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 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.