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...

Le Canny French!

We had our family holiday in Saint Jean de Monts (in the Vendee region of France) this year. It was very reminiscent of Cornwall in that it lashed down with rain half the time and was full of British campers and number plates. We made the best of it - I dragged the kids to the beach in the gloom and gales, and whilst we enjoyed a paddle and a sand castle construction session, my good wife sat huddled in jeans, jumper and multiple towels in our little beach tent complaining that we weren't in Spain.

Since we've had the allotment I've taken to noticing what is growing in country properties, farmers fields and gardens a lot more. The Vendee is an extremely agricultural region - apart from the campsites that string the coastline, farming seems to be the only local industry - and the fields are wholly populated with either beef and diary cattle or sweetcorn. The amount of maize growing was fantastic*.

The number of village and suburban properties with their own little vegetable plots was far higher than anything I've ever seen in Britain. Although we only saw a handful of proper allotment plots, almost all of the non-holiday let houses seemed to have a section of garden assigned to growing vegetables, the most obvious and popular being tomatoes - more on this in a second.

What was really noticable though was the height of these plots - apart from a single line of French climbing beans spied on one of the allotments, almost everything was grown below waist height. Presumably the sea winds coming in off the Atlantic are so strong and destructive that nothing grows above the low garden walls that offer protection against the lashing horizontal gales**.

The other object that kept cropping up in these garden plots were old wooden crates, masterfully recycled by the canny French as tomato plant supports. For smaller plants, said boxes seemed to be positioned behind the plants to offer wind protection as well as supporting the fruit - popped on the top of the box the fruit was in the ideal position to ripen in the sun. Larger plants (Marmande?) were interspersed in their lines with boxes either side of them, giving less wind protection but additional support for the heavier fruits. Tres simple mais ingenious, non?! To illustrate, I enclose a doodle:

Le Canny French Box Trick Blueprints

* See now restrained I was there not saying "amazing"?!
** One night I failed to get any sleep in our Villagrand hut as I genuinely thought the corrugated roof was about to blow off!

Sproutlings Update

Finally, after pretty much giving up on the critters, we have some Hungarian Hot Wax sproutings: four of the seeds have germinated, with potentially a few more to follow. They are currently looking quite lonely on the windowsill as all of their tomato and parsley seedling mates - sown at the same time - were pricked, replanted  and relocated down to the greenhouse outside a couple of weeks ago.

Their only company in the house is a plate of sweetcorn kernals sat in damp kitchen in the airing cupboard.

Outside are the tomatoes - a dozen Gardeners Delight (100% germination rate), nine Ferline (75%), and a mere three Harbingers (25%) - and a dozen Giant Italian flat-leaf parsley plants. They are joined by four cucumbers, a load of leeks (the new plantings quickly germinated) and some Summer Purple sprouting (15 plants = 100% germination rate). A tray of Giant Prague celeriac promises seedling action over the coming days.

In an effort to prevent a repeat of the 'greenhouse blown over in the wind' disaster, I have pushed some of the larger pieces of garden furniture up against it for additional support.

Busted

There's not been much allotment activity over the last couple of weeks due to a combination of bitterly cold winter and a Star Wars Jedi Academy birthday party for my now five year old son. Creating a life-sized Jabba the Hutt head and a Pin the Lightsaber on Yoda game took preference over digging and planting. So except for a tray of tomatoes, cucumbers and flat-leaf parsley being seeded & sprouting*, it's been very quiet.

I'd almost given up on the 5 pots of leek seeds that I'd planted on the 17th and 20th of February, but on Tuesday I came home to find a wealth of tiny seedlings pushing their weenie green heads through the compost. Nestled snugly in my four tier plastic greenhouse the little chaps looked in good health and I was felling warm, excited and quite pleased with myself in equal measures. The prospect of 3 or 4 rows of leeks would quicken the heart of any allotmenteer.

So coming home last night to find that a malicious supernatural wind had blown over my greenhouse** - not only crippling a tray of 5" tall sweetpeas, but decimating the whole collection of 60+ leek seedlings - was a cruel and heavy blow.

I tried in vain to save some - I have about 8 left in a pot and they look worse for wear.

So we start again from scratch... I've planted some more up in a few pots and now plan to plant some more in the coldframe up at the allotment in order to give them a headstart and attempt to play catch-up.


* My Hungerian Hotwax chilli peppers have so far failed to germinate :(
** Considering the greenhouse was weighed down at the bottom with some big heavy pots and a bag of compost I can only conclude it was a gust born of supernatural forces!