Family Gardening

Having spent quite some time now sorting out my allotment plot, I finally had the opportunity of tasting one of my own-grown vegetables. I was thinning some radishes, and popped one in my mouth! It had little taste but I put that down to it only being the size of a bean!

It’s all going quite well though - on the plot my sweetcorn have sprouted, as have my peas, broad beans, pak choi (although all have been viciously attacked by flea beetle), courgettes, beetroot, onions, garlic, potatoes, rainbow chard, butter beans, runner beans, cannellini beans, borlotti beans and french beans.

All the currant bushes on the fruit plot are draped in flowers and look to have a pretty decent harvest too. I need to start thinking about netting/bird control though. I cant afford to put up a fruit cage, so I’ll have to think of other ingenious ways of deterring birds from my fruit bushes.

I have also discovered several rhubarb plants on my plot that I didnt know were there! Bonus. I’ve picked some and stewed it. Delicious!

All of my seeds propogated at home have germinated, with the exception of the Stevia (herb) and Sweet Cicely (herb). I’m disappointed becuase I was really keen to try these out. I have potted all the tomatoes and peppers on, and the cucumbers. I’ve also bought some red cabbage plug plants, and, some aubergine plug plants in order to obtain a faster crop.

Bindweed has been devilishly vigorous on the plot. I can see just how extensive the problem is now that we have had warmer weather. I went after the first few days of warm sunshine, and ended up spending nearly two hours untangling it all from around my onions, courgettes and sweetcorn. It is truly horrid stuff. I’m hoping to get a good handle on it this winter though, with a good, thorough dig over. In the meantime, my fabulous, inherited hoe is being put to VERY good use.

Well, last Sunday I decided I really need to brave the weather and go and do some allotmenting. The previous two weekends had brought snow, and the forecasts for Sunday were for rain showers and hail. However, it turns out that the weathermen got it wrong.

I trundled over to the plot and decided to start on the veg plot. The fruit plot - as long as the weeds and brambles are kept down and we get some netting in place - will give a decent crop of fruit without us having to do much at all so it can be left for the time being.

I moved the huge pile of debris from the previous effort’s weeding. I’ve put it in the corner where we have decided the compost heap will be. At some point we will incinerate most of it.

After clearing the debris, I started marking out the pathways I have planned between each bed. I then marked out (with pegs and string) the first two beds. I even managed to dig over one of the beds and remove most of the weeds!

The bindweed is horrendous. It’s roots are like looking at a map of the London Underground when you get the fork in the soil. However, the soil is quite good - not too compacted and quite a light clay mixture so its easier to dig over. Rain stopped play though, and after a good 3 hours work, I made my way home.

I came back to it again on Tuesday after work. The children had fallen asleep in the car, so I took the opportunity to park up, right next to my plot and get stuck in. I managed to dig over a third of the second marked out bed, which is also riddled with bindweed, and laid down some weed suppressing membrane on the sections marked out as pathways. I uncovered the weed suppressant covering the onions, garlic and potatoes that I’d planted up and used it on the pathways too. Most of the garlic has sprouted! the onions too. No sign of the potatoes yet though……….

The children woke up, and that signalled time to go home. Before leaving I met one of my plot neighbours! They occupy three plots opposite mine. They are very well tended and in excellent condition. I look forward to absorbing some of their wealth of knowledge and tips on allotmenting in the future.

I came back again on Wednesday. The children were awake this time, and, despite being a handful I managed to dig over the rest of the second bed! I also put up a 3 metre long cloche/poly tunnel on the second bed and hope that it will heat the soil up read to take some sweetcorn seeds on Sunday!

So, in a week I have 2 usable beds, and am ready to start sowing some seeds - it’s going well so far! Just 7 more beds to mark out and dig over……….BUT it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.

I’ve also been busy sowing seeds at home in propagators. I have 4 propagators. Three half sized modular trays, and one specially designed windowsill propagator. It is long and slim, and filled with Jiffy 7’s. I’ve sown my various varieties of Tomato seeds in there - Gartenperle, Tigerella, Cuore De Bleu (an oxheart), Millefleur, Alicante, Super Roma, Harlequin, and Sakura. They have all germinated and are doing well so far.  I have also sown Pepper - Big Banana and Pepper Salad Festival. Big Banana has also germinated….no sign of Salad Festival yet.

The other trays contain herbs - Lovage, Curly Leaved Parsley, Flat Leaved Parsley, Coriander, Basil, Common Thyme, Lemon Grass, Sweet Cicely, Summer Savoury, Oregano, Mint, Russian Tarragon and Stevia. All but the Sweet Cicely and Stevia have germinated so far.

I also have Cucumber - Burpless Tasty, Broccoli Claret, Celery Full White, Asparagus Connovers Colossal - the Asparagus hasn’t germinated either.

In the last tray I have Aubergine, Chillis - Anaheim, Heatwave and Jalapeno varieties. None of these have germinated yet.

Outside in the 5 tier propogator I have 6 Yacon tubers (thank you Gardeners’ World for that tip!), Strawberries - Cambridge Favourite x 10, and Judibell x 5. I have also planted some beans - Butter Bean, Dwarf French Bean Rocenforte, Runner Bean Best Of All, Cannellini Beans, Borlotti Beans.

So, that’s it for now. I’m hoping to go back on Sunday to sow some seeds under the cloche. Maybe more digging if we’ve had no rain. I’m so excited!  

Well, the weather held out for us today, and after lunch we trundled back to our plots. Despite some weather reports indicating an earlier start to the stormy weather and high winds, we had plenty of sunshine interspersed with small patches of rain and only mild gusts of wind.

 We split our attentions again today. I remained on the rectangular plot and my husband continued to use the brush cutter on the fruit plot. I started doing some digging over, and removing what turned out to be a whole network of bindweed roots. This plot is not going to be as easy as I first thought! However, it’d be boring I suppose if it was easy.

After digging the width of the plot (measured today as 7.2 metres - the length is 14 metres), I started back along, discovering a tiny frog along the way. He was bright red, and very fascinating to my daughter who wanted to hold him. I gently moved him to a sheltered place further up the plot. I’d like him to stay because I’m hoping he’ll feed on any errant slugs!

My husband convinced me that there was little point continuing with the digging and that we’ll do what we can with the cultivator next weekend. However, he did dig over a corner section of approximately 3.5 metres by 2 metres so that I could plant some of my sets and seed potatoes. We laid down some weed suppressing membrane and weighted it down with bricks (for the predicted wind). I managed two 3.5 metre rows of brown onions, and two 3.5 metre rows of red onions. I also did a row of garlic, and, I planted my seed potatoes (12 potato seeds in all - Jersey Royals also known as International Kidney).

On the fruit plot I helped trim down more of the bramble that has been slowly strangulating the currant and gooseberry bushes. My arms are now cut to ribbons, so my tip of the day would be to wear long-armed gloves when cutting back brambles!

There is still lots to do. We need to pull all the waste stuff into the centre of one of the plots and burn it to dispose of it, but today, because of the threat of high winds and having to be mindful of the neighbouring houses and flats we decided against it.

Onwards and upwards though! We’ll get the cultivator this coming Friday and see how much we get done with that. This should give my husband and I plenty of time to recover from our aching backs and muscles!