Flowers

Even on our humble little allotments our plants give us lovely flowers to enjoy. Of course the plants don't set out with a mission to make us gardeners feel aesthetically enriched, they just want to attract insects to help them reproduce. Long may this continue!

Here are five of the most "ordinary" plants we are growing, showing off in the sunshine. A nice purple potato flower....

....very pretty French bean....

....inviting courgette....

....vibrant runner bean....

....and a strawberry. People who don't have an allotment really are missing out....

Do You Know Your Onions? We Don't!

Onions. Easy to grow. Reliable. But so cheap in the shops, why bother? There are very different schools of thought on the topic of growing your own onions....

Above is our "Avenue Of The Allium Sepa", a lovely view between our onion rows. We've gone for one row each of white and red, and we definitely think that an allotment ain't proper until there are some onions maturing nicely and quietly somewhere.

Our white onions are Senshyu Yellow, grown from sets. We planted 21 sets and miraculously all 21 of our white variety survived and thrived. So from a VFM point of view, Senshyu Yellows can't be beat. We're looking forward to trying one when they tell us that they're ready. Until then we just keep admiring them as they swell and look marvellous.

Our red onion variety this year is Electric. Of the 21 sets planted just 15 of them made it. And overall they are smaller than the white ones, but that's OK. Again, we can't wait to see how they taste.

The onions are housed between the swede and beetroot, and they seem to all be getting on very amiably. One good tip I have discovered is.....

....give the onions a top dressing of potash in June. If they get even better then brilliant, if they don't, nae bother! So, onions on the allotment, yes or no? For us it is the easiest answer - YES!

Projects....

We took on Plot 13D in May 2016, and we're pleased with our progress thus far. The plot is bisected by a path, which separates the north and south sides. The north side, which enjoys day-long sun, is where we are growing most of our crops. But the south side. Oh dear....the south side....

It's a ruddy wilderness. But it's being recovered! The pic above is looking east, and below we're looking west. I've spent many hours trying to knock this area into shape and the effort is finally paying off. In some places you can even see soil! And the raspberries along the fence will be allowed to do their juicy job this summer before moving house for next year.

At the west end we have our strawberries in their cosy wooden box, and the rhubarb. And just "this" way from there is Jacob's mini-allotment (the jury is out on whether he has another go next year). He's enthusiastic, sometimes, but seems to believe that allotmenting is a computer game and will "do itself". The real challenge for me is the area nearer to the camera, where we planned to house a greenhouse, but have changed our minds. We'll now have a seating/eating/drinking area and extra growing space! What a fabulous hobby this really is....

Another project is on the north side, where the previous occupier sited a cane lattice for his tomatoes. Now, up until last week we "thought" that this was part of our neighbours masterplan, so we have never touched it. It's now overgrown with raspberries, and that is when I mentioned it to Ivan and he said that it was actually ours. YES! As with the south side we'll keep the rasps in situ this year and move them later. And we have a stock of canes to prop other needy plants up.

We're having an absolute ball on Plot 13D this year, some things are going great guns, some have already failed, but it's a constantly surprising and always fulfilling addiction....

 

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!