Murphy's Law for beginners

Everything is growing away strongly on the plot now, I'm just waiting impatiently to start harvesting stuff. I was so nervous earlier in the year that my carefully chitted potatoes weren't going to come up that I actually dug one up to see if anything had happened (of course it had). Now I'm a little more laid back - patience is a virtue. Not that I should have worried of course. I carefully prepared the soil, diligently chitted the specially-sourced seed potatoes in my spare room, acclimatised them to the outdoors, painstakingly planted them at the recommended spacing and depth, added fertiliser to the soil and weeded and earthed up...

Meanwhile, amongst the kitchen scraps, left alone, forgotten, discarded and with no attention whatsoever, I now have 3 healthy potato plants and a spire of brocolli sprouting luxuriantly from my compost heap!

Public Enemy Number 1 - GM Crops?

Since the start of spring, a particular weed has sprung up more than any other on my plot, so I decided to look up what it was. I think I have found the culprit, and it is oilseed rape.

I found it on this useful weed identification site, which I think is primarily intended for farmers, but there are pictures of the seedlings and the fully grown plants.

I also found some interesting stuff about rapeseed/oilseed rape on Wikipedia. First, that it might have come from seed being blown in (there are numerous fields of this stuff on commercial land nearby). Second, there is a genetically modified, "Roundup Ready" (weedkiller resistant) version commercially available. I don't know if British farmers are using it, but that might explain why I've got so much of the damn stuff, and not much else - my application of weedkiller last season was Roundup (Glyphosate). Purely speculation, but interesting, Moog thinks.

Moog thinks this might be the first GM crop on my allotment!

Nodules

Green Manure Final update. I thought I would share this picture of the super duper nitrogen nodules that have grown on the roots of my green manure. Nice to see something with my own eyes which I'd only previously read about in books.

Since chopping back these winter field beans I have discovered you have to cut the roots pretty short or they start to re-grow.

The trouble with seeds

Moog thinks the most annoying thing about this allotment business so far is the seeds. How anything grows in the wild apart from weeds is anyone's guess.

The most disappointing seeds so far have been French Marigolds, which I planted to add a bit of colour and fragrance to my plot (they're supposed to keep insects off too). Out of an entire packet of seeds I've got about 10 little plants. That's still good value but not the big border full of colour I was hoping for. The most successful seeds so far are lettuce and courgette seeds. The lettuces are quick and almost all of them come up and start turning into viable plants. The courgettes also produce big healthy looking seedlings, none of the spindly stems that frequently collapse as soon as you water them. Moog thinks they're in proportion to the size of the plant so maybe I just need to grow big things.

I have had the following disasters so far, which have all tested my patience to varying degrees:

1. French bean seeds rotted because they were too cold and wet (despite being on a warm window sill in a propagator). All rotted except one single solitary magic bean which now a foot tall. Replacements coming on fine.
2. Chillis and peppers took ages to germinate. Consequently I managed to separate the seeds from their labels. I was just about to give up on seeds and buy some plants from the garden centre when they all started sprouting. The trouble is, peppers and chillis are identical as seedlings so I now have no idea which plants are which. Luckily, the tomatoes I had put in different shaped pots so I can identify those.
3. Leeks came up well but it has taken me the best part of a weekend to pot them all on into bigger containers, and I have no idea if they will all survive; time will tell. I would like to know how my next door neighbour John has got leeks like sticks of rock while mine are still like blades of grass.
4. When things did come through I was slow potting them on, as I expected them to get a bit bigger first. Moog now tells me I need to pot things on as soon as the first couple of proper leaves come through, otherwise little seed trays/pots get full of roots and the plant stops growing.
5. Some plants germinate but then just fall over dead. I don't know why, I am attributing it to "damping off" according to all the books which say it is due to fungal infection. Seedlings are so fragile, I don't know how wild plants make it on their own.
6. Leggy seedlings have been a feature, as I haven't really got a suitably light-but-not-direct-sunlight place to put them. The kitchen and spare room window sills are too dark, the greenhouse is too hot. Where is the Goldilocks zone for seedlings? Any advice welcome...

So much to do...

Time marches on and the allotment has really taken off. It's hard to keep up with the blog.

The old man opposite complimented me again and said the allotment was a credit to me; this is great, I'm glad old-timers have looked on and approved, it's a great feeling for a novice like me to keep getting compliments. Also I met Irene, who like me is in her first season on her allotment. She commented that my plot looked lovely and tidy from her side of the riding, although I was forced to point out that those lovely green paths between my beds are in fact mainly weeds rather than grass...

Here's a quick list of what's been going on:

• Onions are greening up well, stalks are about 6 inches high already. None have been uprooted by birds, as I planted the sets so that the tops were just covered, rather than leaving them visible on the surface.
• First early potato plants are getting big too, I have scooped some earth up around the stems as instructed by just about everyone.
• First row of maincrop potatoes are just starting to surface.
• Garlic is plumping up and should be ready to harvest soon. Have planted some carrot seeds in between the rows to use up the space and to confuse carrot flies.
• I have created a big fruit cage for my raspberries. Two posts with wire in between, covered in netting to keep birds off.
• Planted in short rows in the same bed, surrounded by fleece for protection: Carrots, spring onions, Cos lettuce, cut-and-come-again salad leaves.
• Germinated and growing on in the greenhouse: French climbing beans, courgettes, more salad leaves, red lettuces, tomatoes, chillis, peppers, chard, sweetcorn, leeks. They should all be in the ground in the allotment in a few weeks time
• Still to go: Parsnip seeds and peas need to go in this week if I get time.

Garden gift review slot number 2

My family and friends generosity continues unabated. Here are some other items to add to my list of gifts:

1. Plant labels and labelling pen. I didn't use these initially, in favour of remembering where I'd put stuff or making my own from strips of card. But I started to forget where I'd put stuff, and the bits of cardboard promptly floated away the first time I watered my seedlings, making it hard to work out what was in each pot until the plants got bigger, and I'm still not sure. So this is a great gift, and I used up two packs of labels before I realised the pen has both a wide and narrow nib. Everything is now neatly labelled, especially things that haven't come up yet.

2. Money... I received a cheque from my aunt in Germany, which has been very useful. My strawberries are now safely hidden under netting, my seedlings are now merrily growing on in bigger pots and my carrots and salad leaves are hidden behind a fleece barrier. Aunt Anne has admitted to having not just one, but two allotments when she was in the UK so I may yet be able to glean some useful tips as time goes on.

3. A big open-necked thermos flask for keeping hot stuff hot and cold stuff cold. It's great, I've got two cups of tea and a choc-ice in mine. Boom, boom.

4. Lots of timber. Hot on the heels of the BBC's Joe Swift, I've had a donation of timber planks from my brother-in-law Mike. They were sitting around in his garden, but are now sitting around in my allotment waiting to be used as edging.