14 Dec - Dormant Fruit

November to February is a good time to sort through the fruit on the plot. Last month I planted a short row of autumn fruiting 'All Gold' raspberries (11 Nov post) and this month I have been tending to other soft fruits too. This time last year I planted a Victoria plum tree and a few rows of bare rooted strawberries. While the plum has taken its time to get established, the strawberries have really grown over the summer helped by a few doses of fertilizer, so I've thinned the rows out this month. I've pulled off the dead leaves, tidying up the plants for the winter.

I didn't encourage 'runners' to form on the new strawberries this autumn, as I wanted them to put their energy into growing larger plants but, needless to say, I missed cutting out some and a few runners formed. I didn't want to waste these so I've added them to the allotment this month forming another row of strawberry plants. On the plot I have 'Cambridge Favourite', 'Honeye', 'Hapil', 'Sonata' and 'Malling Opal' - mainly mid to late season, fruiting from June to August.

There are also five small gooseberry bushes in the fruit bed that I mainly use for wine making though their berries often make it into the odd jar of jam or a Sunday crumble. As they are dormant now I was able to move two so all five are located together. I've had some Bindweed issues around one of them so it was an opportunity to comb the soil at the base of the gooseberry bush while it was dug up to remove all the offending Bindweed roots so it doesn't sprout again next season.

I really pruned back the blackcurrants last year so I have decided to leave them alone apart from any dead branches. I've debated about adding more summer raspberries over the winter but have held off so far as I have three 'sparse' rows which I'm certain will spread over the next season so perhaps I'll just wait before buying more. The summer fruiting raspberry canes are 'Glen Ample'. As with all summer fruiting raspberry canes, they fruit on wood that grew the previous season so, I've cut out the canes that fruited this year and have left this seasons' new growth so the fruit can grow on it during the summer of 2014.

There's a fair number of rhubarb crowns in the plot too, three in the fruit bed, two in the side strip by the cold frame and a couple by my compost bins on the edge of the plot. Most of the rhubarb was moved last winter so I picked very little this season, again hoping that the energy of the plants went into bulking them up ready for this year. I have no idea what variety the rhubarb is as it was on my plot when I took over in 2007. I have at least seven crowns now, all from that original clump. It's a mid-season variety, cropping between May to July.

03 Dec - Seeds - Taking Stock

It's that time of year to take stock of my seeds. I had a quick look last month and made up my list for the coming season (see post on 12 Nov). I was surprised how my packets had dwindled so I had a scout around the internet for a good deal. I had a look at the main seed suppliers (links to the right) and they were a little expensive so I decided to try a small supplier listed on ebay (after all, I want fresh food on the cheap!). They had virtually all the varieties I was looking for at reasonable prices with free postage for a bulk order. Ebay isn't always the best value for money these days but I've bought some really great seed and bare rooted fruit plants from there in the past and haven't been disappointed so far.

I find that some of major seed suppliers either put too few or too many seeds in a packet. How can you have too many you ask? Well, seed goes off and germination decreases with age and I can end up throwing it out because even on an allotment it's hard to use all of it. Something like lettuce and some brassicas will germinate okay after two years, even three though germination can be as little as fifty percent or less. Parsnip can be a real problem, it's slow to germinate anyway and though I've managed to get plants from seed two seasons old, it was hard going and it's recommended fresh parsnip seed is bought annually. The company I used this time put sensible amounts of seed in their little packets, except for their swede packet which apparently has 1500! What would I do with that many swedes?! I'm not a big fan of swede anyway but it works really well in our warming winter stews so I'm grateful for it when the frosts appear.

Well, my new packets have arrived now and, along with some seed from last year that should be okay, I'm almost fully stocked. I did have to shop around for my cucamelon seeds which I got from DT Browns - they also kindly sent me a packet of Mazur lettuce to try. The only thing I haven't bought yet are my onion sets and potatoes - they will be in the local shops after Christmas.

01 Dec - Sprouts!

It's December and the Advent period leading to Christmas. How can any plot holder mention the festive period without mentioning Brussels Sprouts? Like a lot of children I was never a fan of sprouts but I adore them now with a lovely cooked lunch on a Sunday. As non-meat eaters, varied vegetables and flavours are important to my family.

Of course, I always want a few sprouts ready for Christmas on the plot so, back in March, I sowed some Brigitte F1 sprouts. Unfortunately I lost my seedlings to a snail in the greenhouse - the little blighter chomped every stem! I was ready to sow a second batch but I was offered a number of Bosworth F1 sprouts. I'd never grown these before but, as they had the Award of Garden Merit from the RHS, I thought they shouldn't be too bad. Sure enough, they have developed well with very few 'blown' sprouts. Bosworth F1 are classed as an 'early' variety and I've been picking a handful most weekends since the end of October.

Some of the plants have grown to a decent height but this can be a disadvantage for sprouts in high winds as the plants can suffer from 'wind rock'. Literally the movement of the plants in the wind loosens the roots, snapping the underground micro-roots which serve to feed the plant - this is a major cause of the spouts 'blowing' (opening up). Earthing up around the base of the stem and staking can help matters.

If you really like Brussels Sprouts then take a look at issue 195 (Dec 2013 edition, pp77-79) of Kitchen Garden magazine which has a very bizarre article on how to make a Christmas Brussels Sprout wreath for your door! No, really! (Cover pictured below). Personally I prefer to keep the sprouts on my plate but if you 're lucky enough to have a surplus on your plot you now know what to do with them!

www.kitchengarden.co.uk

22 Nov - Physalis (Cape Gooseberry)

I was given a few Physalis plants in April and I popped them into a space I had on the allotment. Physalis is also known as the Cape Gooseberry or Inca Berry - it produces a yellow flower which soon develops into a little 'lantern'. Inside the 'lantern' is the berry, green at first but, by November, it begins to ripen into a yellow fruit. (Below - stock image).

They do taste rather nice, we've used them along with apple in a crumble and as decoration on cakes. However, they are a bit fiddly to pick and process - every little lantern has to be opened and the berry extracted. Also, the plants are not small, easily up to three foot tall on my allotment. Given the space they take and amount of effort involved, I don't think I'll be growing them again on my plot but I've enjoyed watching them develop this season. (Below Physalis on my plot - larger than I thought!)

I'll be clearing these away now bit by bit until the end of the month but apparently the plants will survive all but the harshest Winter so will come back year after year if left. If you have a suitable wall, corner or space for a medium sized attractive shrub with an unusual edible fruit, give them a go and see what you think.

16 Nov - Clearing & Garlic

The temperatures have dropped over the past week with the first heavy frost of the Autumn appearing on Tuesday. Today has been overcast and about 7 degrees though crucially it's been dry for two days so I've dug another foot or two of the 'strip' running down the length of the west end of my plot. 

This area had a few random fruit plants but was infested with couch grass so I moved anything worth keeping two years ago and began to clear the area. I've planted some rhubarb at the north end and have created a small cold frame. This is useful for hardening off young plants in spring and planting out a cucumber in early Summer. The strip is almost clear now, apart from about two foot and I can use it to accommodate a few more squashes or some flowers for cutting.

As I've noted elsewhere, while I've planted garlic before it has always been in the Spring. So, I was surprised to see the cloves sprouting so readily in the cooler months of October & November (pictured above). I hope they come through the freezing weather and develop well early next year.

I received the DT Brown's seed catalogue this week and noticed that they had Cucamelons listed this season, £1.79 for 50 seeds (free P&P) while on eBay people are listing a mere 5 seeds for the same price with added postage. I put my order in today, I'm really interested in how they will develop and taste in 2014 - they are on my seed list for the coming season (see 12 Nov post). DT Brown's Seeds www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk  

12 Nov - Seed List for 2014

As the dark evenings of Autumn descend it’s time to think about ordering seeds. In the past I've had a tendency to buy everything cheaply from Wilkinson and, through a process of elimination, trying other varieties if one didn't produce as well as expected. An example of this was my first Brussels Sprout seed, Evesham Special, which were a waste of time as they all ‘blew’ making them useless. The following year I grew an F1 variety which produced tight, compact sprouts. I've always used F1 Brussels Sprout varieties since. (F1's are a cross between two different varieties that give more uniform and reliable offspring but as they are hybrids they tend to cost a bit more and any collected seed never comes 'true').

Trying to remember what was successful and what wasn't can be a bit difficult as old seed packets get lost, seedlings get eaten by pests, replacements are swapped or bought – sometimes it’s hard to keep track! This is why I've resorted to this blog as a way to record this information.

Given the amount of hard work involved in growing good crops it began to dawn on me that I should be doing a bit more seed research. There are a plethora of varieties for each vegetable type grown. So, which are the best? Which will give me a good crop? Are there early or late varieties that could give me a chance of growing two crops in a season in my limited space? Are some better suited to storage than others? Are there varieties more susceptible to pests than others?

The place to go for some of these answers is the Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS) website where trials of both flowers and vegetables are conducted every year. These trials provide a basis for the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM) and it can be searched here: http://apps.rhs.org.uk/planttrials/ This is an excellent place to do a bit of research before seed shopping. As a result of reading some of the trials and taking into account of what I already have in stock, this is my seed list for 2014:

Greenhouse Plants

Tomato - Gardner's Delight (cherry type) & Alicante

Bell Pepper - California Wonder

Cucumber - Marketmore (in cold-frame. Burpless Tasty Green are also great)
Cucamelon - (seen in Sutton's Seeds & DT Brown's 2014 catalogue)

Allotment

Broad Bean - The Sutton (dwarf variety, produces well, no staking required)

Radish - Icicle Long White (French Breakfast also perform well)

Lettuce - Lollo Rossa, Iceburg, Webbs Wonderful (I also like Tom Thumb & Little Gem)

Sweet Corn - Swift F1

Winter Squash - Sweet Dumpling

Butternut Squash - Hunter F1

Pumpkin - Jack O' Lantern (saved seed)

Courgette - Black Beauty (cheap and prolific)

Runner Bean - Scarlet Emperor

French Bean - Blue Lake (will try Cobra when these have been used)

Leek - Musselburgh

Garlic - generic unnamed (I wanted Solent White but none around at time of buying)

Onion Sets - Sturon (or Turbo if I can't get Sturon)

Spring Onion - White Lisbon

Parsnip - Hollow Crown or Gladiator F1

Beetroot - Detroit II or Bolthardy

Carrot - Sweet Candle F1, (if you have bad soil try golf-ball round Parmax)

Turnip - Snowball (cheap and always does well)

Kohl Rabi - Korfu F1 (unusual veg but great raw in summer salads)

Swede - Wilhelmsburger

Cabbage Summer - Primo II (always does well for me)

Cabbage Red - Ruby Ball (slugs not keen - a good pickling/salad variety)

Cabbage Winter - Ormskirk Savoy (tough and stands well in bad weather)

Brussels Sprout - Trafalgar F1

Potato Early - undecided but possibly Arran Pilot, Pentland Javelin, Rocket or Maris Bard

Potato Main - undecided but possibly Maris Piper, Desiree (might splash out on Sarpo Mira)

I've found a good seed seller on eBay that stocked virtually all my requirements and were cheaper than local stores even for F1 varieties so I put in a bulk order and had free postage. The only seeds I haven't acquired yet are the spuds, onion sets and cucamelon. The spuds will probably come from Wilko which have limited varieties for early and main crop but are relatively cheap - these should be available for chitting in mid-January though I am considering trying the blight resistant Sarpo Mira for main crop. I'll see what they offer when the time comes. Likewise, the onion sets I buy from Wilko, they are fine but limited to Turbo, Stuttgarter, Sturon and some shallots like Golden Gourmet, again I'll see what they have in stock in the new year. The cucamelons, my 'something new' for 2014, will have to come via the internet or a garden centre with good seed choice. (Cucamelons are pictured below).

11 Nov - Autumn Tidy

It's been a bit wet the last fortnight with some very high winds at the start of the month. At last, we've had a dry weekend so I managed to get on to the plot for an Autumn tidy up. The first thing was to plant a handful of Autumn Raspberry canes, the rather lovely 'All Gold'. Perhaps it's bit early for them to be moved but they were going free so I had them, hopefully they will catch, if not, nothing lost.

I've grown garlic in the past, planting the cloves in March. However, the books recommend that garlic should be planted in the Autumn as it needs a spell of cold weather so the bulbs develop properly. So, for the first time I planted some seed garlic at the 'proper' time and have been surprised to see that the cloves have put up two inch stalks already. I thought that they would remain dormant until Spring but obviously not! There's always something to learn.

I cleared away the last two red summer cabbages to the 'fresh' compost bin and added some shredded paper to the older bin as it looked a little wet. I gave the older bin a bit of a fork over and it will be suitable to use under the greedy feeders like squash next season. Talking of squash, these have become a firm family favourite. This year I tried a few 'unnamed' Butternut seeds and a few 'Sweet Dumpling' seeds. From three Butternut plants we had around ten squashes and from three Sweet Dumplings we had around sixteen. Not a great crop but next year I'm going to be more choosy about the seed I use. (Pictured are some examples of my rather attractive Butternut & Sweet Dumpling squashes).

One last word on Winter squash - while we haven't traditionally been too fussed on the taste of Pumpkin, I always grow one for Halloween. This year I planted some of last year's saved seed (I believe it was Jack O' Lantern) and got a good 16lb specimen. We then roasted and ate some and, to our surprise, it was pretty good. Either we had a mild tasting pumpkin or it was crossed with a nicer squash! (This year's pumpkin pictured next to a sewing machine for scale. Same fella after my wife took a knife to it).

 

I've given each bed a quick dig over as I've cleared the crops away this Autumn and I've decided to pull my plastic covers over some bare areas. I like covering my plot where I can for the Winter because the covers stop my clay soils getting sodden so I can dig them even if we have a rainy Spring and the black covers warm the soil ready for sowing. I dug a few more feet of my ongoing project, the 2' strip down the side of my plot. It's infested with couch grass and I'm taking out half a bucket of white roots for every square foot - it's hard going but it will give me a bit of extra space.

The leeks (old reliable Musselburgh) have taken a bit of a battering in the last fortnight in the very high winds. Despite this they are thickening up well and I've already eaten a row. I've tried a few leek varieties over the past few years but Musselburgh are still a good choice, growing quickly and can be cropped from October to April.

History 2012 - Plot Alterations

The plot had gone fairly well for four seasons in its twelve bed format but by the winter of 2011/12 I had decided to do some rationalization. I had originally worried about not being able to keep the plot tidy and under control so the the smaller bed system gave me the 'comfort blanket' of being able to cover some of the beds over with black polythene if I didn't have time to cultivate them. As it turned out, I managed to be able to cope with the work on the allotment and my concerns were unfounded. In fact, all the beds were producing well.

Having bought a greenhouse (located in my garden, not the plot) I had a few more growing options that sowing under glass provided. For the first few years I grew large numbers of outdoor bush tomatoes, too many runner beans, pumpkins (which no-one really liked at first) and beds of salad that more often than not went to seed. My crop choice had changed by now and, as a family, we had largely worked out what we wanted from the allotment. While the smaller bed system worked well for me (and is a really useful design for the beginner and experienced plot holder alike), these other things (plus I wanted a winter project) led to a bit of a re-design.

The twelve small east to west beds were re-laid into four large north to south beds measuring 6' wide by 32' long with narrow paths in-between. (The 32' length was arbitrary, just the maximum length I could get on my plot with space at one end for compost bins and a path). I also began the process of clearing a weed infested 2' strip down the length of one side (this is still ongoing!) to put some ad-hoc cold frames and other bits and bobs. One of the four beds was laid totally to fruit with three rows of summer raspberries, two rows of autumn raspberries, five rows of strawberries, a few small gooseberry bushes, two decent size black current bushes and a number of rhubarb plants. The other three beds are just enough for a decent crop rotation.

Unfortunately the first summer of the new layout was 2012, according to the Met Office, the wettest summer for a hundred years. My allotment (and everyone else's on my site) was a washout - it was awful and disheartening. However, despite a very cold Spring that seemed to go on forever, 2013 turned out to be a good season and the new layout worked very well indeed. (Pictured is the new four bed system and some other images from 2013 season. The fruit bed is the furthest away near the plastic cold frame in the first image and there are a few 'heeled in' leeks in the fruit bed in the middle image).

UPDATE: I took over the opposite plot in June 2014 (see post 15 Jun - Making A Start On The New Plot) so I now have a complete allotment for the first time.

History 2007 - Clearing The Plot

I took over the plot in March 2007. It hadn't been used for a year or two and had a fair bit of couch grass. I was fairly sensible and cleared the plot by hand digging and removing as many of the white roots as possible. I'm glad I put the work in, while you could use a rotavator making the plot look good for a week or two all those chopped up couch grass roots soon begin to grow resulting in a far bigger problem down the road.

There are a few ways to clear a plot.

1. Strim/cut any unwanted growth down to ground level and cover the whole plot in black plastic for at least a year. Not an ideal option as most people with a new plot want to get growing so, read on! (A note on black polythene: a lot of people don't like it but I've found it's a great tool, keeping unwanted growth away from the plot, after all, I want to be growing veg not constantly battling weeds. It also warms the ground in Spring and keeps the rain off so I can dig even if the weather has been wet).
2. Second and best option, strim and begin to hand dig, cleaning roots as you go. Keep weed infested, un-dug areas covered in weighted down black polythene; this will help you psychologically as the plot will look neater and the task won't look so big! Set your goals, perhaps aiming to get half the plot in cultivation the first year, the second year will be easier as the plastic will have killed everything underneath.
3.  For those really wanting to rotavate then you MUST get rid of the weeds fully. Either cover for a long time as in step one or, use a biodegradable weed-killer. While I might use weed-killer on the edge of my plot against stubborn bind weed, brambles or couch grass creeping in, I don't use it on the growing area itself - but that's my choice. (I suppose livestock might help clear ground too, pigs and chickens may be an option if your allotment regulations allow).

Originally I set out my plot into 12 beds measuring 4' wide by 12' long. The idea of having narrow beds is to be able to sow, plant, weed and harvest without having to step on to the soil and compacting it. In between the beds I left 1' paths and a 2' path down the middle separating six beds either side.

I managed to clear all my (half) plot by the summer, digging then planting the crops as required. First the early potatoes and onions sets went in, more digging and main crop potatoes, more digging and I was ready for the brassicas, beans and finally summer squashes. It was now I began to learn what needed to be planted when! My first year in 2007 wasn't too bad, I got lucky and had some decent crops, I was amazed! The pictures on this page are from March, June and July 2007.