Allotment progress

This is how the allotment has developed this year.

The plan had been to carry on with Charles Dowding's No Dig method, where you add a layer of compost or manure on the soil and let the worms do the work of digging it in for you. In my usual fashion I didn't get round to ordering another delivery of cow manure in the Autumn, and given how long the last batch took to breakdown I decided not to get any this spring. This has worked out for the best, as many of the other plot-holders believe the manure is contaminated with pesticides. The hormonal weedkiller used on grassland apparently goes through the cows without causing harm, but contaminates the manure. It may be that the manure I had last year was contaminated, which could explain a lot, but I really hope not. I am trying to grow healthy organic produce, so a hidden dose of chemicals is the last thing I want.

Instead, I have collected some horse manure from my friend Suella, who cares too much about the environment and her horse, than to cover her grazing land with chemicals. It is a peaceful setting, with some friendly conversation, so filling sacks and trugs with manure isn't a job that I mind doing. When I get back to the allotment though, the manure never seems to be enough.

I have had plenty of lovely compost for my garden from the double compost bin I made last year. I want to construct a compost bin made from pallets at the allotment, but I only managed to scrounge 3 pallets before my big car broke down and I need to find some smaller ones to fit in my smaller car. meanwhile the weeds are taking over!

I also have a 'dalek' compost bin, but it is full of ants. At the Composting Workshop held at the Transition Community Allotment a fortnight ago, I found out that this means that my mix is too dry and can be remedied by adding more greens. It was a very useful workshop even though I couldn't stay for it all. My plot has lots of comfrey now, some a gift from Suella last year, and some I found on the new half when I was clearing all the weeds.

I followed Mrs Thrifts recipe and made my first Comfrey Tea to feed my tomato plants. It really stinks, and if you get it on your hands you will need to wash them repeatedly to get rid of the smell. Every time I turned my back the dog was drinking it! Maybe she knows it is full of nutirents.

We have been eating lettuces and spinach for weeks, and it is so nice not to need to buy any from the supermarket. The spring onions are ready too, but I need to find a way to stop them going limp in the fridge. Any ideas?

I bought lots of seed potatoes from the Transition Loughborough Potato Day earlier in the year, and they are looking healthy despite the dog charging through them.

The grapevine that I pruned very hard has survived. The blackcurrant bush also seems to have relished the hard prune and is covered in berries. Plus the little gooseberry bush hidden under all the weeds has a handful of fruit nearly ripe.

I have built a couple of frames for netting, which have now been transferred from protecting the garlic and onions to covering the young brassicas. The garlic, gifted by another plot-holder, has been the first casualty this year, as it has white rot. Most of the other plot-holders seem to have suffered the same fate, but luckily my onions still seem healthy......for now.

I have peas growing in my garden at home where I have never needed to net them from the pesky pigeons. Yet at the allotment I risked leaving them unprotected and of course they have been gobbled. Enough have survived for me to have eaten my first peas today.

My kind neighbour has given me some chickpeas to grow this year. To play things safe I sowed them in 2 separate locations at the allotment and in my garden. The garden ones are doing the best. I can't wait for the soft little pods to grow, though if this cool weather continues I ma not get any.

I am not sure whether I mentioned that I planted some fruit trees, which were a gift from my parents. After lots of reading I decided on a Nashi pear and a sweet eating apple, along with some blueberry bushes and new raspberry canes.

The fruit trees both seem to be doing well and had lots of blossom and baby fruit, most of which I have removed. I surrounded them with bark to try to keep the weeds back, but really there is no chance of keeping them down..

The weeds seem to grow at double the speed that my plants grow so it is a constant battle to keep each area under control once I have cleared it. Plus the areas that I haven't yet managed to clear are now going to seed. I have put out a request on freecycle for chippings as bark is too expensive to cover large areas, but had no response yet. Old carpet is my best weed control for now, until I get on top of things (Will that ever happen?)

Anyway, most of my seedlings, that covered every windowsill for weeks, are planted out now. Just waiting for some more netting to be delivered so the last of the brassicas can go out protected from pigeons and butterflys. Then I can just sit back and wait for them to grow :-) Well..........apart from the watering, weeding, pinching out shoots, feeding, hoeing, tying and harvesting!

Happy growing!

Learning about veg

A couple of weeks back my friend Marie, a teacher at the local primary school, asked me if I would come in and be "Gardener Judy". She teaches the 4 year olds, an age where they have lots of untamed energy and curiosity. 

I really surprised myself with how much veg I had grown that I could bring in and show, so I hosed down my wheelbarrow and filled it up.

The kids played pass the pumpkins, unwrapped a corn on the cob, smelled mint and tasted rocket (yuk!), pumpkin seeds and apple chips (yum!). There was awe at the big leeks, with the squiggly white roots at the bottom. Hopefully this will help the kids remember it is a leek.

They got to hold beetroot and parsnips, and saw the tiny seeds that they had grown from. And I left them with a bag of autumn onion sets so they could all go out and plant one in the school's raised beds.

I am grateful that the school let me use some of the photos, though not with any faces in. The kids were really attentive and it was great fun. Hopefully it will be a regular event from now on.

This is my first year with an allotment and what a big learning curve that has been! It isn't just about adapting to having more space and sowing a few seeds, but preparing for every pest and disease possible. This year I wasn't prepared, because in my sheltered garden at home I had never experienced blight, white fly, rust and countless others. Next year I will be planting hardened seedlings behind a fortress of protective netting.

I need to do a lot more planning too, so that I am ready to plant at the right time. Taking on the allotment in March meant I was diving straight in, whereas this year I want to make sure I am better prepared for spring.

The learning doesn't just stop with the plants. When you harvest them and bring them home, you have to know what to do with them so they don't get wasted. This may mean cooking for dinner or preparing for longer term storage, by freezing, de-hydrating or making jams and pickles.

At the beginning of the season I would bring home a lettuce or some stir-fry veg in a carrier bag and pop it in the fridge and half the time it wouldn't get used.

By summer I had worked out a better system. As soon as I got home I would wash the greens, spin them dry and pack them in re-sealable freezer bags. The freezer bags, although plastic and disposable, worked well because I can squeeze most of the air out and the leaves keep fresh for several days. This way people would grab a few leaves for a sandwich or stir-fry and nothing got wasted.

I have to mention my spinner at this point, because I picked it up from the car boot sale for 30p, and it is one of my best bargains. It is part of the 'Martha Stewart Collection', which means nothing to me, but it is clearly very well made and a joy to use. I can't understand why it's previous owners never used it, because everything in my house is now spun ;-)

I have a fair number of pumpkins, squash and sharks fin melon to store. I planned to put them out in the sun to harden the skins and to that aim assembled the mini greenhouse unit that I picked up in the sale. It was so much smaller than I imagined and very flimsy, that I decided it wouldn't take the weight of more than a couple of small squash. Instead my window sills have been full of squash, but now the radiators below the windows are coming on I need to move them to the garage. It will probably be cooler than 10 degrees C in there, but the house will be too warm.

The biggest pumpkin will be carved tomorrow ready for Halloween. Happy trick or treating :-)

Tomato ripening experiment

Last week at the allotment my wonderfully healthy looking tomato plants suddenly showed signs of blight. Drat and blast! I madly grabbed all the healthy but very green looking tomatoes from the plants in the hope of salvaging some of my crop.

At home with several carrier bags full I took stock. Part of my mind was swimming with thoughts of the Ebola outbreak that was on the news. By putting all the tomatoes together in one carrier bag, was I condemning the healthy tomatoes to contract blight too or was it just spread by bodily fluids through the stalks of the plant? Would there be an uprising from the healthy tomatoes once they realised they had been quarantined in bags, condemned to watching the other tomatoes slowly die or dying themselves?

Back to the tomatoes. First I sorted through all the tomatoes, removing stalks and tops and checking for the slightest speck or imperfection that may indicate blight. Even perfect tomatoes with blight on the tops got put in the contaminated pile and wrapped together in mass newspaper bundles to be binned.

The remaining tomatoes were washed and dried.

Then I decided to experiment. There is so much advice about the best way to ripen green tomatoes. I recently read it isn't the light or heat, but ethylene emitted by ripe tomatoes that encourages the other tomatoes to ripen. Ethylene is also emitted by bananas apparently. So I divided my tomatoes up. The first tray was left open on a sunny windowsill. The next bunch I wrapped up in newspaper with a banana skin. Wrapping meant no sunlight but would hopefully keep the ethylene from dispersing. It may also be slightly warmer than the open tray. The third batch was wrapped with a whole ripe banana (slightly more wasteful than a banana skin).
 

The fourth and fifth batches were just tomatoes wrapped up, but one had just green tomatoes in the photo above, whereas all the rest of the batches had some orange tomatoes included. The final experiment was to put some of the tomatoes in a glass jar, so that they would get sunlight, warmth and ethylene...in theory. Any guesses which method worked the best??

 

The photos below show the results after a week. The jar failed. None of the tomatoes ripened at all and the moisture caused a few to start rotting. The batches with the banana and the banana skin both showed very little sign of ripening either.

Even the batch of only green tomatoes that were wrapped had ripened more than the ones with the banana!

 

So much for the ethylene theory. But the batch that ripened the quickest were the ones that were open on the windowsill. You can see how green they were on the windowsill here....

.... and how they had ripened a week later below.

The photo doesn't do it justice though, because we ate the ripest ones through the week, so there were even more ripe ones than shown. There were also still a few blighty ones in each batch too that were removed.

I'll admit it is not entirely scientific and hasn't covered all variations of tomato ripening that are possible, but really - just leave them open on a windowsill :-)

Growing community

Look at these amazing plants. Do you know what they are?

Chickpeas. Having only ever seen them dried or out of a tin before I was amazed when my allotment neighbour showed me his row of chickpeas and generously gave me an armful of plants. I rushed home with them to show my kids, who were suitably impressed.

 

They grow a bit like peas and have soft furry pods with one or two chickpeas in them. The chickpeas are sweet like peas if eaten raw, but my neighbour told me to roast them in their pods in the oven for the best taste. Roasted they have a lovely nutty flavour and you can sit popping them as a healthy snack. We are definitely going to try growing these next year.

Now I may wish that I had a bigger garden, and I can see that travelling to the allotment is effort and can put people off. But I would never have learnt about chickpeas without being exposed to the diverse and experienced gardeners at the allotment. And there are so many other benefits too.

Look at these onions I was given by another generous neighbour.

And these delicious baby beetroot.

I have been so lucky to receive plants, vegetables and advice from so many of them. Even when I have nothing to pick of my own, I never seem to go home empty-handed.

My runner beans were a disaster this year. The first plants I set out were devoured by slugs, then only half the beans I sowed grew and the rest were devoured by slugs, and finally I planted some I had bought from a carboot sale, which looked rather pale and they really struggled to do anything. I don't understand it, as runner beans are so hardy and I had a glut of them in my garden last year. Still we haven't been without, as the other allotmenteers have kindly shared their glut of beans. There are definitely benefits to gardening in a community.

And I have also been foraging. The blackberries started ripening this year whilst it was still shorts weather. This is a bit of a problem as you end up with legs covered in scratches, but I have still managed to pick plenty for the freezer. There are still plenty out there to pick if you want to get some free.

 

 

During dog walks I have collected cobnuts or hazelnuts as they are more commonly known. You can pick them early while they are still pale, if the squirrels are likely to get them, and they will turn brown as they dry out. But best to leave them as late as you can. I am just starting to collect enough elderberries to make a large batch of cough and cold syrup in preparation for winter.

My plot has given me some delicious potatoes, including this pink heart shaped one!

The raspberries are in full swing now and need regular picking.

We have had our first sweetcorn and tomatoes. Below a jungle of leaves there are also some large pumpkins and at least 4 huge shark fin melons. I have never cooked these before so this should be interesting.... :-) I have also been given a recipe for the pumpkin leaves, which I never knew were edible.

At home we have had plenty of cucumber, including the round crystal lemon ones. There have been peas, French beans, courgettes, tomatoes and calabrese broccoli. Only one green courgette plant survived, along with a yellow one and a round one. Still they produce plenty. We went away for 6 days and came back to a fridge full of courgettes that my eldest son had picked and still more on the plants!

We have eaten lots of lovely fresh, colourful and tasty meals this summer, and I have even got my most fussiest eater to eat courgettes and green beans! But the best bit has got to be shopping! Looking at the produce in the supermarket and thinking " I don't need potatoes, or onions, or raspberries or broccoli......just carrots!

Blame the strawberries!

What a busy month! The sunshine is here and the schools will soon be out for the summer(Leicestershire are normally the first and break up on Friday).

The last few weeks are always packed with sports days, drama performances, musical soirees, summer fairs, prize-giving, induction days and leaving parties. Whilst keeping up with all the kids activities, I have also been desperately trying to get ahead with work, so that I have more free time in the holidays. So by 9pm I am then left deciding whether to go to the allotment and water the plants or write my blog. Sorry, but the allotment won - mainly because of all the ripe strawberries that needed picking :-)

I inherited a strawberry patch on my allotment, which is the area enclosed with netting supported by plastic bottles and canes. The plastic bottles for the frame were a good idea from one of notsogreenfingers posts. There were so many strawberries to pick at once that I couldn't keep up. The problem is that there are no rows or paths in the patch, so picking them feels like playing a game of twister, bent over double, trying to carefully place my feet so that I don't squash them!

The strawberries only lasted a few weeks, in which time we had strawberries and cream or Eton mess most days.

 

For the first time ever I made 5 jars of strawberry jam (thanks to a really simple recipe from notjustgreenfingers again). It looked so amazing as I cooked it that I had to take photos! I also had enough strawberries to freeze 4 punnets and gave another 6 punnets to friends and neighbours.

Now the raspberries in my garden are in full swing, and there are a few at the allotment too, along with redcurrants, blueberries and blackcurrants that are just ripening. They are not great at the allotment, because I have neglected the fruit bushes which are now competing with the weeds, but hopefully I will get on top of the weeds over the summer.

Above is as far as I got with weeding the raspberry canes in the spring. The picture below gives an idea of how overgrown they are now, just on the right of the photo.

I have realised that I need a completely different approach to the allotment than I do with my garden. I have a small, sheltered growing space in my garden, so I only need to grow a few plants to fill it. If I sow just a few seeds most of them will grow and mature, so that I have plenty. Plus I am out there several times a day and it is easy to spot if something needs attention or to pull the odd weed as it grows. On the other hand the allotment plot gives me 4 times the space in a big, open allotment area, where pests, diseases and weeds spread easily. Young plants don't stand much of a chance. Even if you try to protect them from the pigeons and slugs that will devour any fresh green shoots.

I need to change my way of thinking from just sowing a few, to planting double of everything. Where I would sow 2 runner beans to a pole, I need to sow 4, just to ensure something survives, and then have backups growing at home in pots just in case. I still have too many bare spaces, so I need to become better at planning so that all my soil is covered in plants, leaving less opportunities for weeds to take over. And I need more propagating space at home as I haven't grown enough. I am kind of working these things out the hard way.

There have been so many things to write about over the last month, and no time. I spotted this article back in June which is worth a discussion. I have another Eco-house to write about, books to discuss and news on my PV panels. Hopefully I will catch up soon. In the meantime I hope you are enjoying a summer of strawberries ;-)