OCTOBER  2009 

LAST UPDATED: 17/10/2009

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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.