Autumn 2014: A Thankful Harvest

I realize I haven't updated the blog since June. How time flies. My mind has been on other things this year as we hurtled towards increasing the number of tiny humans in the household by 100% at the beginning of November. I am vaguely aware that the plot is still there and it was fairly tidy when I last saw it but it no doubt needs attention now.

I'm waiting on delivery of my overwintering onion sets and garlic bulbs. This year I have opted to buy some new garlic, the harvest of my own recycled bulbs was disappointing. Having spoken to a few others I don't think the cloves I planted were at fault, but I do think the weather of 2013/14 produced smaller garlic than in previous years. In any case I am starting afresh, when they arrive, with some 'Carcassonne Wight', to remind me of the lovely holiday we spent in the south of France last year. It is a purple hardneck variety which are my favourite sort.

Squash 'Festival' and a courgette, I forget which variety but they were organic seeds and grew like mad once they got going

The harvest this year was excellent despite my half-arsed attempts at gardening, and I mainly have friends, family and colleagues to thank for that. Cucumbers, provided by my Dad (Wise Mike) were prolific again this year and Tiny Human #1 is addicted to them. I also benefited from several gifts from fellow allotmenteer Derek, namely squashes, sweetcorn and chilli plants which all did quite well. Finally I grew courgettes and spinach from seeds gifted by another colleague, Roberta, so without the generosity of all three I might have had a more barren year on the plot. Dwarf French beans did very well and onions produced a very good harvest, but the King Edward potatoes died off fairly early in August and failed to achieve anywhere near the sort of size tubers that I would have hoped.  My poor raspberry canes are still producing fruit but I decided to brutally ignore them this year, as my free time becomes more and more limited I am looking at lower-maintenance crops for the future.

I didn't grow pumpkins this year so this is a supermarket job but Tiny Human drew the face this year for me to carve.

Little helper on the plot

The conversation went something like this:

ME: 'Look, I am putting up this string and hanging some shiny CDs on it to scare the birds away.'

TINY HUMAN: 'Ooh, can I help?'

ME: 'Yes of course.'

[Tiny Human then potters off and spends quite a while digging a hole to put a piece of bamboo cane in. She then soaks the ground with several watering cans of water, and smooths it with a broom.]

TINY HUMAN: "Look Dad, the bird will see that shiny disc, and go "arrgh" and fly off, but he'll fly into this stick, and fall into the mud and get stuck. It's bird-mud."

ME: 'Oh. Well done, I would never have thought of that.'

After that, we picked strawberries.

Root Trainers

After receiving some sweetcorn plants from Derek I was impressed with the root trainer pots ("Rootrainers") that he had used so I went and got myself a set straight away. They consist of a set of black plastic sleeves that fold together into long square pots suitable for sowing seeds of plants that need a good root run - I've used them in the picture below for my replacement sowing of dwarf French beans. They come with a plastic propagator cover. 

Rootrainer pot with healthy French bean seedlings; strong roots go all the way to the bottom

I'm usually wary of this sort of thing as they seem a bit faddy but I have to say I'm impressed. They are easy to handle, and the shape of the pot encourages the roots to grow really healthily and straight down rather than spiralling round. They can be opened up, as in the picture, when ready for planting, and it is much easier than normal pots to avoid disturbing the roots. Recommended.

Photo update

 I have now managed to get back on top of the weeds after my holiday, and here is a photo to prove it:

Front to back: Onions, cucumbers, onions, garlic

 And here is a photo of what is rapidly becoming 'gift corner' - sweetcorn, squash and broad beans in the picture below all gifted by Derek, and a row of spinach and courgettes, seeds for which were given to me by my colleague Roberta as part of her retirement celebrations:

Sweetcorn, courgettes, squash, spinach and broad beans

This is one area I haven't got on top of, but a beautiful crop of wild flowers has sprung up on a neglected bed so I've left them, seeing as they are a much better display than  my planned wildflower bed, which has one flower in it:

Wild flowers

 And finally, the strawberries are ready in time for Wimbledon:

Strawberries

Scum

The allotments have had some unwelcome visitors lately in the form of thieves and burglars. Both times were in the school holidays, which I think gives a clue as to who is to blame. They have a habit of taking things from people's sheds, and then for whatever reason (whether they get bored or are disturbed I don't know) leaving their loot around the place to be discovered later. They are more of an annoyance than anything else, as each time we have to tidy up after them. To reduce damage I no longer bother locking my shed, as they either break off padlocks or unscrew the hinges, and they have never taken anything of mine until now. This time they took both my plastic trugs and my wheelbarrow to help carry their spoils. All of these items I got back, but it was time I could have been gardening. One of my neighbours was not so lucky and lost a few items, including a complete greenhouse. Thankfully so far they have left my  tools alone and have not damaged any of my crops, that would really make me cross.

Quite what these petty minded idiots get out of spoiling other people's hobby I do not know. Of course the little rats are always long gone at the time I visit the plot, even though I am often there until sunset, so they must come round under cover of darkness. I'd love to leave some booby traps for them but of course I never will; that's the problem with being one of the law-abiding good guys, we make easy targets. Hopefully they'll get what's coming to them in other ways.

Just live.

You live and learn, so goes the old saying; that is oft appended in our house with "but in my case, you just live." Went to the plot in shorts recently because it was a lovely day, and got bitten twice by whatever bug it is that I have an allergic reaction to (I think it's ants). Now every warm day I have to change back into long trousers to visit the plot. One day I will learn my lesson.

We've had a mild winter and I was able to keep up well with the plot until we went on holiday in May. The warm weather and rain made the weeds grow like mad and I had a real job on my hands when I got back, things only now getting back under control. 

Over-run with weeds in late May. Note bike trailer in background

I planted some French beans direct in the soil in mid-May, judging it to be warm enough, but I didn't bank on the solid week of cold rain that followed, it was more like March than late May. As a result all my beans rotted in the soil. 

I was wondering how to get my compost bin and some plants down to the plot when I didn't have use of the car, and hit upon the brain wave of using the Tiny Human's bike trailer. This worked well for the compost bin but when I went to check the four courgette plants, I found they had tipped upside down in the trailer and scattered the contents. I couldn't have destroyed the seedlings more effectively if I had taken them out and stamped on them. Luckily I left a couple of spare plants at home that wouldn't fit in the trailer.

My disasters have been made up for by generosity on the part of my gardening friends, family and colleagues. I received three home grown cucumber plants from Wise Mike, which are now doing well under a plastic tunnel. I also received 14 sweetcorn plants from Derek, which came in 'Rootrainer' pots which I was very impressed with. I planted up the sweetcorn the same day and bought my own rootrainer pots to start off some replacement French beans at home, which are also coming along nicely. Derek also donated some lovely chilli plants, which have been planted at home in the garden where I can keep a closer eye on them.

Treasure

In the past couple of weeks I have found two interesting pieces of buried treasure on the plot. First was an old penny, heavily worn but still clearly marked 1908 on one side. It could have been in circulation for many years after 1908 of course, and judging by its condition it has had a hard life, but I wonder who dropped it and what they were doing there. I would like to think it was dropped by a soldier during the big military exercise that was held on Stacey Hill farmland before the outbreak of WWI, but it could just as easily have had a more mundane life and been dropped at any time in the last 100 years. At least it makes a change from bits of broken glass and plastic.

My second find was a bit more modern, an aluminium petrol token dating probably from the mid 1970s with a picture of a car on it. This has also seen better days but it's just possible to make out that it was issued by Shell and features a 1950s Mercedes Benz 300SL. I wonder if someone was disappointed to lose it from their collection.

It's taken me a few years of repeatedly digging the same soil to unearth this stuff, so I wonder what else lies beneath the surface. Actually, I don't need to wonder that hard. I'm always unearthing things, since these finds I also dug out three whole house bricks and a couple of broken concrete roof tiles. So although it is is theoretically possible someone buried a whole house, the real answer is probably 'a load more old rubbish'...

...and it started on the first pull

...and it started on the first pull.

Sounds so much like a joke punchline, doesn't it, but I am referring to my trusty allotment lawnmower, which burst into spluttering life the first time I pulled the cord this weekend.

I actually made three visits to the plot in as many days, some accompanied by sunshine, and some by hail showers. Buoyed by a couple of weeks of settled and warm spring weather I had intended to get my main onion sets in the ground, but as the weather has now turned cold again I settled for a mixture of jobs. This is the first real activity on the plot since last year when I actually had time to dig over about half the plot in time for winter. The winter rains have done their bit and the soil is quite workable now.

This spring has been much warmer than last year, so one of the first jobs had to be to get the mower out and tame the grass.Getting rid of some of the paths and raised bed borders has done wonders for my time-efficiency and it is much easier to keep on top of what needs doing when you don't have to spend ages on silly unproductive jobs like mowing. I suppose there is a small benefit to mowing, apart from keeping the place neat and accessible, it means my compost heap gets a nice big nitrogen fix.

After the grass, I also weeded my overwintering onions which were being slowly mugged by weeds, mostly grass and speedwell at this time of year, although dandelions have made remarkable progress on some other parts of the plot. I will need to weed the garlic soon as well, which has put on some fairly good growth with all the bulbs I planted coming up well. The onions are looking a little weedy in comparison, they could both do with a high potash feed to give them a boost. This phrase sounds like I know what I am talking about after all these years, doesn't it, but I don't  know really what makes a high-potash feed; I will have to go to the garden centre and look at the labels.

I did start to prepare some ground for the onions, this was hard work and has made the plot start to look loved again, at least in one corner. I didn't rush to get them in the ground, as I said above I'm fairly relaxed about the timing when the weather is not reliably warm. Dismantling my bed system has also made me dither a bit more about where to put things so I may need to draw up another plan soon. Otherwise I will start at one corner and put things in as they become ready - a strategy which seems to work. All I do is try to avoid putting the same crop in the same bed two years running.

Main crop potatoes have been selected, King Edward this year to make a change. An easily available variety but they must be popular for a reason, methinks. They are chitting at home in the spare room and will not be put in the ground too early either. Easter is late this year so I may not wait that long, but I won't hurry them. They will have all year to catch up. Besides, it will take me a while to prepare all the ground; I still don't know where I'm going to put them.

New Year Rituals

Seed catalogues arrived on my doormat on New Year's Eve 2013, just in time to re-ignite my interest in allotmenteering for the year ahead. A few things that I'd like to try have been noted.

I also received a nice Christmas present of a few unusual seed varieties in a 'Funky Veg Kit' mostly unusually-coloured vegetables, which has inspired me to give them a go. Some I've tried before, like Swiss Chard Bright Lights, and some I haven't, like purple carrots.

I have drifted away from trying new things recently as they are rarely successful, preferring instead to stick to things I know will be reliable and that we will use in the kitchen, but I feel a change coming on for this year. After all, even courgettes were poor for me in 2013 so we didn't get much variety from the plot. Also the pest and disease-resistant varieties I have been favouring tend to be the least interesting in terms of flavour. The decent summer of 2013 has given me a bit of hope that things don't always have to be like that, so I am hoping to nurture a bit more diversity on the plot in 2014. Salads and some different potato varieties will be high up on the list. I will probably keep some tough varieties in for insurance purposes.