Not rotten enough yet

The council have delivered some stable manure to the allotments. My neighbour John pointed this out to me in the late Autumn when he started to add mounds of the stuff to his beds. I went and inspected the pile, but to me it looks a bit too fresh to be incorporated just yet. There's hardly any muck, it's mainly fresh straw and wood shavings. In his book (that I have mentioned before here) Terry Walton notes that manure with wood chippings and sawdust is to be avoided, as it takes too long to break down, making plant growth poor. So, I have opted to stack a few barrow-loads in my new compost heap and maybe use it next year.

Roll on to January and John has now covered virtually all his 10 poles in the stuff, and I was a bit concerned to see another experienced plot holder, Roy, wandering off with barrow-loads of the same. However, when I spoke to Roy (a dangerous thing to do if you've got less than half an hour to spare), he volunteered that he wasn't using it on his plot, but was stacking it 'for a year, maybe two' before using any. Great, at least that's two of us with the same opinion. We mused a bit on the worn state of the ridings, and Roy told me how they used to bring sewage and waste from Wolverton Works down for allotmenteers to use. That was, until they discovered that due to the industrial processes it was full of poisons like lead. Hardly what you want on your vegetables. In those days, enterprising gardeners used to stack up the sewage (animal and human I guess) into a smelly pile, set a fire in the middle and let it burn for a couple of days to dry it out enough to use. I went away fairly pleased that we don't need to do that any more!

More seeds

Leek seeds were sown indoors last week. Must remember to label them because they look exactly like onions when they first come up.

Onion progress

Some very cheerful progess by my onion seeds. At first I thought they looked a little weak and pale, with one or two going down to a white fluffy mould. I removed the sickly ones so they didn't pass on any infection and the best examples have now managed to get enough light and are starting to grow strongly. I have negotiated a more sunny position with the boss so hopefully the rest will catch up.

Onion seedlings ready to pot on

Advice on Terry Walton's website http://www.gardenersclick.com/ is that these now need to be potted on whilst they are still at the 'hairpin' stage, so that is my job this weekend if I can find something to pot them into.

Parsnip success



A 14" parsnip

There's always one crop that does particularly well every year, even if everything else fails. This year it's parsnips.

New compost bins

Rain again this morning, but by the afternoon the sky changed from its usual grey to a funny blue colour and a strange, bright yellow light appeared in the sky, so I took a chance and disappeared off to the plot for a couple of hours until the light disappeared again.

 I cleared out my 'rubbish corner' and used a combination of new and old pallets to make two new compost bins. It's been nearly a year since I dismantled my previous heap, and I've missed it.

Now harvesting: leeks, parsnips.

The new compost heap

Never make plans

I was looking forward to heading down to the plot today, as for the first time in ages I expected to be free of other commitments for a few hours, but the heavens opened and it lashed down with rain most of the day. The moral of the story, never get your hopes up, you'll only be disappointed.

First seeds of 2011

The plot has been a virtual no-go area for several weeks, but I spent a few minutes sowing some onion seeds earlier today. I usually order onion sets but always end up ordering too many and spending too much, only to get patchy results, so this is a new approach for me. These seeds were some of the ones I got in the sale at the garden centre, using my garden centre reward vouchers, so hopefully if they grow well my onions will all be completely free this year! At least that's the plan...

Tradition has it that onions are sown on Boxing Day, but this is most likely a rumour started by men who, by 26th December, needed a bit of alone time in the shed to escape the Christmas madness! It's true they need a long growing season, so any time in January should be fine according to Terry Walton on http://www.gardenersclick.com/.  They need to be kept at about room temperature to germinate, so two trays of Duchy Organic Sturon onion seeds are now on the window sill under plastic propagator lids. My windowsills are quite dark so I have stuck silver foil on one side of the clear lid, in an effort to reflect as much light in to the seeds as possible at this time of year, a trick I saw on Gardener's World. The seeds are exactly the same as leek seeds which I have had good success with so hopefully these will do well.