foot (30cm). I then gave it a quick hoe over in order to break up any large clods of earth and I pulled out any last remaining loose bits of couch root at the same time. I now have four extra beds, making 16 beds in total. So it looks like I finally made it after nine months of fairly hard slog!

The four new beds (as shown in photo) have been planted up as follows:

• Bed 13 contains six rhubarb plants and the composter.  
• Bed 14 has been sown with field beans (Vicia faba). Field beans are normally grown as a green manure crop, but I dry and eat any field beans that are produced!
• Bed 15 contains an autumn sowing of Aquadulce claudia broad beans.
• Bed 16 is still to be planted up - probably with soft fruit (not shown in photo).

 
I also planted out some Radar onion sets last week and started to dig up some of my chicory roots for indoor forcing. I now have five Whitloof Zoom F1 chicory roots in my airing cupboard, lurking in a black plastic bin liner and I've also planted up two covered containers of compost with the ancient red variety of chicory called Rossa di Treviso. The two pots have been placed in cooler conditions so that the chicons develop more slowly and hopefully this will stagger production.  Both types of chicory root (grown originally in Bed 10) have forked somewhat - probably due to growing them in the high-in-clay soil on my plot - so it will be interesting to see what happens and whether chicons still develop.  


This is my chicory salad. I made it using the Rossa di Treviso leaves, which I trimmed off the roots before forcing them for chicon production. Rather tasty!  See the Recipe Page, if you want more information on how I made this salad.


This large glass jar contains my 2009 crop of dried beans. I use these beans mainly to make my own baked beans in tomato sauce and also to make the chilli bean stew recipe.  I grow quite a few heirloom varieties, but the beans in this jar mostly consist of mottled Barlotto Lingua di Fuoco beans. This French climbing bean is really easy to grow and high yielding.  Barlotto seed can be purchased from many seed catalogues including from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. I also grew some pea beans, soya beans and field beans this year, but these have been dried separately.


I also sowed some indoor salad crops last week. These included: rocket, two kinds of leaf mustard, mixed salad leaves, leaf chicory and parsley. All of the seeds have just germinated. However, these containers may not produce many leaves before January/early February due to the low light levels indoors at this time of year, but they have all been placed in brightest locations possible and hopefully will keep me supplied with fresh salad leaves until the spring!

17TH OCTOBER 2009

My plot after tidying up this week!

It has been most pleasant working outside in the autumn sunshine this week. I managed to hoe and weed all twelve raised beds and also used my Azada to clear the weeds off the paths. Now the whole plot looks remarkably neat and tidy! (See photo.) I also planted the Vallelado garlic in the bed containing the Romanesco this week. Now there are only three final tasks that need to be completed before winter arrives:

• Firstly, I could do with some more rain in order to complete the forking over of section three as the last spell of rain only moistened the top few inches of the soil. This whole section could really do with a thorough forking over before planting as the soil is quite compacted due to lack of cultivation for many years.  I have been really pleased with the noticeable improvement of the soil texture in my other twelve raised beds this season.  This improvement  was especially marked in the beds that had been planted up with buckwheat and potatoes. The soil was in a rather poor state when I first started planting out my crops. It contained many large,  rock-hard clods of earth and of course a lot of the top soil had been removed when I dug out the couch grass.  It was quite impossible to obtain a fine, crumbly tilth for planting in! As a result, crop yields have not been exceptionally high in this first year of cultivation, but nevertheless I have managed to produce most of my own vegetables and salad crops with some crops kept in store for overwinter use. Next year I should be able to put back some of the top soil when the couch grass heap has broken down and should also have a good supply of plant compost available from the compost bin. Throughout 2009 the crops were fed only with seaweed meal and the very hungry crops with an additional all purpose organic fertiliser obtained from the Organic Gardening Catalogue.  This week I also started to create a new strawberry bed using the potted up runners from the established strawberry bed next to it (see below). There is still a patch of sugar loaf chicory hidden under the piece of fleece at the back of this bed.

• The second task that needs to be completed this autumn is to make a sowing of beans.  Indeed, I hope to sow some Aquadulce claudia and some field beans in a garden bed today once it has stopped drizzling.  It's perhaps a little too early to sow beans, but as this bed doesn't get a lot of sun I'll go ahead and plant it up anyway. The remaining bean seed will be sown in a sunny position on the allotment towards the end of this month, or even in November. 

• Finally, I need to dig out my chicory roots for forcing. I'll leave most of the roots in the ground until the middle of November, but perhaps dig a couple up before then as I am very curious to know just how big they've grown! 

5TH OCTOBER 2009

........SECTION 3 COMPLETED............................................................. BUT THE COUCH HEAP GROWS EVEN BIGGER!

Well I've made excellent progress this week! On Wednesday I lifted up the plastic sheeting on Section 3 and much to my surprise managed to remove all the dead couch grass with my Azada Hoe really quickly and easily.  I soon discovered that this was because someone had placed a piece of green carpet on top of the soil at some stage and the couch grass had grown over the top of it so that it couldn't be seen.   The couch grass roots were therefore very shallow and easily killed when I unsuspectingly placed the mulch of flattened cardboard boxes and plastic sheeting on top. The soil looks wonderful underneath the carpet layer and appears to be free of couch grass roots and other weeds.  Now I'm just waiting for some rain to soften up the soil so that I can fork over the whole of this section and get it ready for planting!

I also discovered that there were frogs living underneath the plastic sheeting. They all  leapt out and hopped around when I lifted the sheeting up. So I caught a really big one and took it home with me. It now lives happily in my garden pond, along with my other frog and I'm hoping that they're of different sexes and will spawn in my pond next year.  

I treated myself to a new gooseberry bush in the Pound Shop this week and I'll go round and plant it later on today. I'm also going to take some cuttings from my established gooseberry and redcurrant bushes and hopefully these will root because I want to plant up quite a bit of this new section with soft fruit this winter.

Now that most of the hard work has been completed and all of my plot is available for cultivation, my ambition for 2010 is to make my plot more wildlife friendly.  First of all, I would like to install a small pond for the allotment frogs to use and next year I'd also like to plant more flowers to attract pollinating insects and put up a bird box.

25TH SEPTEMBER 2009

This week, I've been outside generally tidying up my allotment plot and garden beds and enjoying some very pleasant autumn sunshine.  I've lifted about half of my Cara potatoes and stored them in sacks for later use and I've also harvested most of my drying beans, which are now drying on racks indoors.  These mainly consist of a mixture of Pea Beans and Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco and White Emergo beans.  Below you can see some of the beans drying on a rack.

Unfortunately the ground still remains rock hard. Consequently, I haven't managed to finish forking out the couch grass from section three yet! But I'm hoping for some much needed rain before long so that I can complete the preparation of this final section this autumn.  In the meantime, I have obtained a supply of field bean and Aquadulce claudia broad bean seeds and these are now ready for planting out in November and the new variety of garlic (Vallelado) I ordered from the Organic Gardening Catalogue arrived in the post yesterday and will be planted out shortly.

Below you can see some of the small multi-coloured peppers, which I've grown in containers on my patio this year. The peppers are delicious grilled or eaten raw! These easily-grown, dwarf pepper plants are ideal for container growing and produce a mixture of small, red, orange, yellow and rather amazing chocolate-coloured peppers, although unfortunately the latter don't taste of chocolate!  If you want to have a go at growing some of these peppers yourself next year, then seeds can still be purchased from T & M's 2010 catalogue.  The variety is called Mini Belle Mixed (Order code; GAA0275) and 30 seeds cost £1.89. However, seeds can easily be saved from your own peppers after the initial outlay.

24TH AUGUST 2009

Not much to update you on as it has been too hot to do a lot of hard work on my plot recently. Consequently little progress has been made on preparing section three! My allotment plot is a real sun trap - although some of my crops seem to like this including this enormous sunflower! The sweetcorn also seems to be thriving in the heat, producing at least two cobs per plant.

                                Below: Hatty guarding the developing sweetcorn cobs

Above: Sunflower August 2009

So I've mainly been harvesting my crops, watering and weeding. However, I've also planted some left-over spelt seeds on Bed Three. I'm not sure whether this rather old spelt seed will germinate, but if it does and overwinters successfully, then I'll use the straw for mulching next year. I've also planted out three Glaskin's Perpetual rhubarb plants (grown from seed) by the composter.

So what have I been harvesting?  Well plenty of blackberries - growing wild in the hedge by my plot. My first sweetcorn cob (yum yum!), some beetroot, Treviso chicory leaves, Kestrel and Cara potatoes, Hestia and Marvel of Venice runner beans and broccoli.  The buckwheat has also been harvested and the grains are drying in the airing cupboard.  (See the Buckwheat article for more information.) My garden-grown tomato plants were showing signs of blight, so I pulled up all of the plants and disposed of them. The tomatoes are now ripening well indoors and seem to be largely blight free so far. Fortunately, I've used up this packet of Gardener's Delight tomato seed now and I intend to start growing the variety Red Alert again next year as this variety always seems to remain blight free.

               

Above left: Vegetables harvested on the 23rd August 2009.                               Treviso chicory leaves
Curly kale, punnet of blackberries, broccoli,
chicory leaves, tomatoes, Cara potatoes and beetroot.

I have also been quite busy foraging in the hedgerows.  Last week I obtained loads of wild plums, which I've been eating raw and stewed. However, I had so many that I decided to make some fruit spread with them too. I stoned and cooked the plums along with some blackberries and cooking apples (also obtained from the hedgerows) and thickened the spread with some agar flakes. Hey presto, I produced three jars of sugar-free plum fruit spread that's rather nice on toast!       

4TH AUGUST 2009

Here's a quick update to show you what the plot looks like in early August!  As you can see I've harvested quite a few of the crops already and some of the beds are now ready for replanting. It rained hard last night and when this rainy spell comes to an end and the slugs start to settle down again, I'm going to sow some late season crops such as turnips (which I mainly grow for turnip greens), corn salad and some more sugar loaf chicory. My spring greens and spring cabbages are growing well and hopefully will soon be ready for planting out in a spare bed too.  I intend to plant my winter lettuces and other late season salad plants (winter cress, rocket, parsley and leaf mustards for example) either in pots indoors, or in the salad bed in my garden for easier access in poor weather.  

On Sunday I started to do some work on the mulched and as yet unplanted section of my allotment, located behind Bed 12 by the composter. When I lifted up some of the mulch material I was pleased to see that all that remained of the couch grass was a matt of brown roots, which I soon chopped off the surface with my Azada. When the rain has softened up the ground a little, I'll go back and give this bit of cleared ground a good forking over. Then I'll continue to prepare this section a strip at a time, so that it will be ready for planting soft fruit and overwintering broad beans and field beans by the autumn. I am bursting with good ideas, but unfortunately seem to be rapidly running out of planting space to carry them out in. Maybe I'll need to get a bigger plot next year?!

13TH JULY 2009

I've been kept quite busy harvesting lately!  It's amazing what a difference having a small allotment plot can make to the amount of fruit and vegetables I'm able to grow.  I am currently cultivating seven beds in my garden and twelve allotment beds. My plan is to further extend my soft fruit section this autumn when I create the last four allotment beds.  

So here's an update on what's happening in each bed:

BED 1  - There are now small buckwheat grains on the plants, although these aren't quite ready for harvesting.  I've already harvested and eaten the Kestrel potatoes that were in this bed.
BED 2 -  The strawberries have finished producing and are now starting to send out runners. I'm potting these up in order to make a new strawberry bed next year. An excellent strawberry crop this year!
BED 3 -  I had to harvest the onions slightly early as the plastic sheet they were growing through melted in the heat and came apart!  I am not really that surprised as it has been so hot down here lately. Well over 30 degrees C and it feels even hotter on my sheltered and sunny plot.  Some of the onions were a little on the small side, but they are nevertheless quite tasty. This bed now needs replanting. I am not quite sure what to grow in it at the moment.
BED 4 - I've now dug up the last of my early Pentland Javelin potatoes and this bed has been replanted with young leeks, some Rosa autumn/winter radishes and of course it still contains the Student parsnips.
BED 5 - I've had an excellent crop of Onward peas from this bed! The climbing Sugar Snap Peas  also did well and I really would recommend them.  They are delicious when eaten raw in salads and can also be eaten whole with dips or very lightly steamed. Plus there's absolutely no waste as the pods are eaten as well as the peas.
BED 6 -  The Cara potatoes are flowering nicely and there's still some Kestrel potatoes left in this bed.
BED 7 - Both types of calabrese are doing well and the Autumn Spear broccoli is just starting to develop small heads.  I've had to remove the protective covering as the plants were bursting out from underneath it.     
BED 8 -  The Elena soya beans are developing nicely and the sweetcorn seems to be really thriving in the heat. Battered by the wind and stiffled by the heat scarecrow Hatty is now looking pretty tatty and I think her arms are about to fall off!  However, the wood pigeons do seem to be leaving the dwarf runner beans by her feet well alone!
BED 9 -  The carrots are growing well so I've just taken the cover off them.  The beetroot wasn't doing that well in the  hot weather, but seems to have perked up now that we've had some rain and it cooled down a little.
BED 10 - The chicory had grown too big to remain under the plastic bottles, so I've removed the bottles and covered it with netting in case the pigeons take a fancy to it.
BED 11 -  Similarly the bottles have been taken off the Danish and Curly Kale and I've covered them with netting.
BED 12 -  The Emergo and Italian climbing beans are not as advanced as the drying beans growing in my garden. However, the squashes and Hestia dwarf beans are just starting to flower.  The trefoil I planted as a green manure crop has germinated and is acting as a ground cover, as well as providing some extra nitrogen for the plants in this bed.

15TH JUNE 2009

Bed 10 was planted up with young chicory plants on the 13th of June. (You can read a more detailed account of the two types of chicory I'm using here.) Young curly kale plants were transfered to Bed 12 on the 14th June. Then all of the plants were covered with plastic bottle cloches to protect them from slugs and snails.

Most of the really hard allotment work has now been completed, so trips to the allotment are quite enjoyable, being mainly for the purpose of harvesting and watering with some occasional weeding.  Last week, we finally had some much needed rainfall. This has had a very positive effect on my broad bean and early pea crops and their pods are swelling up nicely and should be ready soon. On the 11th June I was able to dig up and steam my first Pentland Javelin early potatoes. Very tasty too!

The strawberries are now ripening rapidly in the sunshine. Some of them are enormous (left) and they taste really yummy!  I've also been harvesting plenty of fresh salad leaves and herbs from my garden beds, including the French Salad Mix, which I'm growing in two containers on my patio and some Winter Density lettuces that I'm growing in my garden beds. I mix the lettuce leaves with some landcress and fresh herbs (parsley, mint, basil and chives) for extra flavour.  You can see a typical bowl of home grown salad, below right.  I've also just sown some Italian Salad Mix (containing various chicories and endives) in a trough indoors in order to provide a later crop of salad leaves.


I'm pleased to report that the special salad bed I built and planted up earlier is developing well and should soon be ready for harvesting.  I've recently updated the salad bed section, if you want to see what it looks like now.   

4TH JUNE 2009

This is what the allotment looks like at the end of May. The buckwheat is  just starting to flower in Bed 1 (right) and the onions, peas and potatoes are developing nicely in Beds 3-6 (left). However, I have had to place a net over the young brassicas in Bed 7 as wood pigeons kept attacking the plants.  Bed 8 was planted up with Elena soya beans on the 24th May, along with five sweetcorn plants and some climbing pea bean seeds. The soya beans were just starting to germinate on the 3rd of June.  Carrot and beetroot seedlings have now appeared in Bed 9, but I think that the swedes may need resowing. Beds 10 and 11 are still empty, awaiting planting up with chicories and kale. Bed 12 (right at the back) now contains two kinds of squashes, climbing White Emergo runner beans and an old variety of climbing French bean called Marvel of Venice (Meraviglia di Venezia), which produces flat, tasty, yellow pods towards the end of the season.  To the left of the composter you can see the final section. This is being left under the mulch until the autumn, as it's now far too hot for digging!  

Finally, I'd like to introduce you to Hatty!  I've recruited Hatty to scare the birds away when I am not around.  So far she's doing an excellent job and appears to really enjoy the work.  

15TH MAY 2009  

I have continued to work hard on the second section of my allotment and have now completed the next six beds. These will eventually be planted up as follows:

BED 7 -  This is a brassica bed that has been planted up already with young plants of two types of autumn-heading calabrese: Autumn Spear looks like a green sprouting broccoli and Romanesco produces unusual, pyramid-shaped, yellowish-green heads in August and September.  As a precaution I have placed half a plastic water bottle over each young brassica plant to act as a cloche to keep the moisture in and hopefully to keep the slugs out!

BED 8 - This bed will be planted up at the end of May with T & M's new soya bean, Elena. Plus some old seeds of sweetcorn and heirloom varieties of dwarf drying beans providing these germinate.  

BED 9  - I sowed this bed in April. It now contains young seedlings of the following root crops:
Carrot - Chantenay red cored 2;  Beetroot - Detroit 2; Swede - Marian. 

BED 10 - This bed will be used to grow two varieties of chicory.  I'm going to grow Chicory Whitloof Zoom F1 and the very ancient red variety Rossa di Treviso, both of which are good for chicon production. As slugs enjoy eating chicory seedlings, I planted the seeds in modules indoors in early May and the young plants will be transplanted to Bed 10 sometime in June. Once planted outside, the chicories are left to grow on until November when the roots are lifted, trimmed up and used for the indoor production of chicons throughout the winter months. The variety F1 zoom is an especially vigorous variety that will produce chicons inside black plastic bags without using any compost.  Rossa di Treviso is an interesting dual purpose chicory that produces small clusters of pointed, striking and tasty red leaves. These can be picked and eaten in salads in the autumn before the roots are lifted for chicon production.   Seeds of both of these chicories can be obtained from Suffolk Herbs (Order codes: V134 & V143).  As I have not grown chicory before this is all rather exciting and experimental!

BED 11 - A spare bed at the moment that will possibly be used for brassicas.

BED 12 -  This bed will be used to grow the climbing runner bean, White Emergo.  The bean seeds have been planted in trays of compost in a cold frame and the young plants will be put outside at the end of May.  White Emergo is a very useful runner bean because it also produces a crop of white 'butterbeans'. The butterbeans can be harvested at the end of the season, dried and used in winter stews.  The beans will be underplanted with two types of squash: Jaspee de Vendee, which has orange flesh and the more unusual looking Turk's Turban, which has lemon-coloured flesh. I will probably also sow a low-growing green manure crop such as trefoil or white clover to help to suppress weeds.

Incidentally, the tatty-looking fox keeps visiting my allotment plot. It's quite tame and sits on top of my plants, watching me at work.  I've assumed its a male and called him Fergus, but he's a little camera shy so I haven't managed to take his picture yet.

I am leaving Section Three under mulch until the autumn. Then I'll take up the plastic sheeting and dig out the last three to four beds.  You can see the remaining plastic sheet in the photograph, just in front of the huge heap of couch grass. Phew! All that bed-making has really taken it out of me, but life should be a whole lot easier from now on and it's wonderful to stand back and see what I have achieved in just three months!

 

13/05/09: Young Buckwheat in Bed 1 (Above)

21ST APRIL 2009 -  COUCH GRASS SICKENED BY ITS TREATMENT!

Over Easter, I worked mainly in my veganic garden where I made a new raised bed to be used for growing salad crops. The seeds I planted in it are now just starting to germinate.

But this week it's back to work on the allotment again!  When I lifted up some of the plastic sheeting used to mulch section two yesterday, I discovered that the top growth of couch grass underneath it had almost disappeared in places and when I attacked the mulched couch grass with my fork the roots came out more easily. Consequently,  I managed to make about half of bed seven, plus a path yesterday and hope to complete this bed today.  In the meantime, beds 1 - 6 seem to be thriving, with the green tips of the onion sets poking up through their plastic mulch in bed three and germinated buckwheat in bed one. The early potatoes and the parsnips are also just coming through, the maincrop peas are starting to germinate and the strawberry plants in bed two look fine. There is still some clearing up to do, but I am saving this job for a day when the weather is not too good.  All of the couch grass turfs I dig out are now being stacked up at the back of the allotment, where hopefully they will eventually rot down allowing me to eventually replace the topsoil on the beds again.

7TH APRIL 2009  

Beds 5 and 6 have now been planted up as described below. A rather tatty-looking fox was walking round my plot in broad daylight yesterday when I visited to plant the potatoes.

5TH APRIL 2009  

I'm still making good progress despite the recent spell of wind and rain! Unfortunately, the plastic sheeting I have used to mulch the back area of the allotment has been letting some light through, thus allowing the couch grass to  continue growing slowly. Consequently, I am now placing flattened cardboard boxes underneath it and this seems to be doing the trick. The birds seem to enjoy bathing in the puddles of water that collect on the surface of the plastic. Are they hinting they would like a bird bath?  Well, I hope to install one for them soon!

The first six beds have now been completed, with Beds 1 - 4 being planted up as described below. These are shown in the photograph to the left - with Bed 4 at the front and Bed 1 to the rear. I was unable to take the photo the other way round because of the great wall of couch grass lying at the front of the plot! However, this will be moved in due course and stacked at the back of the allotment.

• BED 1 -  Has been planted up with Buckwheat. Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is grown as a green manure crop and is usually dug in before it flowers. However, its nice pink flowers are very attractive to hoverflies, so mine will be allowed to flower. Hopefully it will then go on to produce some buckwheat grain, although I may have to net it at this stage in case the hedge sparrows take a fancy to it.  Buckwheat can be composted and is good for suppressing weeds because of its dense foliage.  The grain can be cooked and used to make dishes such as Kasha.  I purchased my seeds from The Organic Gardening Catalogue for £1.58 for a 112g packet.  This bed also contains a few Kestrel second-early potatoes. 

• BED 2 -  This bed has been planted up with just over 50 young strawberry plants, obtained by potting up runners from  my established strawberry plants last autumn.  These have been planted through black weed suppressing material (purchased in Wilksinson's for £4.99) to try to deter the couch grass from returning. They have been fed with some Animal-free Fertiliser and a sprinkling of seaweed meal, then mulched with home-made comfrey leafmould.  They will also get a handful of home-produced compost per plant later on.
• BED 3 - Has been been planted up with Stuttgarter onion sets, obtained from  the Pound Shop. I've planted these through black plastic sheeting to try to suppress the couch grass.  I'm not sure whether this will work as I haven't grown onions in this way before, but it's mentioned in the book Growing Green, although they use a biodegradable cornstarch mulch. These have also had some A-F fertiliser and some seaweed meal. 
• BED 4 - Has been planted with Pentland Javelin early potatoes, plus a row  of  The Student in order to use up last year's parsnip seed. However, if these don't germinate I will resow with the parsnip variety, Gladiator F1, which has a much higher canker resistance.  I thought I would try planting some parsnips as apparently they may suppress couch grass growth! 
• BED 5 -  A pea bed, containing the large marrowfat pea, Onward, the climbing Sugar Snap pea and a few dwarf Sugar Bon peas.  
• BED 6 -  Essentially a potato bed, planted up with maincrop Cara and second-early Kestrel potatoes.  
  

8 MARCH 2009
Progress at last!  The couch grass is now starting to go yellow underneath the cardboard mulch and comes out fairly easily with a garden fork, which causes minimal breakage of the roots. I've found that I can clear a strip of land about 2' (61cm) by 10' (305cm) in just under an hour and so far I've managed to complete the first four beds. I have made these about 120cm (47") wide, separated by 30cm (12") paths. Veganic beds are generally  made about 137cm (4' 6") wide, but as I'm quite small I find four-foot wide beds are much easier to reach across.   

After clearing each bed, I replaced the cardboard sheets on the soil surface and then fastened down a sheet of light-excluding black plastic over the top of these.  I am now trying to obtain a set of garden sieves so that I can sieve out any remaining small root fragments before planting up each bed.  After sieving, I shall probably leave the black plastic on the beds and plant through it,  just in case I've missed any fragments of couch root.

22 FEBRUARY 2009

Well the snow eventually melted, but was quickly followed by another few inches a few days later. However, last week conditions improved enormously and I was able to lay down a mulch of cardboard and plastic sheeting - as shown in the photograph to the right.  

My Azada Hoe was promptly despatched by Get Digging. It's a handsome hoe with a lovely beech handle and a nice sharp blade. I took it round to the allotment to have a 'play' with it, but soon discovered that the grass on my allotment was in fact couch grass, which has a very vigorous root system. After spending 20 minutes attacking it I had a blistered thumb and as the hoe was breaking up the couch grass roots and aggravating the infection, I decided that that was enough 'digging' for one day!                 Read My Full Review of the Azada Hoe

Consequently, I have decided to use a fork for the initial allotment ground clearance work and will leave the mulch in place until  it has had time to weaken the couch root system.  Hopefully forking will remove the couch grass roots without breaking them up into too many small fragments.  

9 FEBRUARY 2009

Last year I decided that I needed more space for vegetable growing and as there was very little of my back lawn left to dig up, I decided to put my name down on the list for an allotment. Almost exactly one year later, here it is!  I decided to start off on a small scale so it's only about 100 sq metres in total.

I'm really eager to get cracking on clearing the ground, but as you can see from  photograph (taken on the 8th February 2009) conditions are not ideal for working on the land at the moment!  So I'm busy collecting up sheets of cardboard to use for mulching and I've just ordered a new tool called an Azada Hoe from Get Digging for clearing the ground.