ship shape in the evenings

The light evenings since the clocks changed have made a big difference to our workrate.

The first job came from a windfall. The community group that has a plot on our site is doing a load of work at the moment, they have had some luck with funding and resource allocation, so will be making a big push to sort out the space we have given them, with our help. This means a certain amount of clearing of their plot, one of which has a lot of gravel in it. Our Secretary made sure that they weren't considering just throwing it away and we are now working at moving it around to where it is needed.

First lot he moved to a big boggy area on the main path, and then a second batch we wheeelbarrowed away to our Leanhouse™ to make a floor for it. It is particularly boggy there (one of the reasons for siting it there - the soil was too damp to use as a bed) but now it has a ground sheet down and gravel on top, to keep the weeds at bay, make it look a little neater, and improve drainage. There is still plenty of gravel though, so we will have to get some other uses for it going. Probably communal paths.


This also coincided nicely with us retiring some metal shelves from use at home, so we reconfigured those as Leanhouse™ staging, putting the shelves on the wrong way up to form shallow trays. They are the perfect size for grow bags and seed trays. They cost us a few pounds about 10 years ago, so we are definitely getting our money's worth!


They are almost full now a couple of days later, we have mixed salad, peas, beans, broccoli, kale, chard, lettuce, all sorts of stuff just sowed or as young seedlings, in there.

Also in are the potatoes, we have gone for Arran Pilots and Desiree this year. We used compost from our functional bath, the Bath o' Salad, to go in the trenches, and then refilled the bath with new stuff ready for lettuce seedlings, which are now in.

And then last night we did a bit of spring cleaning rather than planting. We had put the last of our home produced compost in an old broken bath which was sitting there and looking unattractive and taking up room, so I dragged out a black compost bin and transferred it all to that. The cracked bath is now in the skip. Once that was gone we rediscovered a metal arch underneath it, so that has now been installed in the middle of the 'flower' bed ready for sweet peas to climb up.

And the old strawberry plants have been transplanted from their overgrown bed to a nicely cleared new one. That leaves up clear to do some serious grass removal in that bed in preparation for the squash going in.

All in all it is coming together, I reckon a couple more evenings and we may have it in a fairly neutral state, with all the beds ready to go.

Frosty Windy New Year

We went down to the plot for the first real amount of time since the New Year the other day. There had been high winds earlier in the week and our fence had been knocked over (which pepette kindly told us about through this blog) so we firstly fixed that. Not much else had been damaged or whisked away by the wind, and the only damage was caused by a bit of corrugated plastic from someone another plot landing on our broccoli and sprouts. Fortunately our broccoli and sprouts were rubbish anyway so we haven't really lost anything there.

We got the stove going pretty quickly which kept us warm while we were there, which was enjoyable.



We have bought some seeds from Garden Organic and some seed potatoes and jerusalem artichoke slips. We plan to get a little heated propagator for home to start off some things, and to start off some others in the greenhouse soon. When it is a little bit warmer. For now I think it is a matter of clearing up some of the beds (pulling out the rubbish broccoli) and covering some with plastic to try and warm them up.

So those are the next jobs, and the fixing up of our shed floor and a bench, and the LeanHouse™ and a bench for there too.

Helloooooooooo!

I haven't posted for a while, but I promise we have been doing some stuff at the plot.

Most things are over, but some tomatoes are still going (in the lean house), chilies are ripening, and various kinds of salad are going (also in the lean house). The Christmas Potatoes are also coming on well, and I'm quite excited about them.

So, what have we had?

The last courgette before the frost was more of a marrow, I took it to my Mum's and we stuffed it with couscous and topped it with goats cheese, which was lovely:



We took up the rest of the potatoes shortly after the frost too, they are fantastic, a beautiful colour and flavour:




I made a thai potato curry with some tonight:



I'm also ripening some of my 'heritage' tomatoes at home at the moment, I have them on the windowsill in plastic tubs to try and make the most of the light. I've left some ripe ones in with them in the hope the ethylene they give off will encourage ripening:



The main kind are Lemon Tree ones which are such an amazing shape, really like lemons!



We are now looking forward to getting a few jobs in the winter. The Lean House needs ends, and we need to sort out a few beds. I'm looking forward to having the stove on and drinking coffee in a crispy frosty allotment.

Back after the break

After a lovely holiday in the Netherlands we came back to find our plot in good health. A kindly neighbouring plot holder had been roped in to water (and eat) the tomatoes and they were all doing very well.


Many things have sprung into life or attained monster proportions. Peas and bean plants are getting to a good size, one of the courgettes is well on the way to becoming a marrow, several of the lean-house™ tomatoes are a good size, and the cucumber had run away with itself and has become enough for a whole meal rather than an addition to salad.

Some huckleberries have also ripened and flowers are starting to appear on the squash.

And . . . we have some leaves appearing on the 'christmas' potatoes.


The seeds I put in for turnips, radish, spring onions, and beetroot have come through as well, I just hope the weather will be good enough for them to grow to a decent enough size. The radishes should be quick enough.


The seeds in the greenhouse are doing well too, the rainbow chard is looking pretty already.

Wash Out

Well it was throwing it down today so the work day and BBQ didn't happen. So we now have a freezer full of burgers ready to go for a couple of weeks time when we will try again.

However, even with the rain, we managed to get something useful done today. Our seed potatoes arrived for our mimi 'christmas' potato crop, so we got them in rubble sacks and an old compost bag.


These are sat in the lean-house for now, I didn't want them to get completely drowned before they had even started going in the bags (although the bags do have drainage holes pierced in them it really is far too wet today).

We also took out the remaining broad bean plants, as they were covered in 'rust'. This is fine in itself at this stage in their lives, but we have just put some dwarf bean plants in nearby and didn't want it to transfer to them too, as they are only small. Some of the beans were quite young so I've left them in their pods and will just slice them up and throw them in a stew, rather than opening them up and being rewarded only with a couple of beans the size of dried lentils.


And today I also brought home a courgette and courgette flower. I keep reading about deep fried courgette flowers, so that is what I'm going to do with this one, I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Tomatoes on my Potatoes

I thought I was imagining things the other day, and then remembered that tomatoes and potatoes are both of the Solanaceae family. My potatoes had little berries that looked like tomatoes!

They are inedible, in fact somewhat poisonous. I've been told the berry production is unusual, but about 6 of our plants seem to have fruit. I think I'll remove them so that the plants concentrate on the tubers rather than trying to produce a new generation.

Although we grew potatoes as a child I never remember the flowers setting and producing fruit.

Somewhat more worryingly I thought we may have blight, but having looked at the plants it looks like early blight, which isn't too damaging, rather than late blight. Early blight is also supposedly unusual, so we obviously have odd potatoes. The difference is explained here but one of the main differences seems to be early blight being shaped on the leaves by the position of the veins.

I cut the leaves with signs of it off and burnt them, just in case, and will keep a close eye on them to see of anything further develops. I also signed up for the blight forecast here from the British Potato Council, this uses temperature and weather forecasting, and local sightings of blight in your area to alert you to the risk.

All our tomatoes are unaffected, both indoor and outdoor ones.

New Potatoes for Christmas and Tales of Other Veg

I wanted to get some Ransoms (wild garlic) which started an order with the Organic Gardening Catalogue and turned itself into an order for various things to grown from late summer through til the end of the year. On the list are turnips, 'spring' onions, some fast growing beetroot, rainbow chard, endive, some long spicy radish, and some lettuce to grow first outdoors and then in the Lean-house™ later on. That should keep us going through the winter.

We also want to grow potatoes for Christmas. I know that if we put some second earlies in now they should be good in time for Christmas (some ready as early as October), but getting hold of the seed potatoes was quite tricky. A wild goose-chase to somewhere with no stock via the Telegraph, a cancelled order somewhere else, and then finally Dobies seem to have the goods.

We plan to grow them in bags, maybe on one of the beds that is having some down time, some maybe in the lean-house™ to keep them warm. Then hopefully home grown new potatoes on Christmas Day.

Earlies

The Arran Pilots are showing their faces. I had started to get worried about them, but here they are.



Also new on the plot this week is our all new singing dancing 2 compartment compost bin. Constructed from 'Chep' pallets. MrUrban must have moved a tonne of compost (1m x 1m x 1m) from the old heap to the new one. He aches now.



New guttering on the shed too - just in time for the rain.