Finally time to write!

Finding time to write has been difficult recently, but work continues apace down at the allotments. I am motivated to write having just finished making a batch of fresh leek and potato soup, made from two crops that have fared very differently this year.

First of all, I am pleased to report that the leeks have been very successful, in size at least, they are a bit rusty again but that doesn't really affect the eating quality. Last year's were like pencils, these are proper leeks. The variety was 'Porvite' and they have come up nicely. Still not quite as good as I'd hoped, but I blame the long dry spell in August and September this year for stressing out my crops. I have tried a tip, which was to coat the tiny spots of rust with vaseline when they first appear, this stops the fungal spores from spreading. I can confirm that this doesn't work at all. I remember being impressed when I saw my neighbour harvesting his leeks when I first started, now I've got some to match. The smell, in particular, is amazing.

Potatoes have been terrible this year. I grew three varieties and had really small crops from all three. I mean, really small - only two or three potatoes under each plant, when I would expect a good bag full. I tried a 'heritage' variety, with dark blue skin and creamy white flesh, called Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy. They plants grew well but the potatoes were small and knobbly, meaning that by the time you've peeled them and cut out all the bad bits, you've not got much left. Now I know why people stopped growing heritage varieties. I have still had some success with Sarpo Mira, thankfully enough to make my soup.

Failure Count

I have had lots of congratulations from various people on my successes this year, so Moog thought I should let reality have a look in and share some of my failures:

1. Cut and Come Again salad leaves. These all bolted to seed. In fairness, not really a failure, because the reason they bolted was that I chose not to pick them - they didn't taste very nice!

2. Wild Rocket. All germinated, and then all completely wiped out by flea beetle. Almost overnight there was nothing left, not even a stalk.

3. Radishes and Pak Choi have been riddled with holes by flea beetle. This is probably due to me eradicating their favoured food source, which is Oilseed Rape. I can't win.

4. Tomatoes. I don't know why I bother. One minute they're fine, the next minute, the stems and fruits are brown with blight. John pointed it out to me this week and I was forced to burn all my allotment tomatoes. Greenhouse crop is still going steady at home. For now.

5. Leek rust. This covered my garlic, but luckily didn't spoil the crop. It has now graduated on to my leeks. Hopefully the white parts under the soil will be saved from destruction (apparently you can still eat rusty leeks if it doesn't get too bad) but after seeing how fast it spread I have decided to resort to a chemical spray of dithane (fungicide) on this crop to try and save them.

6. Split carrots. I avoided carrot fly, but quite a few carrots got too big and split, so I've had to harvest them all to stop them growing any bigger. Hopefully I'll be able to store them for long enough, only time will tell.

I blame all these problems squarly on the weather - a bit more sunshine and warmth in August wouldn't go amiss! The only time we did get any sun, I went to the plot in shorts and got attacked by my next pest:

7. Red ants. These aggressive little blighters managed to get into my boot and bit me 4-5 times, making my whole foot swell up to about twice normal size! And it itched like mad!

So there you go; it's not all rosy down at the plot, even if I make it look that way sometimes.

Garlic Update

Most of the garlic is starting to turn brown now, and there's a lot of leek rust on the leaves, so Moog thinks we should pull it all up this week. I'm well pleased as they were the first thing I planted when I took over the plot. Most of it will be dried and stored for use in cooking, but we're going to try eating some of it as 'wet' garlic, using recipes from Hugh Hairy-Wittingstall's TV programme River Cottage Spring that was on last week. If they're nice I'll report back, and plant more next year!

This picture doesn't really give you an idea of the size of these plants, they're much bigger than the bulbs you can buy in the shops.