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!

Where you bin?

There have been casualties of the recent winds, most notably the black compost bin that got picked up and blown 200 yards across the site. The top and door are still MIA and now presumed dead. Thankfully the shed, secured only by the weight of a couple of slabs, survived the stormy weather. Strawberry plants in our raised bed have now been protected by mini cloches made from cut down plastic lemonade bottles.

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.