Chitting at last !

Welcome back to Reads Allotment Retreat. Finally we have got our seed potato's and have set about getting them chitting. This year we have decided not to grow Maincrop varieties as; despite their excellent taste, they take up a lot of ground for a long time. Also, they are readily available locally for £3.50 per 25kg sack! So, our choices ? Well, our First Earlies are Maris Bard(pictured). Although we have started the chitting process a bit late, it looks as though the planting date may also be later than usual too. The recent heavy rains have left large parts of the allotment waterlogged and unworkable. Couple that to the fact that I'm off sick from work still with my neck problem, and the planting of these seems far away! Once again we purchased these tubers through the allotment society, which proves again a great cost saving i.e. We paid £4.90 for 6kg of tubers - which is 55 tubers to be exact. Some of these are quite large and will be halved to make them go a bit further. Our choice of Second Earlies is Nadine. We grew these last year and were really impressed by the yield and their taste. These too were £4.90 for 6kg, and we'll get these chitting soon too. This represents a considerable saving over hgh street costs where, typically, 5 tubers are about a quid! The other main learning from last year is that we will not plant all at the same time, rather we'll stagger the planting for a continued crop.

Thanks must also be extended to my brother in law - Neil - who has kindly volunteered to help with the final bit of ground preparation prior to planting. I would not have been able to do this myself and am very grateful.

That's all for now, but pop back soon for more updates, our enthusiasm is growing fast for another good years growing ahead.

Take care all and enjoys your plots and gardens,

TTFN

Latest harvest & Other stuff

Welcome back to Reads Allotment Retreat. We've had a busy morning today, with wifey adding another gorgeous recipe to our new blog - Reads Recipe's - whilst I've been busy at the plot harvesting more produce. This haul is the last of our Second Earlies spuds (v.Nadine) which amount to approx 10 lb's. We've really enjoyed these spuds and will be growing them again next year. The ground now vacant has been thoroughly dug over, and this will be repeated in a few weeks time.

I also harvested 3 squashes (v.Turks Turban), but only managed a picture of 2 of them, the third is cooking as i type! These didn't get as big as hoped, but maybe if we plant them earlier next year they'll do a bit better. Thanks again to Stephen at Victoriana Nurseries, who donated this years squash plants. What a star! The pumpkins and courgettes are still growing on well, and we hope to bag a late harvest of those.


I picked a load more Beans(v.Borlotti) ready to dry out. So far we have dried about half a pint of beans, and have them stored in an airtight container, ready for use later in the year. We have also used them in place of Kidney Beans in Chilli con carne and can assure you they taste yum. In the bottom of the bag there's also a few late runner beans(v.Scarlet Emperor) which will be enjoyed with our lunch today.


Meanwhile, up at the plot:
The marrow plants that looked to be on their last knockings a couple of weeks ago, seem now to be bursting back to life. Maybe if the good weather continues, we'll bag a few more before the end of the growing season? We've enjoyed about 6 in total from 2 plants, so any more really would be a bonus. We even have some jars of Marrow Preserve in the cupboard (recipe to follow) . I tasted this while Jen was putting it into the jars - it had a lovely sweet Butterscotch type flavour - delish.

I couldn't believe the state of the runner bean plants - there's an abundance of new flowers that have suddenly appeared, so hopefully we will be cropping these again soon. Next year we plan to grow the runners in a different location - more of that in the future - and the existing beds will be planted up with our potato crops. A four year rotation plan for planting is all well and good, but I think we'll opt for a 2 year plan as it will be easier to manage. Well alternate the planting with roots / above ground veg. See how we get on !




This squash (v. Waltham Cross) is growing atop our compost bin, and looking good for a decent specimen. There are still new shoots here and there, so dependent on the weather for the next few weeks, I may / may not cut these back. Watch this space !





Whilst at the plot today, I placed my order for next years seed potato's. Ordering through the society is definitely a money saver. Next years selection is as follows:

• First Earlies: Maris Bard, which are a popular choice at the allotments, and are a renowned heavy cropper with good Blight / Scab resistance. 6Kg for £4.80.(approx 60 Tubers)
• Second Earlies: Nadine, after such a good crop this year, choosing these was a no brainer. We have been delighted both with the size and taste of the crop. Consider that I've just dug the last 10 lbs today and there has been no deterioration after the extra time in the ground.6Kg for £4.80. (approx 60 tubers.

This order will be delivered early in January next year, ready for chitting / planting out as the weather permits.

Thats about it for today, hope you've enjoyed reading our harvest update!

Hope you are all enjoying your plots as much as we are.

Take care,

TTFN

Spuds -more dug today

Welcome back to Reads Allotment Retreat. Today I dug some more of our Second Earlies (v.Nadine), and got this tidy haul from just 3 plants. It was a bit of an exciting dig, as the haulms had already died back, and I wasn't sure if the spuds would be ok, if any at all. As you can see, they are all ok, and suffering no ill effect from being left in the ground. That might change though, as a spell of wetter weather is on its way! We haven't even got to the maincrop yet!



Thats all for now. Take care and enjoy your plots,

TTFN.

Todays harvests & weeks update

Welcome back to our allotment retreat, where today we were greeted by the sight of our newly transplanted Rhubarb (v.Victoria) plant. As you can clearly see, it's loving it's new home, and sending up new shoots all the time. It's really encouraging to see such good growth, and together with the 2 crowns at home, should mean bumper harvests for the next few years. I know it takes up a lot of space on the plot, but in my opinion its a good sacrifice. This year we have experimented a bit with it - Rhubarb & Ginger jam etc, and then there's the possibility of wine too!

Today we harvested yet more veg. We have been getting a bag full every now and again! The spuds (v.Nadine) are the 2nd earlies, and we plan to leave them in the ground until we need them. This will continue unless we get a bout of wet weather, which may lead to slug damage. We are also now getting a good crop of Runner Beans(v.Scarlet Emperor), as well as the Purple Podded Climbing French beans. The latter are causing quite a stir at the plot - there's a well trodden path to our plot from other plotholders, keen to investigate this "new" crop! The Climbing French beans are also just starting to crop. Lovely!

We have more Marrows on the way too. This specimen now about 8" long and 4" diameter, and there's about 4 more starting off on the same plant! Yummy. In line with the experimenting(above) we are now thinking of Marrow Preserve. That's making my mouth water just thinking about it!




The second marrow plant next the the one above, is adorned with more large flowers, a beautiful sight and more promise of things to come. This has been our first year growing marrows - and even then its by accident - as the plants we purchased as "Courgette" were indeed Marrow! Oh well, we're not complaining!




The Butternut Squashes (v.Waltham Cross) that we planted atop our compost heap are also growing really well. This pic shows the 1st fruit starting to form, and there's plenty more buds too. It's all quite exciting, as we patiently wait to see what will / won't grow!








The plant's that were donated by Stephen at Victoriana Nurseries, are also growing on well. Several of the plants are producing fruit, all about the size of tennis balls at the moment. Considering how late these were planted, they are doing really well. There's also a couple of Courgette (Zucchini) plants which have fruit on them, and a sole Cantaloupe Melon plant. The latter is adorned with flowers but no fruit at the moment.


We have recently found a source of free manure, which we have started transporting to the allotment. At the moment we are spreading it over the beds that contained our second early spuds. Over the next few months we will get as much as we can and use it to improve our soil structure. Rather than "digging" it in, we plan to just mulch the surface with it, and let the worms do the work! The manure is all fairly well rotted down already, it doesn't even smell much! Just wish I had a towbar and a trailer!




That's it for today folks. Hope you've all enjoyed our update, and we look forward to welcoming you back to our allotment retreat soon.

Take care all and enjoy your plots.

TTFN.

1st August - And what a haul!

Welcome back to our allotment retreat, where we are enjoying the fruits of our labour once again! After a quick visit to the plot today we came away with this bumper harvest. We cant lay claim to the courgettes - they were a gift from a fellow plotholder - he grew so many he's been eating them every day for weeks! The marrow is our second this year and the plants are still flourishing. We picked a good handful of Runner Beans, French Beans and Purple podded french beans. Only a couple of Pea pods - but they are soooo tasty ! Finally we dug the first of our Second Earlies(v.Nadine). We'll be conjuring up some lovely home grown veg to go with our Hake Fillets for tea! Yum.
Our Butternut Squash plants are also going well. No sign of any fruits yet, but buds galore on the 4 plants that are planted atop our compost heap. The flower in this pic looks to have a fruit developing underneath, all we need now is some sunny weather to help it grow on a bit.
The mixed bag of plants that we were given are also doing very well, considering they've only been in the ground about ten days:


This one appears to be Zucchini - you can just see the yellow fruit starting to form.







Not sure what this one is either, but something is growing !! Unfortunately, the majority of the plants that Stephen gave us were without labels, so we'll just have to wait and see. We can't thank Victoriana Nurseries enough, and can't find enough superlatives to describe their nursery. Maybe we can show how grateful we are by buying a bit more from them next year!



Our newly located Rhubarb crown is going great guns too, obviously liking it's new growing position. Won't be enough growth to harvest this year, but we're hoping for bumper harvests in years to come.









Our first attempt at growing Borlotti Beans is proving to be a great success. Faced as we were today with a multitude of beans, we need to read up a bit before we harvest them. The plan was to grow them for drying, with a view to using the dried beans in winter stews and casseroles, but we are now thinking they could be picked to eat as "runners" - maybe one of our readers can advise us on this ?






On the way back from the plot, we stopped off at a newly discovered site (being vague on purpose!) and picked approx 10 pounds of these lovely Cherry Plums. As I sit here typing, wifey is busy preparing the first 5lb batch of jam - yummy yum. We already have about 4 jars in the larder from a previous picking a couple of weeks ago. If you could smell the fruit now as it gently boils on the stove . . . . oh, you can't ! Oh well!!


That's about it for now. Hope you are enjoying the growing and gardening, and also hope that you will pop back soon for more updates.

Till then, take care all.

TTFN

The Spuds are in - all of them!

Welcome back once again to Reads Allotment Retreat, our diary blog of our new allotment venture. It's been a busy couple of days at the plot, but a lot has been accomplished. Neil (pic) popped up to the plot with me today to help plant the second spud bed. It would have been a mammoth task on my own, and would have taken a lot longer without his help. The bed was rotavated yesterday afternoon, having previously been dug over by my better half just a week ago, and I wanted to get the spuds in before too much weed growth took hold. The first to be planted today were the Maincrop (v.Cara) , of which there were about 40 tubers. They have been planted fairly closely - I'm prepared to get smaller spuds and more of them, than to go for less but bigger - if you see what i mean. As these will be in the ground the longest, it seemed a good idea to plant them in the end of the bed with the better soil. The soil at the other end has more weeds and less depth, though there is still an adequate depth for the second early crop:

Before planting the Second Earlies (v. Nadine), we covered the bed with a weed membrane, and pegged down as best we could with some pegs mum had bought me a wee while ago. These will hold this larger sheet of fabric (1.5M x 7M) firmly in place. Wind whistling across the site is a major headache not just for me, but for fellow plotholders too. Next we laid the 60 ish tubers out roughly where we were to plant them, before cutting a cross in the fabric and planting through this. The holes (with tubers in) were then lightly covered in general purpose compost before being thoroughly watered in. A lot of plotholders have asked me why I use this planting method. The simple answer is that the spuds dont need earthing up, and weed growth is severely restricted; if not, stopped, meaning that the spuds can grow without anything competing for the available moisture.

These are the pegs I used for securing the weed control membrane. They did a superb job and are really secure in the ground. I've put these on my shopping list now, as I could do with a few more packs. Does anyone know where I can buy some more ?




This might not be one of the best pictures you'll ever see here on the blog, but I just had to capture this shot of one of the First Earlies (v.Rocket) showing through the soil. Ok, it's only about half an inch tall now, but still a lovely sight to see! All I need to do now is stay vigilant in terms of watering. Spuds need good supplies of water early in their growth so that they can quickly defend against disease - scab being the main problem encountered with poor watering early in the growth. It's true though that most varieties nowadays are quite resistant to scab, but you never can be too careful.

And what update would be complete without a lovely picture of Bramley Apple blossom! I know, you've seen it before.
Now that the spuds are planted I truly believe we are getting somewhere. There's still a whole host of jobs that need doing, but I'm not going to list them here, as seeing them in Black & White might worry me a tad! In the next day or so, I'll post a further update on where we are with the seed planting at home, and there's plenty of activity there. Only today Jen planted a batch of Butternut Squash seeds, all I need to do now at the plot is make a bed to put them in. Ahhh, it's a good life!



Finally, if you're wondering how Ruby is, she is coping admirably well. For those that don't know, she fell of the bed Sunday morning and fractured her collarbone. Bless her cotton socks.

I hope you are getting on well with your gardens and plots, and that you will find a few minutes here and there to pop back to Reads Allotment Retreat.

Take care,

TTFN.

Onions - Lots of them! 14.04.09

Welcome back to our plot for another update. Despite Tuesday being overcast and a bit cooler, we decided to risk a soaking and put in a few more hours hard graft. Having managed to rotavate the beds a couple of weeks back, we needed to get our onion sets in quick to stand a chance of them taking root. Using some scrap timber floorboards raided from a skip a while ago, I managed to knock together a couple of Raised Beds for the purpose. Ably assisted by Neil, these didn't take too long, and Jen was able to get the sets in. There's approx 120 all told, a mix of White (Sturon) and Red (v.Red Baron)) as well as a couple of handful's from a fellow plotholder !After planting and watering in, we roughly fixed some mesh to the top to keep the pesky birds at bay. This can be removed as and when required.

While Jen was planting the sets, I carried on with the second row of canes for the climbing beans etc. I had to take some canes from home as I had not bought enough the day before, and really wanted to get this job finished. Hopefully in the near future, we will be planting out our collection of climbers, that have been started off in loo roll inners at home. We have to admit though, I couldn't resist planting a few bean seeds there and then!


As you can see in this pick, our collection of concrete blocks is growing. Jen decided to get the next spud bed dug over, and every now and then hit one of these with the fork! I don't mind though, we are now forming a "Free" wall with these, but i don't really relish the thought if finding too many more - they're a real pig to get out due to their weight. Also in the pic is my newly restored digging spade (thanks Bob) with a long handle. It looks cumbersome I know, but is really easy to use.

Here's that second spud bed which Jen has dug over. What a star! Hopefully next week I can borrow the Mantis Tiller again from FIL Bill and get this readied for planting. As soon as this done we'll get straight on with the planting. We have about 40 second earlies to go in (v.Nadine) as well as the maincrop (v.Cara). I'm beginning to think we are planting too many (?) but having never had the space before, it seemed like a good idea to me. Hopefully if we get a good crop we can store some into the winter. What a treat !

Looking back over the plot at the end of the day, it's very rewarding to see the clear and measurable progress we have made, not just in the last couple of days, but over the last 8 months. Already we have produce nearly at harvest stage - the Purple Sprouting Broccoli that was planted in the depths of winter is just asking to be picked, and the Red Cabbage planted at the same time are looking good too. The "cut and come again" Cauliflowers have not done too well, but were a cheap experiment.

Finally ? Well, I just couldn't resist another pic of the glorious blossom on the Bramley Apple tree. We find ourselves searching it out as soon as we arrive at the plot!

Hope you've enjoyed this; the second update, of our progress earlier in the week. Any further plans we've had since that time have been curtailed by the heavy and constant April showers!

The forecast for the weekend is somewhat better - drier, and we hope to be rotavating the freshly dug spud bed on Monday afternoon.


Please feel free to pop back soon. It's a busy couple of months ahead, and we have loads more to do. Hope you continue to enjoy your gardens & plots. Take care all,

TTFN

Chitting away nicely !

Welcome back to Reads allotment retreat, for a long overdue update on what we're up to.
As you can see from the photo, the main activity in hand is watching the pots chitting in the greenhouse. Regular readers will know that this year we are growing Rocket, Nadine, and Cara. Because we can. Originally I intended to grow Maris Peer as a second early, but my allotment society had trouble getting them from their usual supplier. With that in mind, I couldn't resist picking up a pack of these from Homebase during a recent shopping spree. Although I was more than happy with Nadine as a replacement, i still had a hankering for my original choice.
All i need to do now - over the next 6 weeks - is to get the ground readied for planting. (All volunteers welcome - bring a spade and fork!) I also need to source some more of my trusty black fabric mulch through which to plant. To me, it's the best way of avoiding green tubers. Traditionalists reading this will be cringing - they've been earthing up their tubers for years. Yes, I know that works, but this to me is far easier, and it works a treat!

Seeds still need sorting, and there's loads of other jobs too.

Better get cracking !

Take care all - enjoy your gardening. I look forward to seeing you again soon.

TTFN

All bought and paid for!

Welcome to a cold and wintery 1st of Feb update from Reads Allotment Retreat. Despite the weather encroaching upon us, I popped up to the allotment today and paid my firtst years rent. £29.60 seems a small price to pay, considering i now have access to over 300 sq yards of land to grow my own veg. I say over, as the society have allowed me to take on the land at the end of my 10 rods - Free of Charge, which gives me approx 100 sq yards extra! There still is a hell of a lot to do to get ready for planting, but regular readers will know I am making good progress. There's still about a day's work to go to ready the beds for the spuds, but I have amazed myself at how much I have managed to do already!
Today I picked up the spuds that I ordered back in October. There was a small surprise: The second earlies that i ordered (v.Maris Peer) are not available, and I have been given 6kg of Nadine as a replacement. This would have been my second choice, so I am none too worried. What did surprise me though, was how small the tubers were in the First Earlies parcel (v.Rocket). In a 3kg pack there were 66 tubers ! Far more than I expected. As soon as I got home, these were transferred to old egg boxes, and placed in a light/cool/frost free place ready to start chitting. I need to get more egg boxes from somewhere, as I have over 100 more spuds to chit. Transport cafe here i come!

I popped up to the plot earlier in the week with my Bruv in law, as he had volunteered to help with the digging. (Thanks Neil). While we were there, I also planted a Rosemary bush, that I had bought locally. It cost a mere £2.50 for an established plant grown in a 6" pot. I had previously tried to take some cuttings at home, but these all seem to have failed.

That's about all for now, but join us again soon for more news from the plot.