Lotty Totty

Three hours up the allotment represents a monster session, but that's actually what was achieved yesterday: 1.5 English seaside-esque hours in the morning with E, then another 1.5 hours after lunch with my mum (see photo attached)). She went well dressed for the blustery conditions, although the hat came off pretty quickly after a bout of digging.

The morning session consisted of E complaining about the cold breeze whilst helping me shovel manure and transport tree stakes & netting from its over-wintered site to where we shallow-drilled two lines of peas: Sugar Snaps, Kelvedon Wonder and, new for this year, Purple Podded. Another short row of Bunyards Exhibition broad beans went in alongside them. Last year our peas were rubbish, not helped by the dry weather and late-planting, so any improvement will we welcomed.

The afternoon session featured my mum and me clearing 2/3rds of the end bed (#1) - it was riddled with turf, couch grass and weeds - and planting up six different vegetables in a matrix. We stuck down three canes to created six little areas and then planted them up with alternating rows of seeds to hopefully create an unusual and decorative bed. A line of manure was left untouched, as my mum had a great idea: just clear of weeds and then 'mulch' with some black plastic sacking, then plant our courgettes and gourds through sacking. Bingo! No digging required!

The six vegetables were:

• Turnip - Purple Top Milan
• Turnip - Snowball
• Spring Onion -North Holland Blood Red
• Rainbow Chard
• Fennel - Finocchio Montebianco
• Kohl Rabi - Purple Delicacy

We recut the border of the plot and discovered that the asparagus bed is about 4 inches too far in from the border edge, so we took the opporunity to dig over the gap and scatter some Black Ball cornflower seeds to bring some colour, height and bee-friendly blooms to the corner.

In the mini greenhouse the flowers are starting to germinate, as are the assorted salad crops on the windowsill. Some scorching on the tomato plants however :(

New Season Kicks Off

My lack of blog activity might indicate to you that nothing has been happening on the allotment. Nothing could be further from the truth - it's been a busy time preparing beds and getting seeds either in the ground or in modules and pots.

Here's the summary of developments:

• I have a new helper called Daniel, who is participating in the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. He has elected to choose allomenteering as his new skill, so I get 13 hours of his time over the coming months. So far he has experienced the joys of digging for an hour and the brain zombification of repotting fifty tomato plants (we have gone with six outdoor varieties this season - Gardeners Delight, Ferline, Harbinger, Roma, Marmande and Ailsa Craig). I shall be getting him to rework the plot plan as his next project.
• My mum & dad have more time to spend assisting, with my mum enthusiastically tidying up the plot and getting seeds in. A good family session up the plot the weekend before last resulting in three rows of Pentland Javelin first earlies going in, plus two rows of Gladiator parsnips and two rows of beetroot (the traditional Italian Barabietola di Chioggia, that has concentric pink & white rings within - a first time grow for me resulting from the tip in River Cottage Handbook No. 4 Veg Patch).
• We have broad beans on the go in the ground and in pots at home.
• We have three varieties of French Bean growing in pots - Dwarf Sun Gold, Climbing Cobra and Cosse Violette. 24 plants in total at the moment. We have Barlotti to come too.
• My Cayenne chili peppers have so far failed to germinate, but the Hungarian Hot Wax have again done well.
• A tray of salad laves, lettuce, perpetual spinach and chard await germination. A scattering of salad seeds have gone in the plot cold frame. We have a tray of flowers also sat awaiting germination.
• We still have to get our onions and shallots in the ground - a priority task!
• The daffodil crop has been disappointing. No sign of any alliums either.
• I have an A4 page of seeds that need to go in over the next couple of weeks. Vic has already given the green light to a decent session up there this weekend, and if the rain stops this week I will be up there after work in this critical planting period - a period we missed to a large degree this year due to me getting very unwell with my chest.
• Growing fever is spreading at work. I have half a dozen guys ready to swap tomato plants, an IT manager who has bought himself a greenhouse and has gone seed crazy - I've just been offering a tray of Purple Sprouting - and Suzanne has just taken up the offer of a large plot in West London. As a newbie she's got that mix of excitement, hopes, expectations and fear that is magical. I've already given her a load of seeds that we don't need and plan to off-load any spare seedlings, etc. I can on to her.

I feel much more organised than last year and feel as if we could do really well this season.

Feels like the opening to a football blog...

Q: What are long, green, scaly, have lots of teeth and used on stage by actors?

A: Propagators

The seeds we planted a fortnight ago - Witkiem Manita broad beans, Kelvedon Wonder peas, Percy Thrower and Spencer Special Mix sweetpeas, Little Gem, Saladin and Marvel of Four Season lettuces - have been doing great guns in our windowsill propagators. Photo of the peas and Little Gems shows the progress they've made.

Thing is, I don't really know what to do next and when. Is it safe for me to put some of these little chaps outside in my unheated mini greenhouse? Do I leave them in the propagator with or without the lid on? How big do the plants need to get before I get start transferring them elsewhere or putting them in the ground?

This is the problem with being a novice...

Dig for victory

I took the day off work yesterday in order to dig over the allotment.

Last year we were given the allotment in April. It was covered in grass and the remnants of brambles. The topsoil was thick with couch grass, bramble roots and general rubbish. By the time we got ourselves in a position to dig the plot over the unseasonaly hot and sunny May had baked the ground rock hard, making the chore of digging back and spade-breaking work. Our 2010 crops were hampered by the late hand-over: less than two-thirds of the plot was usable and so much of the seed that was planted either failed due to the enforced short-season or glutted us with produce as successional-planting was impossible. We did have success with robust broad beans, French climbing Cobra beans and most notably an envious crop of flavourful, juicy and storage-hardy Sturon white onions. Failures included red onions that failed to properly root before the dry summer and sweetcorn that just went in the ground too late - I've since learnt that this is a notoriously difficult plant to grow and to give it the best chance of success it needs to be grown early so it has the whole of the Summer to develop and ripen.

The aim of taking a day's holiday was to dig over the outstanding 30% of 'virgin' undug plot, turn the earth of those beds that we did manage to create last year, construct a raised bed for strawberries, salad and young plants, weed and generally tidy things up.

Digging in February - when the ground is relatively frost-free and softened by ample rain - is considerably easier than digging in May. Even in gusting 25 mph winds - our site is open to the elements - the spade and fork work was far more bearable than when sweating under the late Spring and early Summer sunshine of last year. Soft earth equals rapid progress - the only challenges to completing the digging being a distinct lack of strength and stamina in our muscles and bramble roots up to six feet long and two inches in diameter! In the end - before tiring and dreaming of a hot bath - we managed to virgin dig a 5m x 4.5m area (that's a decent 22% of the total plot and well on the way to clearing that 30%), clear and edge the existing beds (bringing them out to the edge of the plot boundaries), create a 1.8m x 0.9m 10cm deep raised bed for the strawberries (8 plants put in), hand-weed the allium and daffodil beds, check the garlic and red onions (doing well especially the purple wight garlic) and plant a few early broad beans under cloches.

But the digging and progress on opening up the plot ready for planting the mountain of seeds and sets that I've (over) ordered from E.W.Kings is almost secondary to the shear pleasure of just being outside in the fresh air, working on a plot of your own land, which you hope and dream will bring tasty bounties to your dinner table later in the year. The rich promise of harvest rings out, even at this bleak and grey time of year, through the green sproutings of garlic and onion, the sound of birdsong, the dull thud of steel against earth and the rhythmic beatings and rustlings of assorted scarecrows, sheds and strcutures in the wind.


What a great way to spend a day off from work.