May 2009
1 post
April 2009
8 posts
Planting planting planting...
Into the greenhouse went:
Runner beans (6x Best of All, 12x Butler) Dwarf French beans Sprite x15 (another batch to do in a few weeks) Butternut Squash Hawk x 12 Courgette Defender x8 Marrow Green Bush x4 Sweetcorn Swift x24 Cabbage April x10 Leek Musselburgh Celery Golden Self-blanching Celeriac Monarch Marigolds Sunflowers
And into the ground:
2 more rows of potatoes, Winston and Desiree
Seeds
The seeds from the other day:
Parsnip Albion (F1) x4 rows Carrot Amsterdam Forcing 3 x6 rows Pea Little Marvel x2 double rows
Plus yesterday:
One row of Winston First Early potatoes
One and a half rows of white onion sets (Stuttgarter Giant)
Spring
It has suddenly dawned on me that its time to get busy!
Today: I’ve planted carrots and parsnips (in the raised bed we built and filled a few weeks back) plus some peas.
There are potatoes in a big bucket in the ‘greenhouse’ which are going strong, and a few of the very-first-earlies are showing in the ground.
The last of the leeks have been pulled (and chucked,...
March 2009
2 posts
February 2009
1 post
November 2008
2 posts
Word of the day: cold.
Anyway, I tidied up all the dead stuff onto the compost. And planted some winter peas. What on earth they are going to do in that freezing, heavy soil I do not know.
October 2008
2 posts
The two most dangerous words on an allotment:
Let’s just
You never just go and fetch a few veg…
You can’t just put some canes in for those tomatos…
You don’t just move a fence…
You certainly will never just pop down to the allotment for an hour…
September 2008
4 posts
Bindweed →
Convolvulus arvensis
It is probably the most troublesome weed in the garden and is very difficult to eradicate.
Ha. Most troublesome weed - after marestail. And we got it.
A few days ago…
Cremated the tomatos. They had all died. Fail.
Earthed up leeks with compost from tomato grow bags. Should produce longer, whiter stems.
Tidied up strawberries. Removed new plants from runners, placed in better positions. We will see whether they take or not.
Dug out garlic and cleared old onion bed. Sowed green manure there. Grows over winter, dig in in the spring....
It finally stopped raining a bit so I went to the...
Dug up all the potatos and put them into sacks. Three rows worth, into three sacks (the sacks are not full, by any means, but I reckon there must be 40 kilos there).
The onions I sowed the other week are just showing through, and the cabbage seeds have germinated as well.
There are some tiny squashes on the plants now, and the peas have got some pods on too.
Our 30 tomato plants have...
August 2008
6 posts
Today
Planted cabbage seeds ‘April’ into cells, to transplant in a month or two and be ready for cropping in the spring.
Lots of weeding.
Took up some onions for drying in the shed. The ones we put there last week are ready now. Also dug up some garlic and hung out to dry.
The leeks are well established now, only thin, but definately edible. Can stay in the ground over the winter, we...
Planted Yesterday:
Onion (Japanese) Senshyu Semi-Globe Yellow
Judging from the packet, these seem to be very picky about when and how they are sown, so hopefully they’ll take off OK. Ready next July.
Radish Scarlet Globe
Just a small batch, ready in a few weeks time. Will put in another lot in a couple of weeks.
If it would stop raining for a little while, we might visit the allotment.
It's been a while...
But here’s to a new start.
What’s been going on?
The peas and the broad beans both grew well, and tasted pretty good. The broad beans need more support than we gave them. The peas got in a complete tangle with their netting, which was over all three rows. It was hard to pick all of the peas. We’ve got some more peas growing now, with more upright netting, and one set of...
July 2008
1 post
June 2008
1 post
Things I learnt today about growing things.
You can “pinch out the tops” of broad beans when they have plenty of flowers on them. This makes them concentrate more on growing beans. Also, the bits you pull off are nice to eat.
You can eat pea shoots. [pea shoots, not pea shooters].
We should grow radishes again.
Broad beans go well on toast.
May 2008
1 post
April 2008
1 post
February 2008
2 posts
January 2008
1 post
From the archives: The Christmas Break
It’s been a long time since the last entry, and unfortunately a long time since the last visit to the allotment due to jobs, end of term deadlines and holidays. Hopefully over the next few days a visit will be paid to check the progress of the beans and peas and we hope they have survived!
The first Christmas since we have owned the allotment meant a wealth of allotment based presents for each...
October 2007
5 posts
From the archives: Beans and Radishes
Planted some broad beans (“Aquadulce Claudia”) today, four rows of them. They’ve got some lovely compost to grow down into from all our trench-digging.
Pulled up some of the radishes – not the most popular plant amongst the allotmenteers, but really nice in my humble opinion.
Had a look under the fleece at the cabbages etc, which are mostly going well. A few have been munched a bit, and one or...
From the archives: Today, we...
…covered radishes, cabbages etc with fleece to keep the imminent frost off.
…planted some herbs (courtesy of Rich’s mum).
…made compost (and added some magic powder to the heap that makes it work quicker).
…ate biscuits.
…found a gnome that has moved in.
— Ollie
From the archives: Compost
Sunday 7th October:
Ollie and Rich invaded the compost bin, pulling out plenty of carpet and a load of plastic – the previous occupier seems to have ignored the “compost” bit of “compost bin”.
Underneath all the junk, there was some decent rotted stuff. We split the bin in two with a door (expertly made to fit by Rich, with a little precision whacking with the hammer). This should let us have...
September 2007
6 posts
From the archives: Mr Humphries' Shepherds Pie
My Dad’s shepherds pie is without a doubt the best in the world. Or at least it was until I made a few subtle changes. The cheese on top especially is a master stroke.
You will need:
About 150g of minced beef per person.
Two Large onions.
One and a half large potatoes per person.
Six large carrots.
Five celery stalks.
One rasher of bacon per person.
One stock cube.
Corn flower....
From the archives: Allotment Fires - A Simple...
Everyone loves a good fire. They’re useful on allotments for getting rid of waste, especially weeds. Weeds don’t come back when you’ve burned them. The left-over ash is good fertiliser too.
But getting a good fire going isn’t as easy as you might think. Here’s what we have learned:
You will need:
Metal dustbin, or other suitable fire-container.
Various tools for making holes in said...
From the archives: Planting
On the 26th of September (the last day of the summer holidays for lazy students), we got some veg in the ground. Hopefully they’re going to grow!
Into the bed that we found the potatoes in, we sowed:
Three rows of Radishes (French Breakfast 3, according to the packet). Apparently you can plant them up to the end of September, and they should be ready to eat in three weeks.
Three rows of Onions...
From the archives: The most basic Leek and Potato...
This one is a really easy one – it’s exactly what it says on the tin (so long as you have a blender – available for about £10 from most big stores).
Ingredients: Leeks, Potatoes
Extras: Herbs, Vegitable Stock, Onion, Milk / Cream
Chop the potatoes (peeled or unpeeled) into resonably small bits. Rinse well to remove excess starch and start boiling. Meanwhile, fry off the leeks in some oil,...
From the archives: A hard days work
Friday 21st September brought the first real opportunity for the four allotmenteers to get stuck into the clear up operation.
We got the front fence looking a bit more upright. We cleared a fair bit of bramble from that corner too, and dug out some rhubarb.
We killed our weeds (well, pretty much everything) with Sodium Chlorate weedkiller. Apparently some stuff called SBK is the stuff for our...