Allotment 25/10/10

I sort of assume that if you read this nonsense you have at least a passing interest in growing food. Most of the people I know who grow (yes I liked the rhyme) try to do so “organically” but this can be a hard thing to achieve. Yes you've managed to grow lettuces without any fertilizers and slug pellets but what happened to the seeds before you got them? Many seeds are treated with chemicals, such as anti-fungals, before you get them so you have to look out for organic seeds when you are buying.

 The question I want to ask is why do you grow organic and if you buy organic from the supermarket, why?

 I grow organically basically because I can. I have great soil, I rotate my crops and I only need to produce enough food for significant other and me and if a crop fails, ah well, there is always Waitrose. If I had to feed my family or if it was what I did for living then I would probably use some chemicals if they were needed. I'm not here to preach at you because I don't really care what you do. Why you choose to grow in that way is up to you because it doesn't really affect anyone else.

 Now, what you buy at the supermarket does affect other people and the planet so this is a bit more of an issue. Has “Organic” simply become a middle-class term meaning “It costs more, look at me, I have lots of disposable income” because there seems no other logic in buying it?

“Well, it tastes better” is one well trampled argument which is obviously rubbish. If the strawberries that you are buying are Elsanta it will taste of nothing whether it was drench in chemicals or grown only in organically hand-knitted Quorn based compost. The variety is important in taste not how it was grown.

“They have more nutrients in though, they are better for you.” Again, no. Studies show that the nutrient content of organic/conventionally farmed veg is roughly the same.  The only argument that can, sort of, be made in this direct in about pesticides. There are more pesticides on skins of conventionally fruit and veg, this much is true, but give them a bit a wash and they are fine and the pesticides residues are all within very, very safe limits. If you want to say “Well I’d rather not have any pesticide residues in my food” then fine but it isn’t a decent argument, merely a personal choice thing.

“It's better for the planet that they don't use chemicals.” True enough but only if the food you are buying was grown just down the road and delivered to your supermarket on the back of a donkey. If your organic Mange Tout was air freighted from Africa then it really isn't any better for the planet.

 This brings me to another point. If you are trying to make the planet a nicer place why are you buying organic veg packaged in oil derived plastic? Conventional grown fruit and veg is sold loose, I never use the little plastic bags and Waitrose don't seem to mind, but the organic crops are all sold in plastic bags.

I understand that Supermarkets need to differentiate between the different types of product but it does seem a little pointless if you are trying to save the planet and then supporting the oil industry.

 Please understand that I am not criticising you if you want to buy organic produce but I do want you to think about what you are doing.

 Fairtrade is probably better than organic. Ooh and on that point, I want some sort of Fairtrade deal for British farmers as well so that they can get paid properly by Supermarkets for what they do. Oh and a Supermarket Ombudsman would be good too.

 “Oh, that would be expensive and we would have to pass that cost on to the customer” is the response from the major food retailers. Tesco alone made about £3.4 billion profit last year; I think they can absorb an extra little bit cost.

 I stopped now, there is some hoeing to do at the allotment, best I go and do that.

I might talk about meat next time.

Allotment 19/10/10

The first frost of this Autumn, in Dorset anyway, was on Sunday. Sunday was also my birthday. Do these 2 things occurring on the same day have any significance? Is it like the groundhog thing? Probably not, it just shows that winter is on the way so it's best to be prepared. If you get some of those dull jobs done now, such as digging over, then you don't have to do them in the middle of the cold, cold winter and that is why I spent about 6 hours last Wednesday moving my raised beds.
When I first got the allotment I had no experience of such things so the spacing between the beds was far too big and there was fair too much wasted space. It was a job that I had been putting off and finding excuses not to do as I knew it would be hard work but I had a surprise day off and the sun was out so no excuses.
I'm not going to bore you with heroic stories about how hard I worked but I did have blistered hands afterwards.
I did have to move a few plants but I'm pretty sure that they'll be ok. My chilli plants, however, have come inside. Last year I left them outside and the fruit didn't ripen leaving us with a lot of green chillies, which was ok but I wanted red ones. Having dug them up, replanted them and placed them next to my indoor chilli plants I noticed something interesting. The outdoor fruits are so much bigger. Really much, much bigger.




See. I have no idea why. Ah well, as long as they ripen I'll be happy.

Anyway, on to the main event. Nettle ale. What does it taste like?

Allotment 5/10/10

 So a while ago I told you of a useful upside of running i.e. that you get to see where stuff grows. Well yesterday I put this knowledge into practise.

 It was a beautiful day so I decided to make the most of it. With my rucksack on my back I mounted up. This little journey would require my bike.

 Firstly I headed out to the road that leaves Dorchester and heads towards Bere Regis (it's the A35 I think but I'm not sure as I'm not my Dad). This is quiet a busy road so care was needed but luckily they are doing some work on the Roundabout so there were some big gaps in the traffic. I was after apples.

 People like me throw their apple cores out of the car window and some of them grow. I think that my haul would have been a little more impressive if I'd been out a week or 2 earlier but I don't think it was too bad, well, all free stuff is good.

They are not the prettiest apples in the world but that really doesn't matter as they taste fantastic.

Now, I wasn't going to do sloe gin this year because we've still got a couple of bottles of last years left but there are so many sloes about this year (well there are here) it seems a little rude not to.  This time it was a different road that leaves Dorchester, the one that goes to Yeovil (B3147 that joins the A37 according to Google maps), and I didn't have to go to far to find them. Loads, everywhere.

So I went shopping in the afternoon and bought some cheap gin. Soon the two will be combined and a lovely thing well be created.

I have to admit that I was inspired to go out by a repeat of a River Cottage Autumn that I saw on Sunday afternoon. One of the things that HFW made was Nettle Ale so I thought that I would give it a go.

 Nettle picking is never the most fun you can have but a glove and some scissors usually protect you. The recipe is here. As it is the first time I have made it I have made half the quantity in the recipe but I have just had a sneaky little taste and it is coming along nicely.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Allotment 21/9/10

Does anyone one have any recipes to use up a lot of cherry tomatoes? It seems my experiment with a blight free tom has gone quite well. Seriously, I have fuck loads (I believe that is the expression I heard them use on Gardener's World.) and I made BBQ sauce and some tomato sauce for storing on Saturday but the BBQ one demanded skinning of the tomatoes which became very boring very quickly. It is very tasty though, do you want to recipe? Well here it is,

BARBECUE SAUCE

24 large ripe tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped

2 cups chopped celery

2 cups chopped onions

1 ½ cups chopped sweet green or red peppers

2 hot red peppers

1 cup brown sugar

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon dry mustard

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon peppercorns

1 teaspoon tabasco sauce

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 cup vinegar

Combine the tomatoes, celery, onions and peppers in a large pot. Cook until the vegetables are soft, this will take about 30 minutes. Press through a food mill. Return to pot and continue cooking until mixture reduces by half, this step will take about 45 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook slowly until mixture is the consistency of catsup, about 1 ½ hours. As this thickens up, be sure to keep stirring frequently to keep the mixture from sticking. Pour into hot jars, straining out the peppercorns, leaving 1/4 inch. Process pints for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath. This will make 4 to 5 pints of a very spicy barbecue sauce.

 As Autumn is sort of sneaking upon us, warmish days and cold nights, I decided that a bit of a harvest was needed so hence the large amount of tomatoes.

 I have had a good summer though, I hope you lot have too, and there was lots to pick. So there was the last of the melons, cucumber, beetroot, lettuce, carrots, runner beans, raspberries (a few anyway), cauliflower, sweet corn

and 8 apples from my tiny, tiny tree.

I am a happy man. Hurray for me.

 Hopefully it will stay warm for a while as I still have chilli plants in that are covered in fruit but they are taking ages to ripen, I now have a cloche on over them to try and encourage them to turn red.

 Over the winter I am hoping to move a number of the beds around in order to make better use of the space but I want to get it done pretty soon as I would also like to grow some green manure on the beds to improve my soil a little.

 I do think that we are going to have to invest in a small freezer to put in the basement though as our little one is stuffed full at the moment.

Allotment 17/8/10

Previous on Allotment blog,

“I’m impatient, is this melon ripe yet?”
“How do I know if it is ripe?”
Damn it! I’m just going to pick it and see!”

And now the concluding part of Melon of Destiny.

3 or 4 days after I picked the lovely looking melon I finally plucked up the courage to cut it in half and see what was inside. As the knife pierced the slightly unattractive skin of the melon juice flowed. This I took as a good sign.
I cut it in half and gazed upon the orange flesh. Well it looked lovely and smelt of ripe melon. So to cut myself a slice for the final test. To cut an unnecessarily long story short, it tasted bloody lovely. I rule!

One of the useful things about going for a run, apart from the getting fit, reducing the chance of heart disease thing, is being outside and watching the seasons come and go. You get to see the various blossoms of the hedgerow in spring and then as the year progresses different things flower and fruit.
As I have been running around Dorchester I have built up a little mental map of where various useful and edible plants are.
In late spring and early summer I can always find some elderflower but as we head into late summer and autumn more fun things start to reveal themselves in the hedges and on the trees, if you know where to find them.
This week I have found 2 plum trees in the hedgerows and the blackberries are coming on nicely, in some places they are ready to pick. There are also plenty of apple trees around that are covered in fruit.
Go on, go for a walk around where you live and see what you can find, you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Allotment 9/8/10

I love this time of year. All the hard work that you have put in is literally bearing fruit (and veg). Just yesterday, for instance (and I use it as an example because it was a really good day) we bought home onions, peas, mange tout, 3 types of bean, radishes, lettuces, cucumber, courgette (anyone want a courgette by the way?) beetroot, carrots and my special prize, more on that later. Basically at this time of the year we can feed ourselves with vegetables. It is a joy to behold. Yes, you have to keep weeding and looking after things but it is so much more rewarding when come home with a bag full of things.

 And now back to my special prize. When I was looking on a seed selling website at the beginning of the year for tomatoes that don’t get blight (I bought a bush variety called Koralik and so far so good, fingers crossed though) I noticed some melon seeds that the website claimed would grow outside in the UK, I think I have mentioned this before. Anyway the seed were 99p so I thought I would loose less then £1 if they didn’t grow. I can confirm that my investment of 99p was well worth it,

To be honest I was a little inpatient. Some websites said that I would know when the fruit was ripe because it would smell of melon; well I think I may have detected the slight whiff of melon ness but that was probably wishful thinking. It has been looking the same for several weeks and I just wanted to pick it and see. Yes it is childish but I do have another 7 fruit to be more patient with if this one really isn’t ripe. We are giving a couple of days in the fruit bowl to see if we can make it smell melony. I tell you how it goes.

Allotment 27/7/10

Waitrose, home of the overly descriptive labels and a shop that nicely turns a negative into a selling point.
 I recently bought some nectarines from them (yes I know, air miles, but I can’t grow them yet and they only came from Italy and, and I think that this is the most important point, they are really, really tasty) and the label bore the legend “Home Ripening”. I’m sorry, what now? So they are not ripe yet? So they were picked when they weren’t ready to be? I know that bananas are picked when green and then ripened later but soft fruit? It doesn’t seem right some how. I pick my crops when they are ready.
 I know that if they were picked when they were perfect by the time they were transported here they would be spoiled but really, ripening after I’ve bought them?
 Waitrose do also, in a sort of ying/yang thing, “Tree Ripen” apples in the autumn leading me to scream, on the inside, were else would they ripen?! Although the answer to that is provided, I suppose, by the nectarines.

Would you like to see some pictures of some dogs in jumpers? Of course you would,



A patient at one of the places that I work bought this knitting book in for me after he heard that my wife knits. He did do it as a joke, I think.

Allotment 21/7/10

Last year I grew potatoes in a bag, I think I may have mentioned it, and my crop wasn’t very good. This year I grow them in the ground so that I could compare the 2 crops.
Ok, this wasn’t super scientific as I should have grown them at the same time, next to each other and treated them the same but it will have to do.
I dug out my Pink Fir Salad spuds on Saturday and it was a joyous experience. I am always a little anxious when harvesting spuds because you can’t see them so I don’t know if they are ready or not but you have to hold your breath and risk it. This I did and look at them,



Ok there is a bit of shadow of me, an odd self portrait if you will, but if you ignore that I think you will agree that it went quite well.
I will now no longer use the bags and will grow them in the ground.

I hate thinning. I don’t like to throw away good seedlings and so I try not to. Today I thinned some of my beetroot but I didn’t throw the thinnings away, oh no, I replanted them all and watered them a lot. If they take then brilliant, if they don’t then I’ve lost nothing. It worked with my carrots.

Allotment 13/7/10

When we were at the garden centre on Sunday picking out some plants for Significant Other’s bit of the allotment (yes I know it sounds like giving a child a small amount of the garden to look after but I do have a lot of space and the flowers do look lovely), which you can read about here, we noticed that they had converted the field next to the car park into allotment plots. Now that is a genius idea I thought, allotments next to a garden centre, think of the income. And of course they had. It’s a great idea, have plots there next to the shop, were else are they going to buy stuff?

 So we went round looking at all the lovely, over priced plants (I got a grape vine out of the deal) until we came to the till and there was a leaflet advertising the plots. I’ll have one of those I thought, it’s such a great idea that I’ll blog amount it. Well that was the plan until I saw the prices that they are charging for renting the plots.

 My allotment plot costs about £12 per year. This is a very basic plot, we have no on site water or anything, but never the less, only £12 per year. I don’t know how much other councils charge, I would imagine more then mine, but not too much. Yes, these plots come ready prepared but I would think that only means that they have rotivated the soil, nothing more. And what would you imagine that they charge for this? Actually that is a silly game so I will tell you, £5 per week or £20 per month or £240 per year. Now that is a lot of money.

 If you want one with a shed, a green house and water butt? Well that will set you back £10 per week or £40 per week or a staggering £480 per year. OMG! Not really cost effective I think you will agree.

 I know that they have to make a profit and that councils don’t have enough proper allotment plot available but never the less this smacks of a rip off, profiteering if you will.

Allotment, It's Not Just Me There.

We've put some new raised bed at the allotment and one of them has been planted up by my Significant Other, you can read about here on here blog Knit Knot Norris, that is all.

Allotment 26/6/10

I’m making a sad face because I have had a crop failure, one that I usually do pretty well at as well which makes it doubly annoying.

 Garlic is usually so easy to grow, last years were great for instance, but this year nothing has happened. I don’t know what it is, whether it was the very cold winter or the cloves that I planted which were saved for last year, but something went wrong leaving me with no crop, thank goodness for Waitrose.

 It hasn’t been all bad though. The old faithfuls keep plugging away and this week Significant Other took her life in her hands and offered to do the forearm shredding task of gooseberry picking. Apart from a little light sunburn and arms that look like she has a serious self harm problem it all went really rather well and a very large amount of fruit was bought home.

 We have also had a good crop of rhubarb so we have been making jams and chutneys.

 Significant Other has made 5 jars of Gooseberry Chutney and I have made Rhubarb (with a hint of Ginger) Jam (also 5 jars) and Gooseberry and Elderflower Preserve (7 jars).

 The recipes for most of things that I make often, including the Elderflower Cordial and this Gooseberry and Elderflower Preserve recipe, can be found in the utterly fantastic “Food for Free” by Richard Mabey.  It is one of the two books that I use most, as you can see from the picture of my copy; the other is “Dough” by Richard Bertinet which is a fantastic book about bread making.

 “Food for Free” is a guide to edible plants basically but it also contains recipes and useful hits and tips. Really it is great.

Allotment 21/6/10 (Guerrilla Gardening)

I’m not sure if this should go on the Allotment blog or my general one so I’ve put it both, I’m not sire what I’ll do in the future.

 So I've been doing a little more Guerrilla Gardening. There is some bare soil near my house and so I had put plants in it.

 On the Guerrilla Gardening website there is a section on how to create seed bombs but I didn't want to do that. The small area is “looked after” by someone who is a supposed professional but can't tell the difference between weeds and plants and has already removed other things that I have planted there that were in flower. This then would need some stealth and cunning. And then I had a thought, plug plants.

 I still have some trays left from some Lobelia that I had bought and would be perfect for my little plan. There was a packet or two of wild flower seeds hanging about, under the sink I think, so a little compost in the tray and a sprinkling of seed on top. Now water in and leave for a few weeks, with some regular water obviously, and then you will have little pods of wild flowers that you can plant quickly and with minimum fuss.

 Under the cover of darkness, well the middle of a Sunday afternoon anyway, I went over to my little plot around the tree and to the bare earth patch that I wanted to bother and within 15 minutes my work was done and my little plugs of wild flowers were watered in. Give it another couple of weeks and they will be flowering and giving a little joy to all who see them, well that's what I rather egotistical hope.

 Oh and for the person who regularly returns this area to bare earth I have made these little signs,

Allotment 4/6/10

I come before you to report a rare success today. I have been a little failure heavy recently but some things are going alright.

 I have finally managed to get some carrots seeds to germinate. I know that this is usually very easy for most people but I seem to have a problem with them and I don’t know why. Anyway this is my 3^rd lot of seeds and some of them have germinated, this makes me very happy. Look at their tiny little green leaves,

And then there are the chillies on my window sill,

How lovely is that?

The elderflower is finally out here so there is only one sensible thing to do, until my gooseberries are ripe and I can make gooseberry and elderflower preserve that is, and that is make cordial. It is the loveliest thing in the world and it is really easy,

Take 1kg of sugar and pour over 750ml of boiling water and dissolve the sugar, then add 10 heads of elderflower, they look like this, if you don’t know,

Add 5grams of citric acid and a sliced lemon, you can grate a bit of rind in if you like, give it a stir and leave it for 24 hours. Then strain it and put it on sterilised bottles. It can last for 6 months in the fridge but won’t because it’s lovely. You can also put it in plastic bottles and freeze it until you need it but remember to leave room in the bottle for expansion.

Allotment 19/5/10

Beans are quite easy to grow. We all know this. You take a dried husk of a thing, put it in some compost and then about 2 weeks later up it comes, raring to grow.


This has always been my experience of them anyway up until this year. This year I have had no end of problem with mine and it is mostly my fault.

I am what could be described as an inpatient gardener. When March turns up I like to get pretty much everything going. Tougher seeds are planted at the allotment, parsnips and early carrots, and seed trays are planted up and placed on window sills. This is a fine plan as long as the weather agrees to it.

My first set of beans where planted into pots and put on my dining room window sill and came on very quickly, so quickly in fact that they were ready to plant out at the beginning of April and when they were far too big for the house they went in on the 19th. Unfortunately the weather disagreed that it was time and it got really cold again and they died. A small tear was shed.

I was not to be defeated though and a second load of beans were planted up (dwarf French, runner beans and climbing beans for those who are interested) and again placed in the dining room. The climbing beans were up first, the others took their time.

Up early one morning I couldn’t find one of our kittens and I assumed that she was having some sort of outside based fun until I went into the dining room. We had, accidently, shut her in there over night.

She shot out when I opened the door and headed straight for the litter tray as she had been sat there with her tiny kitteny legs crossed all night. Well that wasn’t all she had been doing. Spread across the dinning room carpet was the content of 2 of the pots containing my beans, bugger. For some reason she had left the ones that had sprouted alone.

So I scrapped the compost back into the pots assuming that the beans would be there and I could just pat the soil down and carry on. Oh no, my cat had eat the beans. All of them. Sigh.

So now I am on my 3rd attempt at growing beans for 2/3s of them, the climbing beans were planted out yesterday now the nights are warmer. Let’s hope they will be ok, I’m getting a bit bored of them.

Allotment 3/5/10

A continuous update on how my seeds are doing would (has) become a little dull so I will stop that, probably. I will try to bring you plant related stuff though as well as allotment updates and news.

 Today, being a Bank Holiday, there were only a couple of things that we could legally do so this morning we did some DIY and then we got stuck in a traffic jam and got rained on. Ah a blissful May Day bank holiday.

 The reason for the Traffic Jam sitting was so that we could get to Wimborne to see, via the National Gardens Scheme, Deans Court Gardens. This a very pleasant looking house, not open today, and 13 ache garden.

Now, whilst all this foresty stuff and semi-wildness is lovely there was a better reason to go there. They have a lovely kitchen garden surrounded by an 18^th Century serpentine wall. To say that I am jealous of all that space is an understatement.

The weather improved and sun came out as we wondered around this truly beautiful place. Bee hives, 8 or 9 compost bins and carrots growing in those huge basket things that you can see (it to avoid carrot fly I believe). A top afternoon out all round.

Allotment 22/4/10

In my joy at the my first asparagus spear on Monday you may have missed that I planted out my peas and beans.
I thought that it was warm enough at night for my beans, even when I was questioned about it by my friend Liz I arrogantly stated that they would by fine. Oh how wrong I was.
I popped down today to water my seeds, no rain for at least a fortnight, and was greeted with this,





Dead beans. Probably frozen to death like Captain Scott's co-workers.
Oh well, a mistake was made and will learn from it, maybe. Have planted some more in pots though and hopefully they won't be too far behind.

Allotment 19/4/10

I could go on and on about what I’ve planted and what I’ve done at the allotment (peas and beans by the way) but that would be boring and not as important as this,



That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is my first ever spear of Asparagus. Oh yes, I planted the bed last year and now it is paying dividend. I am so very proud.
Let’s just look at that again,



When it is ready I am going to enjoy it soooooooo much.

Allotment 12/4/10

I realise that I haven't had that much to say on the subject of allotmenting recently. This isn't because I'm not doing anything, much seed germination is taking place (except in the carrot and spring onion area), but it is a little dull and I have talked about it at length. Although I have just potted on my courgette seedlings which is coming along nicely.
Today I put my potatoes in. It is traditional to put your spuds in on Good Friday, which is odd as it moves each year, but this year it was throwing it down with rain so I didn't. It is sunny today so off I trotted with my trowel and my nicely chitted seed potatoes. Into the ground they went and not into the bags this year. I am seeing if I get a better yield as they haven't been very good in the bags (I blame the ants) and I'm am using the same varieties as last year, Pink Fir, Valor and Duke of York, in order to compare properly, so let's see what happens.
Picked some lovely purple sprouting broccoli as well today that was particularly nice with our dinner.

Allotment 29/3/10

One of the things I like about this time of year is the appearance of wild garlic or Ramsons. When the flowers come out you will know about it because of the overwhelming smell of garlic when you wonder through the woods.

 If you don’t like garlic I would ignore this next bit. The leaves of this plant taste fantastic (good mixed with salad leaves or chopped into a risotto) and you can eat the flowers as well (they are also great sprinkled on a salad). For many other recipes you can click here.

 As usual I am quite lucky with living where I live as I have wild garlic growing just up the road from me so I can pick it fresh when I want to. It does have a season so I recommend that if you see some pick it and give it a go.

You may remember that in the last post I made a bit of a fuss about the over complicating of germinating seeds.  It is only fair that I put my money where my mouth is and show you how my seeds are getting on.

Here we have cucumber, melon, courgette, and chillies but you will note that the squash seeds are yet to show,

And here are cabbages, cauliflowers, chard but no celery yet.

Is it going to be cold again because I want to get my potatoes in?

Allotment 15/3/10

One of things that really annoys me is when the perfectly normal things of life are fetishised by the media in order to turn them into “Lifestyle” issues. Food is the most obvious of these things. There are endless shows and articles, many of which descend into nothing more than food porn, about cooking and how hard/easy it is. If you want to see this in action have a look at a menu. Even the Wetherspoons pub next to my house has “Lincolnshire” this and “Organic” that, “Grass feed” this and “Seared” that. Oh for goodness sake, I’ve seen it arrive frozen in the back of a lorry and it is the sort of hot you can only get for either a nuclear reactor or a microwave. You are fooling no one.

The other thing that gets me is people making easy things sound difficult. Again I am looking in the direction of cooking shows; even the ones that claim to be “cooking made easy” still make it sound hard. I make my own bread because it is easy not because it is hard (I’m not Kennedy trying to convince people that we can go to the moon) but you tell people that you make your own bread, damn they are impressed. Why? Because lifestyle programs and Sunday supplement sections tell them it is hard. It’s only got 4 ingredients. Mix it about and leave it for a bit. Make a shape, leave it a bit longer. Put it in a very hot oven and bingo, bread.
Watching the first of the new series of Gardeners World 2 weeks ago and I had this same feeling. They were doing a item on seed planting (which followed a how-to-tell-if-this-plant-is-dead bit which was, “if you cut it and it’s green, it’s fine, if you cut it and it’s brow,n it’s dead. We cut this one and it’s brown.” Dead then? “Well, it might come back later in the year.” What was the point of that then?) Any way back to the seed planting and I’m sure I’ve read that the LHC is less labour intensive than the methods that the presenter went though. It’s no wonder people think that gardening (and by extension, allotment keeping/tending, what’s the term? I like Allotmenteering myself) is hard. He went on about the size of soil particles in seed compost and the surface area of seeds!
A friend of mine was trained by the RHS (makes it sound the SAS, she can be in, prune a Rose, and leave and no one will be any the wiser) and confirms that they take seed planting very seriously, there is a section in the exam on it and they even check the firmness of the compost in the pot, but bet’s be honest, most of us grow the same sorts of things and we treat them in roughly the same way. Shallow trench, sprinkle seeds, cover, water, thin them when they germinate and that’s it. If they don’t germinate, try again or try something else. Well that’s what I do and we feed ourselves through the summer so I must be doing something right.

Allotment 8/3/10

The sun has remained visible so I have continued to get things into the ground. I’ve been removing stones from the soil and adding my own compost. It all looks lovely. The problem is you have nothing to show for all of your work except for some lovely bare soil.
Here for instance are my carrots,



And here are my parsnips,



And today I put my onions.



Yes that is just 3 pictures of soil but it is lovely soil.

The bare-for-a-long-time soil problem is the reason I advise people who are starting out to grow salad crops (Yes, I know that it’s odd that people ask me for advise as I know nothing but they do) because they grow really quickly. I planted my parsnip seeds last week and I will start digging them up some time in October but radishes only take about a month. You don’t get that nothing is happening feeling if you are picking some leaves after about 6 weeks.

There is some life on my patch, here, for instance, is my garlic bed,



I am pretty sure that onions are the easiest things in the world to grow; well they are if you use onions sets (little onions). If you grow your onions from seed then you are just showing off. And if you grow them from seed you saved yourself from last year then you about to be hit in the face with a shovel, smug git (I am aware that I am growing so stuff from seed that I saved last year but this is different. Why? Because I say so, alright.)

I do hope that this lovely weather continues.

Allotment 1/3/10

Quick! The sun is out! Get outside and do stuff!

 As you may have guessed I got to the allotment and, finally, got those seeds in that I wanted to last week. Just to remind you, this is my attempt to grow early salad leaves and radishes under plastic cloches. I think it will work just fine as a few plants that were covered have survived the winter here. Yes I know that my winter wasn’t as bad as yours, I had much less snow, but it was cold so I am happy about the survival. Let’s see if it works.

 That is not all I’ve done today either (I love not working on Mondays) oh no. Off to the allotment shop to get onions sets (because they sell out really fast) and seed potatoes. I also got a little over excited and bought some early peas and some sweet corn seeds (yes I know I am supposed to be using ones that I save last year but I didn’t store them in correctly. I put them in a plastic thingy, so they were mushy when I looked last week, which was less then nice). I popped them in a mini-greenhouse thing as well.

 So now it is not just seed trays in the garden, oh no. On the windowsill of our dining room are 2 egg boxes that contain 3 types of potato that are “chitting”.

Chitting is one of those odd things that we allotment types do but we are not sure why. Basically you pop the seed potatoes somewhere sunny and warm until they start to sprout a bit. The theory is that this gives them a better start in life but there is some debate as to whether this makes the slightest difference. I am agnostic on this point.

  The 3 types of spud that I am going to try and grow are Pink Fir (a salad type), Duke of York (first Early) and Valor (main crop). Last year (and the year before) I tried growing them in bags but that wasn’t super successful so this year they are going in the ground. Let’s see if this works better.

Allotment 22/2/10

Just because it is cold and wet (really wet) doesn’t mean that nothing is happening at the allotment.
Well, when I say the allotment I really mean my kitchen and back garden. I was supposed to go and plant some seeds today but the rain was so hard that I decided against it. The plan involved early carrots and salad things (spring onions, radishes, salad leaves) under my ugly but useful plastic cloches but the weather put pay to that. It’s not that bad really because the ground is pretty much prepared; it just needs some seeds in it.
So a change of plan was called for and that’s how I ended up in my kitchen. I have decided to start that bit of the year that the non-allotmenter in your life dreads. It’s time to break out the seed trays. Soon the whole house and garden will be full of them (if you’re allowed to, I have an understanding Significant Other)
I have a nice collection of those seed trays with plastic tops on a bit like a mini greenhouse so that’s what I’m using.

Seeds out of my lovely seed box, compost from the worm filled bag and we are off. I have planted celery (never grows well), Swiss chard, autumn Cabbage (2 types) and autumn cauliflower.



As far as I can tell most seeds seem to do alright if you put them on the surface of the compost and then sprinkle a little more compost over the top. There are more scientific ways of going about this but I’m not one of those people. If it grows, it grows.



Don’t forget to label, nothing worse than not knowing what has germinated (I’m sure the people of Haiti may disagree but have they ever grown 2 types of beetroot and not known which is which?)



And then lid on and off to the shelf in my garden. Yes it is cold but they should be ok.
If I never mention them again you know they haven’t worked.

Allotment 25/1/10

I have finally made it back to the allotment. There has finally been a break in the not-letting-me-get-to-the-allotment weather. After weeks of frozen soil and snow followed by a lot of rain, today is just grey. It is cold but not cold enough for the soil to be impenetrable to my fork.
It has been about a month since I had last been there so I expected the worst. I expected all my crops to be dead, yet I also thought that the weeds would have managed to have survived the winter and grown spectacularly. I assumed that my plot would be completely over grown with grass and bindweed. Yet again my logic and knowledge of plants let me down.
Because of the fact that it is winter nothing had really grown. Neither the vegetables nor the weeds. Bare earth was still bare earth. Big, very pretty ice crystals all over it, but it was still bare. Oh the joy. I had thought that I was going to have so much work to do.

This was not the only surprise. I had left the cloches over the salad leaves but thought nothing of it. They are summer plants after all so they’ll be dead now. Oh how wrong I was. A quick peak under the plastic presented me with a very pleasing sight. Some had survived. Oh yes, I picked fresh salad leaves in January. The rocket doesn’t look to good but had survived but the other one that I don’t know the name of is doing very well. Hurray for nature I say.

So there wasn’t that much for me to do today except a little light digging and I put some broad beans in, they do pretty well at sorting themselves out. Some parsnips were found as well.
To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to today but in the end it was really rather lovely being the only one there on a Monday morning.

Allotment 4/1/10

Happy New Year to one and all.

Sorry I haven't written anything for a while but what with Christmas and all I haven't really had the time. That and yet another weather moan. During November I complained about the rain quite a lot because it stopped me getting out there.

I did manage to get to the allotment 2 days before Christmas so that I could get some veg for the seasonal meals, however the soil was frozen solid. I could barely get the fork into the ground. Past episodes of Casualty ran though my head as I stood, both feet, on the fork trying to penetrate the earth. Whilst I understand that a parsnip is supposed to taste sweeter after a bit a frost this was ridiculous. I did manage to break the surface of the soil, in the end, and cut fork sized squares out of it. Solid cubes of soil that had no intention of releasing the sweet root inside.

Then followed the bashing of the cuboid lumps with the fork to try and get at the tasty treats. This did not go well. As the parsnips were frozen as well they fractured easily. Oh it all went badly.

A few days ago Significant Other strolled past and the soil was still frozen. For 3 whole weeks it has been solid. This is good in some ways. It kills slugs and snails and general bugs and stuff but it makes it completely impossible to do any work there. It is also good for the annual things such as fruit trees and bushes that need a bit of a rest.

But what have I been doing to pass the time as I can't allotment you may ask? Well apart from eating Christmas cake and mince pies (made my own mincemeat this year which was very tasty) I've really got into bread making.

I have been making my own bread for about 18 months now, just simple loaves, but I have started to get a little more experimental. Please don't see this as showing off, it isn't, bread making is easy. Here is a basic recipe. Don't take it too seriously and have fun, who cares if you mess it up. Oh and don't bother with a bread maker, what a waste of money.

A few weeks ago I made croissants simply because I hadn't done it before and I wanted to see how hard it was. It was a bit hard and quite time consuming.

If you do get really into may I recommend that you try Sourdough breads. Now this is a little more time consuming and a little bit more of a fuss but it is worth it because, as long as your start is ok, it always rises really, really well and is really tasty. Here is recipe that I started with. This is a basic sourdough but you can make all sorts of things with the start. This week I have made a rather tasty sourdough rye bread. It takes a while but the results are worth it and you get a really impressive looking loaf, check this out,



Happy baking.