Thieving magpies

Popped up the allotment last night to deliver an old bookcase for storage use in the shed to discover some thieving **** has stolen a dozen brand new patio slabs that I had nestled against the shed. They were acting as weights to prevent said shed from taking off in the wind and the plan was to lay them as a path this Autumn. That's £40-50 worth shipped off-site I suspect, as my plot is right next to one of the carpark areas, meaning it would be very easy for somone to back their car up near my shed and quickly wang the slabs in the boot without too much attention.

The offenders were good enough though to leave one of the slabs behind to prop the shed door shut. How kind!

This week's top job is to harvest our white onion crop - I have about 200 Centurion and Sturon awaiting lifting. If it's not raining this evening I plan to get them up, out and drying.

Question: What can I pop in the gap they will leave? Anything that might still give me an Autumn crop? Chard? Beetroot? Turnips? Salad onions, radishes & leaves?

It will all bee alright in the end

The absence of any allotment blog updates reflects the inactivity on the allotment – our June ‘jumbo month of planting’ was disrupted by two weeks of family holiday and then two weeks where I was good for nothing. What I thought was a recurring chest infection & asthma has been diagnosed as a hyper-sensitive allergic reaction to a fungus called Aspergillus… a fungus that is commonly found in soil, compost heaps and on rotting vegetation! During a two week period - when I thought I might expire – I had to rest up and recuperate and therefore weeding and sowing at the plot was out of the question. As a result of the sabbatical the plot was so overrun with weeds that my dad helpfully suggested that I give it up and we entered July well behind on our planting and sowing schedules.
The good news though is that I’m much improved health-wise and the surge of energy that oral steroids can provide a man have allowed me and my little band of allotmenteers swoop down upon the plot with gusto. Just cutting the grass and ripping up the weeds immediately made it look like a proper and respectable plot again. The gaps given up by the weeding then gobbled up the trays of unplanted leeks, purple sprouting, parsley, chives, sweetcorn, courgettes and squashes. Only the tray of rocket plants didn’t make it – the monkeys bolting a couple of days before our mass planting visit.
On top of the plant plugs we’ve managed to sow a host of last minute crops: carrots, a few peas for the kids, golden and bolthardy beetroots, fennel, little gem lettuces, spring onions, runner and bolotti beans, kohl rabi and turnips. Some further sowings of chard and bits & bobs is on the cards for this weekend.
Add all this to the bonus row of parsnips that successfully germinated at the second attempt, a full row of decent carrots, a mass of flatleaf giant Italian parsley, two rows of peas and sugarsnaps, a half sack of brilliant new potatoes, a bumper crop of garlic and 200+ white onions awaiting harvest, things aren’t half as bad as I thought when laying on my near-death bed!
The brilliant orange blooms of the marigolds, the sweetpeas and a surprise last hurrah of alliums have added some spectacular colour to the plot and cheered up not just me but the bees too.
There’s no way I’m giving the plot up dad!

Snug as a bug in a rug

As UB40 might say:

There's a rat in my compost and I don't know what to do!
There's a rat in my compost and I don't know what to do!

Before planting a half row of baby and rainbow mixed Nantes carrots yesterday evening I was forced to investigate my compost heap, after my plot neighbour informed me that he had a rat in his compost bin. Said rat had apparently been attracted by the warmth offered by a piece of carpet he had placed over his bin (in order to promote decomposition). He spotted that my palette compost bin also had a cosy covering of carpet and suggested that I might want to take a peek under it.

He was right - a homely little rat bunker had been constructed, complete with half-eaten carrots and oranges. The critter would be as snug as a bug in a rug, nestled in there. A good forking has now rid the bin of Roland's safe house, but I'm concerned about him coming back and the associated risks of rat urine and excremant. I'm going to have to do some anti-rat research.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

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.

Fresh as a daisy

The cliche - most heard down the pub when the topic of grow your own crops up - is "you can't beat the freshness of homegrown vegetables... they taste so much better than produce you buy in the supermarket".

Many people, suckered in by the supermarket promises that items have been quality-checked, vacuum-packed and air-freighted off in refridgerated boxes within minutes of being picked, will naturally be a little sceptical of the claims of plot holders and kitchen gardeners.

It can be difficult to demonstrate the benefits of growing your own green beans over buying in Kenyan farmed offerings - taste can be subjective and, at least over the first couple of days sitting in the bottom drawer of your fridge, the Kenyan beans will probably look 'better'.

It is a lot easier though to demonstrate the benefits of homegrown using daffodils. We have been amazed at how long our allotment grown daffodils have lasted indoors, despite being cut in full bloom. Their colour has remained strong and the blooms large and healthy for the whole week. Compare this to air-freighted daffs flown in from Holland and further field - that arrive completely closed and only last a couple of days in bloom before quickly going brown and dying - and the difference is shocking.

You then have to conclude that if the quality, nutrient levels and longevity of daffodils grown on the plot is so much better than those shop-bought, then the same must be true of fruits and vegetables.

No sign of the alliums blooming yet, so as things stand, our over-wintering bulbs experiment has a clear winner. I can see us planting up more daffodils next September as the colour they bring to both the bare Spring plot and the home is extraordinary.

Sauce

Luke Skywalker is struggling to dig his allotment plot.
Obi Wan appears and tells him to "Use the forks, Luke! Use the forks!".

My kids obsession with Star Wars continues, so a run of silly made-up Star Wars jokes has been initiated, kicking off with:

Luke and Obi Wan are eating fish and chips.
Luke complains that his fish is dry.
Obi Wan says "Use the sauce, Luke! Use the sauce!".

Yesterday we managed to get up to the allotment as a family for a good hour or so. The sun made it a most pleasant experience. Our time was spent creating two raised beds for the kids: one 2' x 2' and the other 4' x 2'. Last year the kids missed having plots of their own, so these two little beds will become their focus for the growing seasons. The beds were populated with a couple of strawberry plants, some early sweetpeas, a rogue pea and a few lettuce plants. A sprinkling of a wide variety of quick-growing vegetables will soon follow over the coming weeks. Ever the optimist, my daughter expects to fit potatoes as well as *every* thing else in her 2' by 2'!

The harvest of the day was a bunch of daffodils.

Homegrown daffs - a mixed bunch

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!