First Harvest Of 2017

It's the middle of June and Ruth and I headed to Plot 13D to make our first proper harvest of the year. Ruth's parents became addicted to our spinach last summer and are hoping for lots more of the same this year, with radishes thrown in to the deal!

And so, within a short space of time there were gaps in the rows of carrots....

....gaps in the potato patch....

....and lots of newly vacated space in the spinach and radish aisle. We ate a lot of what we harvested for Sunday dinner, and it was all absolutely delicious!

We love our allotment and at this time of year the allotment seems to return your affection, in the form of delectable produce. What a lovely selection of spinach, cos lettuce, radishes, potatoes and carrots, thank you Plot 13D!

Ruth's Pea Patch

Ruth has warm, cosy memories from childhood of her Grandad's garden, and in particular shelling freshly picked peas and admiring the fabulous sweet peas growing on the fence. It's said that if you want to find happiness as an adult you should go back to the things that made you happy as a child....

Therefore we decided to clear a fence panel's worth of the garden and try to recreate a version of Grandad's place here in South Lincolnshire. It was a difficult job as the border has been left to its own devices for a few years, and buried under a weed-limiting top dressing of stones. After a few evenings graft and the addition of compost we managed to have it looking like this. Ground ready for planting and netting attached to the fence to encourage sweet pea mountaineering. Chuffed!

Our first pea shoots had appeared in mid-April (above) and they had matured quite nicely in the meantime. I'm still surprised how Mother Nature works so beautifully....

At the weekend we decided it was time to start populating "Ruth's Pea Patch" (a name we settled on after many rather more vulgar options were discussed) and Ruth built a pea-stick wigwam and popped in the first five plants.

Fingers crossed that they thrive, as I really want Ruth to re-live her treasured memory, and share it with our boys as well.

Now we've popped in some sweet peas, flanked by a few sunflowers, and we're waiting for a few more peas to mature enough to plant out. We're also going to plant a sugar snap wigwam as soon as we can.

Ruth's Pea Patch is up and running!

New Balls Please!

We all know that poking out your own eyeball on a stray cane is one of the perils of allotmenteering, thankfully a rare occurrence. But what do you use to prevent it happening? Old plastic bottles? Plasticine? Dolls' heads? (Is that too sinister?)

As previously described we have named our growing beds Tom, Dick and Harry. We wanted to have some eye protection but to make it a little individual and special to Plot 13D. After much discussion among the whole family I (the head gardener, obvs) decided that we would use cheap ping pong balls, and paint them to colour code the three beds. Everybody agreed, after I told them to do so....

The table tennis balls were obtained for a ridiculously low price on the Interweb, and we used our modelling paints to create our masterpieces - yellow for Tom, green for Dick and red for Harry. They certainly have brightened up our space, and I like them. We've had no opinion form our allotment neighbours yet....

Our First Attempt At Comfrey Tea

We'd heard all the rave reviews for this free wonder-food for plants, with the odd name of "comfrey tea" - what the heck is it? Well it turns out that you need a comfrey plant or two to get going (unsurprisingly) so we got one planted and it has come back thriving and healthy this year.

Step One - Find a nice clean bucket/container, with a tight lid. Alternatively a nice plastic milk bottle will do absolutely fine. Allow both parties to spend a little time together before the magic happens, so they can exchange family details etc, and generally feel comfortable in each other's company.

Remove comfrey leaves/stems about 20cm long (that's eight inches in old-fashioned), half a dozen is ideal. Comfrey leaves have a LOT of tiny soft prickles on the underside, so wearing gloves is recommended. Pop them into the bottle (or container).

Add water up to about a couple of centimetres from the top. You DO NOT need secateurs at this point, no idea why they are in this picture. Shake the bottle to agitate the leaf and water mixture.

 

Final step is to store somewhere secure. In five weeks there should be a lovely liquid plant feed, which you dilute in water to the ratio one part comfrey tea, ten parts water. What a brilliant, cheap, natural aid to help your garden grow!

 

16 Apr 17 - What's Growing?

 

This year "Tom" is for our root veg, there are three rows of potatoes in nearest the camera. Bit further away there are two rows of onions, one each of white and red varieties, and at the far end two rows of carrots which seem to be doing well. On the right we planted way too much garlic, and there's also half a row of spring onion just sown. We just want some lovely growing weather now!

 

In the middle is "Dick", this year's legumes bed. Nothing here so far except the bean frame that Sam built last week (good work dude) and next to that half a row of newly-sown cos lettuce.

However, the runner beans seedlings are going great guns at home and we're looking forward to seeing them in the ground at Plot 13D....

 

And finally there's "Harry", which in 2017 will be home to brassicas etc. Just one row of radish and half a row of spinach sown so far, within the last day or two.

 

And on the other side nothing is happening apart from the rhubarb and strawberries - disappointingly, JP has so far done nothing with the area that he pestered us to let him have for himself....

15 Apr 17 - Long Day, Hard Work

I spent five hours working on the allotment on Saturday, the time flew by and the results are rather pleasing. The far end veg bed (aka "Harry") was completely overgrown when I arrived, but by the time I left it was cleared, levelled, fertilised and sown with a row of radish (Scarlet Globe).

We've placed some spare thick planks in between Tom, Dick and Harry, they act well as paths and add definition and good looks (in my opinion).

The strawberry box was weeded, fertilised and the strawbs given a nice new cosy bed of hay (90p per bag from the pet shop in Seaford).

The rhubarb is in full growth and was intruding onto JP's section of ground, so I dug a trench and boxed it in a little with yet another plank. I also plucked the first three stalks, and they'll be eaten later on Monday in a crumble for tea.

This chap was also spotted nestling bold as brass in amongst the garlic, we're not sure if it is harmful or not but as long as he doesn't cause any mischief we're happy for him to stay for a while...

Competition Win - And The Spuds Are In!

We struck it lucky on Friday when we won a packet of lovely Purple Prince zinnia seeds from Mister Fothergill's Seeds. There will be way too many for us so if you fancy some small plants to place in your own garden let us know!

We also popped our first earlies and maincrop potatoes in at the weekend, first earlies are Pentland Javelin and the mains are Maris Piper. Have you any experience of growing these for yourself?

Very chuffed to see our onions apparently romping away and loving being able to stretch their roots in open ground. All the white onions have taken but only 15 of 21 red onion sets have made it.