Pushing up the daisies

After hours of watching a capoeira festival (my daughter plays this sport), there was just time for a quick mooch around the lotty on Sunday afternoon. Glorious weather continues, sunny although there is a cool nip in the breeze.
My neighbour Christine kindly gave me some willow branches, several of which I have put to good use as wigwams for the runner beans. They have been put up, tied in, a cross branch wired on and ready for the first sowings in a couple of weeks' time. There are loads of small branches which I am going to use in the peas, to help them grow tall.
The first peas are a couple of centimetres high and looking good. I will fill in the gaps next week which is what I did last year, very successful technique.
I pottered, watered as it is pretty dry here, and started to earth up the first few spud leaves poking through the ground.

The peppers and aubergines indoors are doing exceptionally well. I need to prick out the tomatoes this week, they are starting to look crowded and a little leggy.

Last bit of info, as I realised that I had missed out on a few things, I have ordered a few more seeds (the last ones, honest!): brussel sprouts (Montgomery) which need to be started very soon, some winter cabbage, some white sprouting broccoli as I am so pleased with the one I have in bloom now, Pak Choy for autumn and for now if I can get it in before it heats up too much, some mizuna for salad leaves (a first try at that one), and some Swiss chard for winter too. I realised that once again I failed to get late crops working so I want to try again this year, as we did have a lack of veg in the winter.

Labels: peas, spring, watering

As I took the afternoon off yesterday I spent a good couple of hours working, in the warm sun. Fantastic.
It's difficult time of year though, even if the weather is near summer, as it is currently (well over 20 deg), it is still impossible to sow many things. So I had to be content with quite a bit of digging and tidying, sowing a few bits - more peas, including some seed swap ones - Goodlife from A4A sent me Champion of England climbers, and some Scandinavian peas (Skansk Margart, also climbers) - parsnips from my own saved seed, have to see how those go (I think they were either White Gem or Guernesey and it's a pity that I received some free parsnip seed this year when I bought my seeds) - some flowers (mixed seeds, some nigella and zinneas). I managed to shift the enormous manure pile that was cluttering up the top bed, digging in half of it and spreading half of it around to other places (my shoulders are sore today). Tidied up the flower beds and the edges. Watered as it is so warm. Actually took time to sit and admire :-)
And to take some pictures.

As usual the artichokes fascinate me. This is the 5 year old specimen - it has been divided up, then buried under a ton of manure then frozen solid in February's bid cold snap. But it's still there are going great guns:


I picked a load of sprouting broccoli, in a week it has given so many sprouts! It must be the warm weather. Unfortunately the plants are rather fragile, and have been damaged over winter, they are leaning very precariously depsite my efforts at earthing them up. I am going to try and get some seeds of this and sow more as this has been a marvellous crop, at a time when nothing else is around.


The fruit is also enjoying the sun: The raspberries have their first leaves - you can see the spiky gooseberries just behind them. A bit worried that I still have gooseberries in the freezer! Might be time to make a little jam and use them up, methinks.


First flowers on the strawberries - this one is part of 6 new plants planted last autumn.


I do like this bed, everything has gone into it bit by bit and some things accidentally! The rhubarb is in the foreground, coming up like mad now, and behind, through the cheeky white marcissus you can see the young artichoke plants. 2 were sown 18 months ago and the other one is a baby of the old plants. They look very healthy and with a bit of luck I might get one or two globes. I know that next year will be their peak and from then on I will get a lot of artichokes from them. This bed also has purple honeywort which the bumble bees love, and a rose and a lavender bush as well as wild growing mint and parsley. I sowed a little nigella and some zinnea into it yesterday too.


The rhubarb chard gave nothing over winter but it is a hardy little beggar and it's coming up again. It really was beautiful, the red veins showing clearly in the bright sun, I couldn't resist a snapshot. There are 4 plants but we've not eaten a stick of chard yet! Hopefully soon...


One last shot before going home time: The foreground (with my shadow!!!) shows the onion bed, brown Stuttgarters (or Sturon? not sure...) which are already up and the red Barons just starting on their left. On the right, you can see the garlic bed with its lush green foliage and over the back the ploughed up potato bed. One or two tiny potato leaves are coming through, once it is earthed up and mulched it will look the bees' knees. What you see on this shot is about 1/3 of the plot, the lower end, where the fruit bed is. This year it has alliums and potatoes.

Labels: digging, fruit, peas, pictures, spring

The sun is shining, the trees and shrubs are putting out new leaves, the birds are singing. Spring is here with a vengeance!
Last night I popped down to the lotty, emptied the highly odourous kitchen scraps into the compost, sowed the first row of Alderman tall peas and netted them (rather casually but they will be all right to start off) and also a row of spinach before it gets too hot for it. The radishes are almost ready to pick, they got a good soaking last night and they will get another this evening. They started off with cool damp weather but now it has turned balmy they will go hard and have too much heat without a lot of water.
The shallots are romping away and the garlic looks great (needs weeding). Disappointed again by the seed onions, a few have come up but not really many. Maybe the warm spell will help them on. I would like a few to work, if only for spring onions...

Indoors, the tomatoes need pricking out, they are tall with true leaves now. The peppers and aubergines are looking really healthy! They are now several centimetres tall, and lush. It would be so nice to have a good harvest of them this year, peppers are one of my favourites. Those strange Red Egg aubergines are doing better this time, hopefully we might get to taste one this year! They are spectacular to see too.

Labels: heatwave, peas, peppers, radish, spinach, spring, tomatoes

A friend kindly gave me some hollyhocks from her garden, in a little tub, so I raced down after work to plant them. There was a beautiful red sunset, gorgeous. After seeing to the hollyhocks, which I have put in the herb bed for want of a better place (at least I could attach them to the wall of the shed), I also sowed some sweet peas and cloched them, sowed another row of Early Onward peas (I will put the Alderman tall peas in this weekend as I need to hammer in the stakes for those) and some more radish. The first lot are coming on well as it has been rainy and cool, they are snug under their fleece and growing nicely. The turnips beside them have also germinated very well - can you transplant turnip????
And to top it off it was the first day of spring!

Labels: flowers, peas, radish, spring

By a grey Sunday morning the early spuds went in. Bugger - too many of them! I am going to have to squish up a bit the maincrops or there won't be enough room for everyone.
The plot is slowly waking up - the strawberries are sprouting tiny bits of greenery, the rhubarb is peeking through the ground, tulips are coming up here and there and white daffodils. The garlic is looking exceptional, very good growth. The radishes and turnip sowed 2 weeks ago have germinated quite well. But 18 day radish - it's bollocks, they are only just getting true leaves!

Anyway I fleeced a small corner and sowed Little Gem lettuce, some oak leaf lettuce, chinese cabbage and cauliflower (all year round).
2 rows of peas - Early Onward and Kelvedon - also went in under nets.

And goodlife's seeds have come through - the cabbage I was taking for kale all winter is actually purple sprouting broccoli!!! Or in this case, white. Small sprouts are poking out all over them, and I think in about a week we will have a lovely harvest of the first spring veg. I have only grown them once, but really I should do it every year. Still eating the last of the leeks too.

Labels: broccoli, peas, potato, winter

As the rain which has stayed so long away has now decided to come back with a vengeance, there was little that could be done this weekend, except watch the allotment get greener!
I pottered for half an hour, picked a few green beans (the first! - but noticed that the stems have been wind damaged!!! Luckily there are more sowings to come), the last pens, broad beans, a few raspberries, and the first lot of gooseberries! at least a kilo! Small this year but sweet. I will have to get some sugar and get the jam cooking!
While I was picking them, I heard a rustling in the mulch, and suddenly, right near me, a tiny snout came up, then two bright eyes! The vole! Well, I don't doubt that it's not the same one... but I had noticed a few tunnels here and there. As I am one of the few that mulch, obviously my plot if a great attraction! She was under the raspberries, so probably picking up the windfalls. I noticed a few opea pods that were close to the ground, had been nibbled too. Oh well, She's so tiny and cute, I can't begrudge her a few veggies. She looked at me for a while then scurried back under the straw.
The tomatoes and peppers are going great guns, and the pumpkins are just going absolutely mad (I just don't actually know what some of them are! I am guessing butternuts but am unsure)! Courgette plants are growing quite well, some male flowers but no females yet, but the largest plant is starting to grow a dense interior section, with flower buds, which usually means that fruit will soon be on its way. I tied up one of the cucumbers, it is now about 30-40 cm high, and I think will soon be flowering. The melon plants are quite vigourous now, they are in flower. Wonder if we will get fruit though??
The garlic is dying back, soon be harvest time, when there is a sunny period. The onions this year are magnificent, and no bolting at all! Terrific!
New tasks for this week, if it stops raining long enough: pull up the dead pea plants and sow more green beans for the end of the season. Weed and feed the strawberry beds and tidy that general area. Hoe away the weed seedlings that are growing like mad... Last post before the official start of summer....What a strange spring it has been.

Labels: beans, courgette, garlic, peas, rain, spring, vole

It was Pentecost weekend, so a whole day more to work on the lottie. We are finally getting some rain, and that is seen by the huge amount of weeds that have suddenly sprouted! Luckily the plants are also responding well to the watering.

I dug out an incredible amount of weed, 2 whole barrows full. Mostly bindweed I add, although also a lot of fat hen, funnily enough, all in with the squash and beans.

I planted out the Brussels Sprouts which were really calling out to be planted, and pricked out some beetroot. I dug over the carrot bed, around the existing carrots (if you can call them that, put on some fertiliser and sowed Autumn King carrots, late beetroot (monoruba) and some parsnips, as the first row has so much weed I can't tell if they have germinated or not. Also sowed some summer lettuce, thinking maybe growing under fleece will help me get some lettuce!

Weeded, remulched the tomato/pepper/aubergine bed, and tied the toms up, First green tomatoes can be seen and some of the others are flowering. I also have a few feral tomatoes growing wild, I have grouped them near the flower bed and in with the garlic which will come out soon.
Picked the last of the peas, bar a few odd ones. Those Alderman were really good, I must do them again next year. Much better than the smaller varieties.
The first and second potatoes have completely died off! This is a strange phenomenon but which happens every year so I now assume is normal. I have started bringing out the Belle de Fontenay, they are still smallish but they taste lovely.

The squash are rampant, starting to run all over the place, but I am finding the courgettes slow. The first one I planted out has its first flowers but no fruit yet. The others (There are 5 plants this year) are just on their first true leaves. The cucumbers are starting to grow upwards on their wigwam, and I put some wooden frame around the melons so they can grow upwards a little. They are flowering but no fruit yet. The French beans are in flower so I guess that we will have beans quite soon.

My legs are pretty sore today so I must have worked well, The plot certainly looked tidier. I just managed to chuck the weeds on the waste pile and hotfoot it, as a fine rain began to fall, lightly but quite relentlessly. Oh well, it will be good for the new carrots!!

Labels: carrots, peas, potato, spring, sprouts, squash, tomatoes, weeds

And well needed it was too!
I had a week off work and did some amazing progress in the garden, thanks to my brother and his good digging technique! My neighbours were amused, as he speaks no French, I said I have hired a foreign labourer to help and they all giggled.
So I got the tenders planted - about 15 tomatoes, 7 or 8 aubergines and the same of sweet peppers. Also went in 5 melon plants given to me by a workmate. I have fleeced those, I find melons so dodgy, I don't know if they will take but they were free so no grumbles. The climbing beans are in, Cobra saved from last year and too from a seed swap, yard long beans and some other climbers whose name escapes me.
I sowed more squash, two or three courgettes including a Serpente di Sicilia, and beetroot and parsnip. The plot got a good kicking, the whole tomato patch was turned over and weeded in a couple of hours, I have just got the courgette patch left and that is covered in cardboard so will be a doddle.
The plot is beautiful just now - I harvested a pound of delicious strawberries and later in the week we will eat our first artichokes and peas (kelvedon).


The sage is in flower and for the first time I got irises! Gorgeous.


There are flowers everywhere:
red roses,
chive flowers,

purple honeywort,

brilliant orange california poppies,

white thym and what is called apparently "Honesty", or money plant, which in French is called the Pope's Money. It's a lunaria in fact, but gave purple blooms and now the strange translucent pods good for decoration indoors. That took 2 years to grow from some seed sown!

I can honestly say that despite the lack of rain, the plot this year is looking tip top, loads of fruits on the bushes, squash has germinated fine, and the beans and peas are in great shape. Will I get carrots? Who knows, but the seedlings are abundant and healthy for the first time. And yes this is getting slightly obsessive.
Now we just need another few heavy downpours and we will be in business!

Labels: artichoke, beans, digging, drought, flowers, peas, rain, spring, squash, strawberry, tomatoes

Still no rain, but lovely April weather, so it doesn't do to complain. I am pleased because the indoor seedlings are doing well (except the courgettes that don't seem to want to sprout) including the ones that I just pricked out over the weekend, and I had to go down the lottie to water and saw that the new seedlings are coming on wonderfully - the pricked out lettuce and beets seem to have taken, as have the broccoli, and the peas are thriving. I will have to go down and water again though, probably tomorrow morning. The new season's crops have come up so well, I don't want to comprimse them via lack of water.
I gave the strawberries a good soak yesterday , as they are under black plastic they should be ok - they have lots of flowers, which means lots of fruit! Yum, can't wait, I only ever eat my own now, more or less. Others are just awful in comparison!

Labels: drought, peas, seedlings, spring, strawberry

OK maybe not hay, but a good bit of sowing and weeding does wonders! I did get a wee bit carried away but the weather was so perfect, sunny but cool, not a cloud in the sky.
I staked the peas that are now about 20cm high and coming on well. I earthed up the early potatoes, which have excellent growth on them.
Then for sowing, I put in some beetroot, lettuce and broccoli seedlings that had been sown a few weeks ago, sowed some radish, beetroot and lettuce, in nice neat squares.
I then attacked the bed where the peas are, because it was seriously overgrown down one end, and after digging it all over, I sowed 2 rows of French beans (Fin de bagnols and Kingswax yellow beans) and finally, under cloches, an Atlantic Giant pumpkin, a Turks Turban pumpkin and a yellow pattypan squash, Sunbeam. I will try and successively sow the beans this year, they always come too many together! So a small patch each fortnight!
It looks much better, there is only one quarter left to be cultivated, and the edges tidied a bit.
I headed off to the pony club in the afternoon, where I filled 3 bin bags full of stable waste (in which there was rather a lot of very smelly poo!!!!) and carted them off, 2 were used to mulch the first half of the potato bed (the others haven't come up yet so I need to wait a week or so!), the peas, and broad beans. I think I need about another 4 or 5 bags, because I would like to mulch everything this year, even the onions. That makes less work watering.

I have a week's holiday beginning of May so I will be able to do then the hard graft of digging over the tomato patch, planting and staking all the tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, courgettes. I spent some time too on Sunday pricking out the last of the tomato seedlings, I now have about 15 plants, which is great, just the right number, even though they are fairly banal varieties: Gardener's delight, Moneymaker, Tigerella and Marmande for the most part, although 3 of the Evergreen green and one of the yellow Beefsteak tomatoes did come up - that will be a fun novelty! I also have 6 aubergine plants in good health and about 6 or 7 peppers, which I guess will be enough.

Labels: beans, beetroot, broccoli, mulch, peas, sow, spring

In the rows of peas! Last year there was a successful manoeuvre on my part to fill in the gaps in the rows of peas once I noticed them. I found that this lead to a better harvest, as the older plants tend to protect the new ones, and it leads to a better usage of space. Sowed more Kelvedon and Alderman in this way.
Gorgeous sunny weekend, almost like summer. I finished planting the maincrop potatoes (Desirée), so that's done now. I howed the onions and shallots and the early spuds are well through so I started to earththem up a little and have made note to self to get in some stable waste to mulch with.
For the first time my carrots have germinated really well under fleece. But it is getting really warm so I lifted that on Saturday, and I think that I might actually grow some carrots this year!! The spinach too is coming on well.
I sowed some things in my seedling shelter - many flowers for transplanting (zinnea, marigolds, carnations), some basil (rather pessimistically but you never know), broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale and more beetroot. I ran out of time but I really wanted to sow some more beetroot straight in rows, and also more spinach and parsnips. I must try to do that this week.
The fruit bed is still a bit of a dog's dinner. there is bindweed coming up in the strawberries, it seems to love covered areas, the bastard! That needs removing, and I should get some fertiliser on the plants, which have a lot of flowers! A great fruit harvest is looking likely, as the raspebrries are covered in growth and the gooseberries are in flower.

Inside, I pricked out more tomatoes, the peppers and aubergines are small but still growing, they have another 3 weeks to get a move on! I sowed a pot of basil too, since it seems to grow crappily outside. And even though I said I wouldn't, I gave in and sowed 2 cucumbers (Burpless Tasty) and 2 courgettes (Diamond, ordinary green), to get a head start. Hopefully they will be able to go out in the next two weeks if they sprout quickly.

had a bit of a seed tidy up, threw out some old stuff, and I realised that I have squash seeds in abundance! Some free Atlantic Giant (that I don't especially want! But I might grow one for fun, maybe I can get permission to put one in the borders of the carpark??) , Qld Blue, Butternuts, Turks Turban, was meant to have some Uchuku Kuri but I can't find the packet, Pink Banana from a swap. Dunno where I will put them all! because there are also 5 varieties of courgettes! Oh well, one of each??? :-)

Labels: aubergine, broccoli, carrots, peas, peppers, potato, spring, sprouts, squash, tomatoes

Ah lots of hard yakka this weekend. Saturday was gorgeous, although the air was heavy with the promise of rain. SO in went just about all the Desiree maincrop potatoes, all except about ten that I forgot in the kitchen :-D I noticed that the earlies I planted end of February have tiny leaves peeking up. The mild March weather has done them good. The shallots and garlic and onions are all putting out shoots: this week is pretty rainy and I think a good soaking will boost them on no end.

Peas were also the star of the weekend. I filled in the gaps of the Kelvedon Wonders and planted out some samples I was kindly given in a swap - Half Pint and a Golden Mangetout variety (never got those to work before. Hopefully if there is not a lot to eat I will at least be able to save some more seed for next year!

The spinach is sprouting, excellent news - I sowed a new row of early Nantes carrots, mixed with a few spring onion seeds for fun. The plot is looking reasonably tidy (although that will change, with the rain) and spring is definitely pushing everything up. There is not that much to be planted in April, except some more sowings of beetroot, broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts and spinach and some flowers, so I will spend my time mostly tidying, weeding and edging the paths (a pretty big job!). It is starting to look OK, with some new pathing and I am keeping a check on the grass and weed, as far as possible.

Indoors, I repotted the aubergines and peppers. I am a bit disappointed with the germination rate to be honest, but I think there are at least 6 or 8 little plants of each which will be sufficient. the tomatoes are not all big enough yet to be potted on - there too I have had poor germination, I don't really know what the reason is. Perhaps not enough heat, not enough water, very mysterious.
Raining outside - fill up my rain barrels please!

Labels: aubergine, carrots, peas, peppers, potato, rain, spinach, spring

In rather drizzly weather on Saturday, I still managed to plant out the early spuds, Belle de Fontenay, and a few more Ratte from 2010 that were sprouting merrily in the bottom of the veg trolley. You never know, they might grow oK, even though they are quite shrivelled.
That's one third planted, about 40 plants, the other two thirds to go in as March marches on.

I also sowed more peas, Alderman climbers (a first for me) and a variety I got in a swap called Early Alaskan, which is meant to be a nice cool weather pea.
I also have tried sowing some carrots (glutton for punishment) - Healthmaster and Early Nantes - and spinach - Medania - and have fleeced it, for once, so maybe I will get better results this year. I don't really know what else to try, as my carrots are usually so dismal. It was cold work down there but somehow I was pleased with the results.

Labels: carrots, peas, potato, spinach, winter

Driving to work this morning I noticed that many of the trees along the ring road were in a bloom of white flowers. This is a definite sign that spring is almost upon us! Despite temperatures that are still chilly, the days bring many bright sunny periods, to cheer us up after all the winter gloom.
Yesterday was a productive day down the allotment. I spotted the garlic shoots finally coming up, but I planted another 10 cloves nevertheless, for some fresh summer garlic, even if it stores not so well as the overwintered variety I find. I also got in my 500g of echalotes, only the long variety this year, hopefully I will harvest several kilos like last year. I am still working my way through the 2010 harvest of onions and echalotes! Planted too were 250g of Stuttgarter brown onions, I will do the Jaune Paille des Vertus and the red ones later in March.
I tentatively started the spuds, putting in several Ratte that were left over from last year and the first of the Belle de Fontenay earlies. I will keep planting spuds from now till end of March.
And I even managed to get in a couple of rows of Kelvedon Wonder early peas, netting them from marauding birds!

The winter garden is finished, I pulled out the last sprouts and the broccoli, which had rewarded me with a last flush of shoots - I will definitely do some early this year, in April, to try and get some broccoli going most of the year. It takes up less space than other brassicas. I pulled up the remaining leeks, which are already chopped in the freezer!
And as for the spring garden - the rhubarb is growing, the baby artichokes have taken well, in the last weeks of wetter weather, and the overwintered spring Durham cabbages are growing too. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have fresh baby cabbages!
I now need to reconstruct my seed beds which have fallen apart slightly over winter! and get sowing with beetroots, salad greens, and spring onions.
And at home, the first aubergine shoot has come up in the pots, now I need the rest to get moving. This week the tomato seeds will be sown!

Labels: artichoke, echalote, garlic, onions, peas, potato, seeds, winter

It was indeed a scorching weekend here with over 30 deg. I worked in the garden on Saturday morning but by 10 am it was starting already to get a bit unbearable. Still, I was really pleased with the work I did. I finally did a bit of work on the herb border which was completely overgrown with 5 foot high parsley (yep!), rampant lemon balm and the bloody bramble have made another attempt. There was also bindweed crawling over everything. SO I ripped out all the nasties, chooped back the parsley and lemon balm, made some room around the sage, thyme and tarragon and it all looks much more civilised now.
The peas have now been chopped down and left to rot in place. I will slowly dig them back into the earth.
I watered everything copiously, the heat was terrific. And in some ways the plants appreciate some hot weather, as there are plenty of courgettes on the plants (got my first one! A Yellow Parador.) and the tomatoes have come on very well. I weeded and mulched the tomato bad and tied the now tall tomatoes to their stakes, pulling off a little excess vegetation here and there to give the flower trusses the best air exposure. There are a couple of wee tomatoes, and lots of flowers so I am looking forward to a terrific harvest again.
I also gave a few shovelfulls of rich compost to the squash, mulching it around them and watering heavily before covering the whole squash bed in thick straw. I also did the same to the aubergines and peppers. The peppers are getting their flower buds, bless 'em.
Sowing:
I sowed some more stuff to keep the garden going throughout the cooler months. sowed: radicchio, scarole lettuce, ordinary lettuce, and started sowing spring cabbage.
Harvesting: it starts to get interesting.
The last peas, strawberries, raspberries and even blackcurrants that I forgot I had as they have been swamped by the raspberries. The first courgette.
Picked a couple of shallots, they are going to be a bumper crop I think. Each bulb is at least 5 cm wide, a great size. I can't wait for the onions to be ready, they are all flopping over now with gusto.

Plans for the next week or two:
as often as possible, add more compost around the beans, which are in flower and even starting to make tiny baby beans.
plant out the pak choi and kale that are patiently growing in the coldframe.
weed round the rhubarb bed that is looking a bit straggly. The rhubarb got the rest of the manure that was sitting in a corner of the herb bed, as it has been a bit poorly this season.
keep harvesting early potatoes, bordeaux-mixture the lates and keep weeding and tidying. And hopefully start picking all that wonderful summer produce!!

Labels: beans, courgette, herbs, mulch, peas, peppers, squash, summer, tomatoes, weeds

There are some weekends where you plan to do a lot but just don't manage it! That was mine. I suppose I can't complain.
Saturday: I went in the afternoon, just an hour and a half, and I picked some new spuds (well dug, you know what I mean) and peas, rhubarb and a few bolting onions. Oh and the first gooseberries! Which I used to make a wonderful fool on Sunday! I tidied up rather well, weeding by hand the most obvious weeds, but I should have hoed between the tomatoes and I didn't get around to that.
Sunday, I slept in, So not as much work as I wanted. I went down full of good intentions, I wanted to plant my leek seedlings. Surprise - when I opened the coldframe to dig them out, I got a closer look. And they aren't leeks. They are spring onions. Which makes me think - did I plant out the leeks as spring onions? I must look closely at them this week!!!
So now I have a row of rather healthy looking transplanted spring onions! Maybe I will be able to eat them soon! And I also found that I had some leeks left in a pot so I planted them out anyway. But they are nowehere near the quantity I would normally have! there are about 20! Must keep an eye out at the garden centres, see if I can get some proper seedlings to help myself out!
I wanted to tidy up the herb bed which is completely overgrown, filled with rampaging mint, parsely in flower and lemon balm. And bindweed, grrrrrr. But my alarm rang, time ot go make lunch, so that will have to be done one evening this week instead.
No rest for the wicked, I say.
Oh and today is the first day of summer! Nice!

Labels: leeks, onions, peas, potato, summer

Finally made it down there with a camera! So this will be a more cheerful post.
First let's have an overall look at the plot, from the onion and potato beds down. This is the lushest part I guess:
Looks like I need to weed it again! Along the side, I took advantage of the spare place to put in a few lettuces and some marguerites. They look nice. If it's warm this evening I will go down and hoe, just to tidy it a little.
The artichoke is finally getting some fruit on it (well, flowers, but let's not split hairs):
You can see that the self seeded marguerites next to it have gone beserk, but by September they will all have died. sad isn't it? Behind it you can see the rhubarb, and the little wild patch, where I grow mint, lavender, lemon balm, a rose bush etc.
Between the two is the carrot patch, a row of parsnips, a row of beetroot and the Brussel sprouts! But the artichoke is blocking the view!
On Saturday, I picked my first crop of peas. They were still dewy and fresh, we ate them for lunch and they were just perfect.

They are Kelvedon Wonder, sowed in March and April. So quite a fast cropper.
The fruit beds are always sweet at this time of year. I have not had so many strawberries, but all the plants are new, so I guess I have to be patient.



The gooseberries are ripening wondefully, I protected them with netting this year.
Squash and pumpkin is the crop of the year. The courgettes and pattypan squash have taken off well:

You can see the mass of straw behind that is the melon bed. The plants are not obvious yet but some have survived. Next year I will sow direct as that seems to give the best results with squash! Another new thing learned this year.
A Parador yellow courgette - soon it will have flowers and fruit.

The 3 sisters bed is a bit of a mixed bag this year - 4 straggly corn plants! but the pumpkins seem to be enjoying themselves. Some old garden trellises behind will support the tiny Cobra beans that are just peeping through the ground. The beans are surrounding the squash this year, for easier picking.

And finally, the tomatoes. You can see that they on a very rich patch of soil this year. They are growing on a load of manure. I hope to get a really good harvest this time! I am growing salad toms and some beefsteaks up the stakes, and along the back there are some bushy cherry tomatoes, Totem or Gardener's Delight. I didn't get a good cherry tomato last year, so I have put a lot of effort into that this time!


I hope you all enjoy seeing what the plot is looking like! I think this has been my most successful year so far, and now I have to concentrate on getting things ready for the autumn and winter crops (planting leeks and beetroot and caring for kale and oriental greens that I have just sown) and caring for the current plants (putting bordeaux mixture on the tomatoes and spuds, weeding and continuing to harvest).

Labels: courgette, fruit, onions, peas, spring, squash, tomatoes

On Saturday I did something that was approaching insanity. My kid had to go to a rugby tournament and he had to be at the stadium at 6.45 am. Yes you read that right. "Sparrow's fart" as my friend Sandra would call it.I dropped him off and then instead of crawling back to bed, I went to the allotment. And spent 3 hours working, mostly unaccompanied except by birdsong and the sunrise. It was glorious. I should do it more often. I took some pics (bad ones again with the portable phone), and then set out to do the following:

• Tidy the edges, digging out dandelion and scraping earth back onto the plot.
• Weeding the peas, uncovering their netting and letting them grow in the fresh air. They are now big enough not to interest birds.
• Sowing a row of beetroot, a patch of rocket and two rows of green beans, one row of drying beans (end of a packet) and some yellow butter, or wax beans.
• Moving around some chive plants that are getting a little invasive on the paths.
• Cleaning the paths a little.
• Earthing spuds.
• Planting some lettuce plants and transplanting some marigolds here and there.
• Netting the gooseberries, a little sloppily but I WANT THAT FRUIT this year. They are full of tiny berries.

It was a wonderful morning, but tiring, and in the next couple of weeks, I need to have almost all the season's crops in the ground, namely the tomatoes, melons, courgettes, corn and squash. So I still have a large section to dig over and weed (about 4 x 2.5metres) and also uncover and dig over the 3 sisters patch which is currently covered to prevent weeds.
I took a couple of pics, not terribly clear...

This shows the rhubarb in the foreground, and the few flowers that surrounds it, and behind, the herb bed, with lemon balm, thyme on the left, mint behind that, sage to the far right, andparsley everywhere else. There are a couple of rose bushes here and there too. The artichoke can be seen in the bed opposite. The bessa concrete blocks are for the water tanks that are being installed - not on my plot next but one will go behind mine, to save water.

This one shows the plot from the far end, I am standing near the strawberries, so you can see the potatoes on the left and the onions on the right. The peas are netted here but just after I took the pic, they were un-netted and weeded. I also planted some lettuces next to them, where there was a blank space.
You can also see my shop-bought cold frame and the home-made one on the left. Still, they work...

And here, I am a couple of plots down and the plot with the orange roof tiles along the edge is mine. This year it is looking really good (well compared to some previous years!). Gives you a look at our plots (see today's other post).

Labels: lettuce, peas, potato, spring, tidying

A good work session yesterday. Weather sunny but cool, in the end I left my coat on.
In an attempt to make it all look less unruly, I have decided that small sections are easier to look after. Little beds, set out with rocks etc seem to look much tidier. So as planned, I took some old wall tiles and made a little bed next to the water barrels. First I dug out a whole load of couch grass, bloody bastard it is too. Then I mixed some manure into the soil and then laid out a little square, not so big, about 60cm square. I then planted a few pot marigolds that have self seeded all round the place, and sowed some rocket and landcress, and there is room for some hollyhocks and a few chives. that will make a pleasant decorative corner and gets rid of all the dandelions that were squatters there.
Next, looked at the peas. They are sprouting well, those sweet little green seedlings. There were however lots of gaps in the relatively large bed (about 1/2 m2) so I filled them in by hand planting more pea seeds, one by one, hopefully that will keep me in peas for a couple of weeks at least.
Still spreading shit. No, not rumours about the Sarkozys, real cow poo :-) Creating several little mounds for squash, here and there, where they can run down the edge of the plot or along the paths.
I also:

• sowed: beetroot, and spinach. Actually, the spinach packet flew out of my hand and I fear that several spinach seeds have now been spread all over the shop. Oh well, can't hurt I suppose!
• planted some lettuce seedlings in between the strawberry beds, that will help fill it up.
• planted a few spare potatoes in a corner too, just couldn't resign myself to chucking them out. The earlies are starting to show, I started earthing up one or two. Excellent, excellent.
• tried to work out where to plant the broccoli. That's a tough call, and still haven't quite decided.
• Harvest! The first rhubarb stems! Bless 'em! Butwhat to do with just 4 stems? A cake? Fruit puree? Maybe a fool...?

I love spring!

Labels: beetroot, flowers, peas, potato, rhubarb, spinach, spring

On Saturday, I finally was able to do some serious work in the garden. It was long overdue! But the brown onions are in (and the ones I had planted two weeks earlier are starting to come up) as are the early potatoes, and I also redid the strawberry beds, making a square and a small bed with 20 new strawberry plants.
The old Mara des Bois went into pots sitting all round the allotment, so we will have plenty of fruit! Around the strawberry bed, there was some spare space, so I will sow some flowers in the coldframe that can go there later in the season and for now I sowed some onion sets, which are said to be good for strawberries, and some radishes, just to fill in the space, which got some manure while I was planting the strawbs.
I also sowed the first peas, and netted them, albeit not too well, so at least they can sprout without all being eaten. I dug in a lot of sand and sowed some first carrots (Nantaise). The tarp and cardboard has been moved to the bean bed, to stop too many weeds coming up.
To my delight, the rhubarb and artichoke are coming back, even after the bitterly cold winter we had. Daffodils are coming up in various places, a sure sign of spring.
I found my showerscreen! It had blown away in the storm, my neighbour found it. SO it went back on the makeshift cold frame, until I can get my new store-bought one assembled. The higgledy coldframe is now host to lettuce, leeks, spring onions, also carnations, pot marigolds, Tarragon.
Laid out like that it sounds a lot and took up most of my Saturday! But there is still so much left to do! Still the other potatoes (and the bed is filling rapidly!) and the red onions to plant, beetroot to sow, and a lot of manure still to distribute...

Labels: onions, peas, planting, potato, sow, spring, strawberry