Little Brother

Good news of the Rhubarb front. The rhubarb plant I thought had died has just shot out a single, tentative red stem. When I dud it up I had noticed that there was some early signs of life, although nothing to compare to the other robust specimen. Thinking that it was worth giving it a shot, I spared it from the compost bin and roughly shoved it into a pot of muddy soil. It rewarded me for my effort, although it has a long way to go to catch up to it's big brother!

Big Brother

Spring Progress Report

I continue to make progress in this lovely warm weather we are currently enjoying- the ground is beginning to dry out a little, and so I have managed to doe some more planting. The two central raised beds are in the best condition. I added the bulk of last years compost bin to these two beds, and dug them over. I planted one with potatoes- Charlotte and Maris Piper. The other contained strawberries that I planted last year. A few of these had died so I replaced them and added some protection in the form of clonches made from pop bottles. Hopefully that will help them catch up. I also had a bit of room left over so I planted up a few first early potatoes- I forget which type.

Corinne helped me dig over one of the beds at the wetter end of the allotment- the ground was still sticky and heavy, and so I added a lot more soil and compost to try to raise the surface up and dry it out. I planted onions in this bed. Normally onions don't like a wet spot, but I am hopeful that they will enjoy that location as it is now high and dry.

Struggling with the heavy, sticky wet soil

Charlie and Eleanor came down to 'help', which seemed to consist of jumping in muddy puddles and playing in the car. Not actually that helpful.

Experimental Carrot Bed

I have finally completed the Experimental Carrot Bed (E.C.B). This is something I blogged about a while ago, and is the natural evolution from my Bucket-of-Carrots experiment last year. The principle is simple- Build a wooden frame to support two deep containers. The legs of the stand must be 2 1/2 foot high. Fill the bottom of the containers with a layer of grit, for drainage, then fill the rest of the container with a mixture of soil and compost. Add a net to keep off the pigeons, sow in some carrot seeds - Autumn Gold, which worked well last year.

The rational for this is that Carrot Fly, the principle pest for carrots, hovers at no higher than two foot, and so will be unable to attack the carrots, as they are above this height. It should also be an effective deterrent to mice and slugs- I hope. It has the added advantage of being a good height to work without bending down. I sieved the soil to remove any roots and small stones- even small stones can deflect a carrot root. leading to misshapen veg.

I covered the container with plastic sheeting to act as a mini-poly tunnel to increase germination, to gain another head start.

As this is an experiment, I also planted a control (ie, a line of carrot seeds in the soil, not enjoying ant of the protection and advantages of the ECB. If the ECB proves a success I will make a much larger one next year. If not, well there's no harm done, as I made it entirely out of recycled and reclaimed materials.

Well it's April already and I have broken my new years resolution to post on my blog every month. In my defence the weather in February was so bad that it put me off, and March has flown by in a whirl of rainy days, over time, weddings and other distractions. But now April is here I am once again reaffirming my vows to post at least on a monthly basis.

I went down my allotment today. It is Easter bank holiday weekend, and I expected it to be very busy, but I was the only one there. I think the forecast of a wet rainy day must have put some people off, even though it was very pleasant this morning (in between the April showers), and perhaps some people were away. I too the chance to take stock and have a good look around at what was growing, and importantly, what wasn't.

I managed to harvest some leeks and spring onions. The leeks, I have to say, have been a bit of a disappointment- and it is quite hard to tell them apart from the spring onions. The bed the leeks were in is very wet and boggy- so presumably that had something to do with it. I have considered turning it into a paddy field and growing wild rice, but I think it might be more practical to build it up into a raised bed. The garlic I planted at the end of last year is sprouting, and one of the Rhubarbs is doing amazingly well (the other has died- I won't be buying any more of that type). Some of the strawberries have survived the winter, but are not really thriving. A few were not so lucky, and I have some gaps in my strawberry bed. Likewise the raspberry bed is filled with nothing but dead canes. The whole bed will have to be dug out, more soil added to improve drainage, then put over to some other purpose.
My plan for April is to plant the potatoes- I have been chitting them on my study window sill. This year I am planting a lot more than last year, with the hope of a much higher yield. I have also decided to stick to well known varieties we like, so I have gone for Maris Piper and Charlotte, as well as a variety of early cropping new potatoes too, just to get us in the mood. I will be planting more strawberries to replace those that died during the winter. I have a new raspberry cane from ALDI that will go where the dead rhubarb plant was. I also have carrots, radishes (two types- purple and red), yellow courgettes and red and white onion sets.

I want to build at least three more raided beds, and my carrot bed, and press on with digging out the paths. I think that I might have to compromise my morals and buy the timber I need to build the raised beds I as I have just not been able to get my hands on exactly the right type of wood for the job. I also need to transfer my compost from one container into the other to help speed up its composting proses. I think I might be busy in April.

I can hardly believe that I haven't updated my blog since September. My new years resolution is to update my allotment blog at least once a month.
In fact, I haven't been down to the allotment much since September, as the result of moving house and having a very bad back. Things are settling down now and so I am keen to get back on with the Allotmenting.
As it's the beginning of a new year, and almost twelve months since we started with out family plot, I thought it was a good opportunity to review the previous years affairs, think about what we have learned.

So, what grew well?

Potatoes- The early potatoes produced a reasonable crop, but were exhausted to soon. I need to plant more variety of potatoes to ensure a more sustained crop throughout the year, rather than a glut in early summer, then nothing.

Carrots- I managed to grow fistfuls of baby carrots in my "Bucket of Carrots", as well as some quite impressive autumn and winter crops in the main beds. Carrots are very popular in this house, and I am thinking of building a raised carrot trough to grow more in this year.

Onions- I grew them from seed, not sets. Many of the old hands gazed longingly at my handsome onions and commented how they never managed to grow them from seed.

Rocket- which I grew from plugs- very tasty and easy to grow.

Sweetcorn- Didn't crop that well, but they were very tasty!

Iceberg lettuce- bought from church fair as plugs- tastes like lettuce should, not like the watery insipid stuff you get form the supermarket.

What didn't grow well?

Leaks- They look more like spring onions

Spring onions- Don't get me started on the spring onions

Broccoli and Cabbage- well I hope the caterpillars and pigeons enjoyed them.

Pumpkins- the size of tennis balls

Sprouts- the size of peas.

Tomatoes- died when we were on holiday.

Butternut squash - grew well but never produced any fruit.

The jury is out on the rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries, as they haven't cropped yet.

Things that I have learned so far (great words of wisdom)

1. don't buy ALDI compost- it might be cheep, and it's probably fine for soil improving, but it add nothing to the nutrients in the soil- This year I will add a better brand of compost.
2. It's better to buy plugs than grow things from seed, with one or two exceptions (carrots and onions). Their more reliable and have already had a head start.
3. More raised beds (and thus more timber) will be needed. My earlier policy of only using stuff I could scrounge to make the beds has meant that I have only managed to build two big beds and two small, but I think I want at least another four large ones this year. I rather like the Mad-Max-post-apocalypse-shanty-town look, but I think that this year I might have to bend the rules and buy some timber. I will, of course, buy sustainably sourced wood, but I cant help but feel I will have let myself down a bit.

So there you go. That was 2009. In 2010 I will be planting more potatoes, oinions, carrots and sweetcorn. I will invest in better protection for my cabbages and broccoli, and I will be having another go at pumpkins. Wish me luck.

Progress report

Harvest time for the onions and the garlic- I pulled up lots, and they are currently drying on my barbecue in the garage. I think that is about the best use for a barbecue grill this summer- so much for the Met office and their fabled 'Barbecue Summer'. They are very smelly, but they keep the vampires away (the garlic, not the Met office).

I planted some strawberries for next summer, and some spinach and Chinese salad for over winter. The sweet corn is still progressing well, and the pumpkin is about the same size as it was last time I reported on it, but has turned a nice orange colour. I hope it is going st swell a bit in the next few weeks, or it is going to be useless come Halloween. Well may be we can eat it instead.

The tomatoes have all died while I was away on holiday. Typically the two weeks we go abroad are the only two weeks without rain all year! Oh well. The raspberry canes don't look too happy either.

Worst by far was the cabbage and broccoli, which I covered up with mesh after they were mauled by marauding pigeons. Now they are being stripped bare by a biblical plague of cabbage white butterfly caterpillars. The cabbage looks more like Swiss cheese, and the Broccoli is strait out of the pages of "The Hungry Caterpillar"!
I took the mesh down- let the bloody pigeons do something useful for a change and fill their boots with big fat caterpillars!

Yummy!

This bunch of carrots is the result of my 'bucket of carrots' experiment. Earlier in the spring one of the old hands down the allotment saw me wandering about with a 12 inch plant pot that I had found in my garage. "You know what you want to do with that?" he said "Sieve some soil and compost into it and sow carrot seeds. Stand it up on a stack of pallets two foot off the ground and keep it well watered." The rational for sieving the soil is to encourage nice straight carrots, as they tend to deflect and fork if the hit even the smallest stone. The idea of standing it two foot off the ground is to prevent attack by carrot fly, which flutters along below that height, apparently operating under the misscomprehension that all carrots grow in the ground.

I followed the old guys advice, and sowed baby carrot seeds (and I sowed another lot when Charlie accidentally kicked the first lot off the wood pile, scattering them to the four winds). I put a Tesco carrier bag over the top to encourage them to germinate, and that was that. The ridiculous rainfall we have had this year meant I hardly even needed to water them. The carrot fly were suitably confused by the wood pile, and we have got a big bunch of sweet baby carrots. Next year we will be carrying this experiment on, perhaps with other varieties, and sowing them at two weekly intervals to give us sustained cropping. This method is easy, successful and, best of all, doesn't involve any digging. You could even do this on a sunny patio.

Not that all the carrots ended up dart straight though. This one is a particular oddity. It reminds me of a mandrake root from Harry Potter.