Saturday, April 04, 2009

Back to the plot!

We have been very lax so far this year, having hardly been to the plot at all, but we both went down today.

While I went off to the committee meeting, MrUrban dug up our Jerusalem Artichokes, sorted out the bed they were in and then put some back for this year. So we have quite a big bucket of JAs to eat our way through.

After the meeting finished I got to work on some weeding and tidying and MrUrban sowed some pea and bean seeds in biodegradable pots. That worked quite well last year, so we decided to do it again. I think they are Borlotta, Pink Lady, Runner, Purple Dwarf, and Broad on the bean front and Starlight, Ambassador and Kelvedon Wonder for the peas, like last year.

I had a good wander round the plot too, to see how it was all doing. The strawberries look happy enough, and the runners we took off and potted up in the Leanhouse are doing well too - even a flower on one of them. The soft fruit bushes have lots of healthy looking leaves and shoots too.

The fig trees in the Leanhouse have tiny little fruits starting off which is cheering, I hope we will be able to look after them and get them to ripen. I'm not going to bring them out of the Leanhouse yet as I think there could still be frosts which would do for those fruit.

The only other thing growing is purple sprouting broccoli, but it is a bit small and sad looking. But between the 3 tiny plants we may manage one batch of Stilton and Broccoli soup eventually.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

and yay! Vicarious allotment enjoyment starts up for another year.

Matron said...

Yes, it's the hungry gap right now isn't it? Nothing much growing until the broad beans start.

Avis W. said...

Hi, I've never heard of purple sprouting broccoli before. It sounds interesting... Happy blogging!

Sue Garrett said...

Sorry that this is probably not the best place for these but I couldn't find a contact address.

I'm sure you must be aware of the problems experienced by allotment holders last year due to the use of manure contaminated by a persitent herbicide called aminopyralid. Information has been collated about this problem from the links on this page http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_Contaminated_Manure.ikml
Just to update on the latest re aminopyralid contamination in case you would like to provide updates on your website or to allotment holders in your area.

The latest infomation re manure contamination is posted on my website here http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_herbicide_latest.ikml
I have also sent out a email for circulation by everyone I know that has been affected which is here http://www.glallotments.btik.com/attachments/contaminated_manure_alert.pdf which you may find useful to circulate to allotment holders in your area.

It is particularly important that gardeners be aware of the need for caution when obtaining manure in light of the fact that the government are now considering reinstating the licence that was temporarily suspended last year. As this is a concern to many gardeners you may wish to publicise an a epetition that has been started here http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/aminopyralidban/

I am posting updates as I get them on my blog http://glallotments.blogspot.com/ just on case you want to keep a watching brief.