Summer Fayre

The allotment is teaming with fruit and vegetables. The runner beans are producing at least 80-100 beans every few days and almost seem to grow before your eyes, the peas are so sweet that when the children pick them they always seem to make their way into their mouths instead of the basket!

The courgettes are growing rapidly and seem to mature in a matter of days, and the cucumbers are so sweet and crisp. The tomatoes have at least 6-7 fruits per truss and are ripening nicely - not much sign of blight this year thank goodness.

The red and white onions have been more successful than last year, the shallots have been picked and are ready to be made into pickle. The garlic is ready to be lifted and then dried off, it hasn't produced as much as I thought it would and the cloves are relatively small, but they smell very strong and size isn't everything!

Each time I go to the allotment (every few days at this time of year) I stagger up the hill to the car with 1 or 2 crates full of home grown produce that I have picked that day, and I always get a wonderful feeling of great satisfaction that all this has come from a few packets of seed (and a bit of hard work as well of course).

Earth to Earth

Thought I would show a photo of one my kitchen composting bins. It is full of homegrown veg that I have just peeled/chopped/shelled. There are courgette ends, pea pods, cucumber ends, runner bean ends and parts of potatoes that got a bit "sunburnt".

These will all be taken back to the allotment next time I go and chucked onto the compost heap to rot down and then be put back into the earth, so it's like a continuous cycle. Now that's what I call real "recycling".

A Courgette or Two

Courgettes always seem to do well on my plot. We've had the allotment for 3 years now (doesn't seem that long) and each year the courgettes have been prolific. This year they are as good as ever and we have had 3 pickings already.

When I arrive at the plot I always take a walk around to see how things are doing and what needs to be picked at the end of my days work. It almost seems as if some of the courgettes grow about 1" from when I arrive to when I leave. I always try to pick them when they are about 8" long as any longer than that and they begin to look like marrows and are then better for stuffing with mushrooms, peppers and stilton cheese.

I have 6 plants this year and find that this is just about the right number as the more you pick the courgettes the more they seem to grow. Unfortunately the season for courgettes is rather short, and as I love to eat them so much I must find ways of extending the growing season and then we can enjoy them for even longer.

Red is the Colour

The strawberries are doing well. They seem to like their new spot and have thrived in the recent hot and sunny weather that we've had. I netted both rows about a month ago to protect the swelling fruits from inquisitive and hungry birds.

We have had 3 pickings from the plants so far with loads more strawberries waiting to fully ripen to a glorious red colour. My daughter loves to pick them and eat them straightaway - lovely and warm from the sunshine. Once you've tasted a freshly picked strawberry you don't want to go back to the tasteless supermarket variety. They are so easy to grow and the effort is well worth the result at the end. Here's a photo to get your mouth watering!

I picked approx 1lb of strawberries and added 1lb of raspberries (not my own I'm afraid) and made my favourite jam. The receipe is really easy:-

Cover the strawberries with ½lb sugar and leave for an hour or so until the juices have started to flow. Add the raspberries and boil until you have a nice thick mixture (about½ hour), test for setting and bottle in the usual way.

The Onion Family

The garlic I planted in the autumn last year was harvested this week, and although I have never grown garlic at the allotment before I am very pleased with the crop. Most of the cloves have swollen into fat bulbs which now need to be dried off for a few weeks.

The shallots have been harvested too and also need now to be dried off for a few weeks, and during that time I shall decide what to make with them. Last year I used them by making some pickle with Bramley apples that a friend gave me, but this year I want to make something different. Hopefully in the next few weeks I shall have a chance to look at some receipes.

With the garlic and shallots now gone from the plot, it was time to plant the first batch of leeks above the bed that had been vacated. I planted about 30 of them by making a very deep narrow hole with a bean stick and planting the leek plant very deeply and then watering in thoroughly. I used this method last year and we had some excellent leeks, so hopefully that will be repeated this year and we can have them right up until Christmas and maybe even beyond.

I have another batch of leeks to go in in a week or so's time so that I can have a more continuous supply of them and not an enormous glut (well that's that plan anyway).

One Potato, Two Potato

I am very pleased to say that all the potatoes "Swift", "Charlotte" and "Desiree" have all been planted at the allotment and are already showing their green leaves. The "Swift" variety which are first earlies should be ready by the end of May/beginning of June. I chose this variety just in case we get another bout of blight as we did last year, and they should be dug up and off site if we are unlucky again.

The "Charlotte" and "Desiree" varieties have been planted in a different way this year. Instead of digging deep holes and popping the potatoes in, we made a big trench, cut the potatoes in half making sure that there were "eyes" on each potato and placed them cut side down on the earth with some slug repellent and some growmore fertiliser in the trench. They were then covered up and well watered.

I have never planted potatoes in this way but my neighbour above me at the allotment (who incidentally rotivated the plot for me) helped us plant them and his potatoes always seem to do really well. We shall see what happens with this new way of planting and how successful it is.

Here is a picture of of the "Desiree" potatoes before they were planted.

The Earth Moved

The man above me at the allotment has his own rotivator and very kindly agreed to rotivate all the unplanted earth on our patch. We have been methodically digging the plot throughout the winter to try and break up the big clods of earth a bit. When most of that had been done (apart from a patch of grass on the newly acquired bit) it was ready to be rotivated.

When we took over the plot we were adamant that we would not rotivate as it would slice existing weeds into many parts and thus they would be greatly multiplied. However, as the weeds are an on-going problem and will never go away, we decided that it would be a good idea to rotivate once and get the ground broken up nicely into a more crumbly mixture instead of great heavy clods.

Before it was rotivated I spread lots of barrow-loads of compost and manure onto the surface so that it would be incorporated into the earth as it was turned.

Now the greater part of the plot has been rotivated and it looked so different that I almost didn't recognise it and walked past it! When digging my fork goes in as easily as a knife through butter to a depth of about 8-10" .

My first job after the ground was rotivated was to move the existing strawberry plants (apparantly they like to be moved every 3 years) to a different part of the plot. Within half an hour 11 plants (I used to have 8) were dug up and re-planted with not all that much effort. I noticed that one of them was already in flower with a little bump in the middle.

Regarding the weeds, it was easy to pull out the chopped up roots as the earth was falling off them. I can't wait to do more planting, as for me it's so satisfying to plant seeds, or plants that I have started off at home as seeds and then potted on, knowing that in due course they will grow and be harvested. The miracle of growth never ceases to amaze me and raise my spirits.

Now, what shall I plant next?