Autumn jewels

Autumn. It’s such a lovely time of year. You can see the leaves on trees gradually changing from the fresh vibrant green of summer to the rich earthy tones of red and gold. This is my first successful year of Autumn crops at the allotment and I’m delighted with the harvest so far.

I managed a quick harvesting trip this afternoon (I’ve got a week off work soon so I’ll do all the gardening essentials like weeding then!) and came back with another trug full of autumnal delights!

I’m really surprised to see the runner beans still producing massive pods, and there are more flowers coming.

I’ve decided to harvest a few of the Buffy ball pumpkins. Not sure if they’re quite ready yet but I don’t want to get caught out with a surprise frost so I’ve picked most of them today and left a few of the smaller ones on the vine. The picked pumpkins will store in the garage until I can research how to cure them and hopefully I’ll have mini roasted pumpkins for tea on Halloween

The apples this year are fantastic. There’s just so many on the tree I can’t pick them quick enough! I love the colour of the apples, such a lovely rich red, it’s great to be able to pick your own food just at the right time and to taste it, freshly picked is amazing. (The apples are currently being baked in a crumble as I type…the smell is awesome!)

And last but not least the tomatoes. I’d left them on the plants hoping they’d ripen but I think they’re determined to remain green. I’ve picked them all, still on the vine and I’ll make them into chutney using more of the apples and the already harvested onions to enjoy closer to Christmas.

That’s it for now, I can hear the crumble calling out my name… Here’s a quick look at the haul from today, happy harvests everyone!

Absence makes the weeds grow longer

Its been a busy time for the green wellie brigade recently. We’ve had a camping trip, a country show, a new school, a woodland themed baby shower cake, and an impending house move, all of which is leaving very little time for the allotment. Let’s start at the beginning…

The Camping Trip

This year for our annual summer holiday we decided to go camping. We hardly get the opportunity to travel very far so we chose a campsite near Stonehenge with a stop off on the way at another campsite in Northamptonshire. Now, what could possibly go wrong with a camping holiday in the UK in August? Oh yeah, the weather! It was the soggiest camping holiday ever! Putting the possibility of trench foot to one side, we did some pretty cool things:

Campfire cooking and melting marshmallows

Making friends with the ducks at breakfast

Seeing Stonehenge

Getting into the Banksy exhibition, Dismaland

Traveling on a hovercraft to the Isle of Wight

Visiting the Garlic farm

Going caving

Making friends

In typical holiday fashion it was glorious sunshine on the day we traveled home.

The Country Show

Once back, I had 2 days to get ready for our local country show. Now, when I say local country show it’s just over an hours drive away! For the last few years I’ve only entered the industrial sections (baking and handicrafts). I was tempted to enter a few veggies this year, but when it came to the crunch I lost my nerve and decided to use this year as my assessment year and I’ll try and enter some next year. I’m so thankful I did this as the standard was really high, some of the onions were HUGE! As I had quite a few things on, I narrowed my selection of entries down to 10, including 2 knitting, a jam and a curd. On the whole the baking went well, I only needed to remake one item, but the knitting had me up until 3am. It was all worth it in the end, I came away with 3 firsts, a second place and 2 third places.

First place in cupcake section

First place for handmade bread rolls

First place for hand knitted cardigan (3am knitting at its finest)

Second place for my hand knitted sheep

Third for my white loaf

Third for my strawberry jam

But wait, that’s not all, there were 2 cups up for grabs, one in the cupcake section, and one for a hand knitted sheep. Now, I’m not going to lie, I was going for the double cup win, I can’t help having a slightly competitive nature. I came second in the knitted sheep section but first in the cupcakes so I walked away with this beauty!

Bling bling

Out of all the sections I entered I was most thrilled with my third place strawberry jam. The jam section is probably one of the toughest categories with all the judges from all the sections having an input, so for my first year entering the jams I was delighted to place at all.

New school

My son went back to school last week and it’s his first year in middle school. This brings a new uniform including a blazer. He’s growing up far too fast for my liking. It all went well and I’m pleased he’s enjoyed it so far (I’m sure it’ll change once the homework starts flooding in)

First day of middle school

The cake

I’ve always enjoyed baking, and for a few years I made cakes on request for friends and family. But with the rise in price of baking ingredients it just wasn’t economical for me to continue so about a year ago I hung up my whisk and I’ve not baked cake for anyone other than my son and I. My sister was arranging her best friends baby shower on a budget, and had the goal of making the gifts rather than buying them. My sister is very creative but doesn’t bake, so with a bit of bribery persuaded me to help her out or witness a cake massacre. I can’t stand to see good cake go to waste so I put on my apron and set to work. Here’s my contribution to the handmade baby shower with a woodland theme.

Woodland cake

Side shots of the cake

The Allotment

Today was the first day I’ve been able to get to the allotment in about 3 weeks. I can’t believe how much the weeds have grown. That’ll teach me to pile so many activities into a short space of time! Thankfully I had a few helpers with me. My best pal came along with her two little diggers and we set to work unearthing the last of the Charlotte potatoes. We had quite a few onions to lift so they came up too.

My feeble attempt at carrots was revealed today.

One of the 4 carrots that grew

I’m blaming it on the heavy clay soil.

We picked beans, kale, apples and blackberries and it was fantastic to be able to share the bounty.

Sharing the crops

Trug-tastic

After laying my own onions out to dry off I checked on the garlic that’s been curing for about a month. While I was at the garlic farm on the Isle of Wight I vowed I’d plait my garlic when the time was right.

That time is now.

Garlic plait that nobody is allowed to touch…Ever.

Pumpkins

Its been about a week since I gave my mildew infested squash a liberal spraying of milky water and I’ve got to say I’m really pleased with the results so far. The spread seems to have slowed down and I’ve not noticed any new leaves showing signs of mildew either so I think the milk has done the trick.

I’m off on holiday camping on Saturday, so tomorrow, I’ll pop along to the allotment  and give the leaves another coating of the milky-wonder-spray and keep my fingers crossed the mildew fairies will keep their powdery fingers off my plants!

On the whole I’m pleased with the squash and pumpkin progress at the allotment. The little Buffy Ball squash are starting to come along nicely and are really scrambling up the bamboo trellis I made earlier in the year. I’ve even noticed more fruits forming in the last couple of weeks so I could be on for a nice crop of mini pumpkins.

Buffy ball scrambling up the trellis

Buffy ball squash

Buffy ball squash

The giant Atlantic pumpkins I’d had such high hopes for haven’t taken off as well as I’d hoped. This is probably down to me not preparing the planting area as well as I should’ve and not adding manure until after they’d been in the ground for a few weeks (rookie error, lesson learned). I have spotted a few pumpkins growing but I don’t think they’ll be needing a wheel barrow to take them home, but the seasons not over yet, they might be the surprise of the crop.

Teeny Giant pumpkins climbing up the sunflower canes

Lastly we have the Japanese winter squash, Uckiki kuri. These seem to be the Kings of the pumpkin patch. They just keep producing loads of onion shaped fruits right along the vines. They must like the temperamental British summer we’ve had as they are by far the biggest pumpkins on the plot.

Japanese squash

Japanese winter squash

What a beauty

I’ve got some more manure to mulch around the plants before I go away to help them along. Who knows, I might come back to the worlds biggest pumpkin (probably not though!)

Monster pumpkin

I’d like to say thanks to fellow blogger gunn4 for asking for a pumpkin update. They have a lovely allotment blog, it’s well worth a read.

Stealth Attack

Having an allotment has taught me many things; patience, planning, adaptability, resourcefulness and above all else to expect the unexpected. All allotmenteers will know about this. You expect a crop to fail, and against all the odds it succeeds. You dig over a forgotten corner in your plot and discover a vegetable tucked away that you never knew you had. The allotment holds many surprises. With a little bit of luck, the surprises will be happy events. However, sometimes, this isn’t always the case. Your treasured seedlings are devoured by slugs, the pigeons strip your cabbages, or the mice have a feast on your freshly sown seeds. Most things you can plan for and with a bit of resourcefulness and creative thinking you can protect your crops against most predators.

This week my squash plants have been under attack. Not by slugs, or snails, or birds or badgers, not even by bugs or any other pumpkin loving creature. This attack was more stealthy.

Meet my current nemesis….Powdery Mildew.

Powdery mildew on a squash leaf

It’s awful. My lovely pumpkin plants are covered with white patches of this fungal disease. I first noticed it last weekend and thought that it was because I’d watered them a little too well and that the water had splashed up onto the leaves and with a little bit of sunshine they’d sort themselves out. I was horrified a few days later when I saw that the white patches on the leaves had spread, making their way around the rest of the squash and pumpkin plants.

Early signs of powdery mildew

Spreading powdery mildew

Serious research was called for. I’m trying to grow everything at the allotment organically and so far I’ve not used any kind of pesticide or fungicide on any of the plants, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to control this outbreak without some heavy-duty help.

Most of the information I found on the Internet calls for the use of fungicides, but I really want to try and treat this as organically as possible. Further research suggested using a mixture of bicarbonate of soda, water and a dash of liquid soap, while other reports suggested that a mixture of milk and water works really well. Today I loaded up the milk and set off to tackle the outbreak.

I cut off the most badly affected leaves and discarded them. (Don’t put the leaves into the compost or you could transfer the spores to other plants in the future). Then I set about making the milky mildew killer cocktail; one part milk to two parts water. Once my sprayer was loaded I waded into battle. I sprayed all the leaves, front and back, even the ones not showing any sign of the mildew. I’m hoping with a few repeated applications I’ll be able to at least stop the spread of the spores to the new leaves.

After battle I thought I’d cheer myself up with a little harvesting. I managed to dig up a nice crop of Charlotte potatoes, I picked my first courgettes, an onion, some more peas and a few green beans.

Charlotte potatoes

Courgette

The first onion

The harvest

The onions are starting to topple now so in a week or so, if they’re not all over, I’ll bend the stalks to help the maturing process.

The apple trees are laden with fruit but I’m not quite sure when they’re going to be ready for picking, I’ve got a plan to make apple and blackberry jam so I’m hoping I’ll not have to wait too long.

Even though the pumpkins have been under attack, they are still producing fruit. I’ll have to make sure that they stay in tip-top condition and that any further attacks are dealt with swiftly.

I’ve checked over all of my other crops to see if the mildew has attacked any other plants and for now it seems to only be affecting the squash and pumpkins.

On the bright side my inspection brought some exciting news…the purple sprouting broccoli has started to sprout!

I’m pleased the allotment visit today wasn’t all doom and gloom. I was really worried about how much the mildew might have spread. I’ll keep you posted with the results of the milk and water treatment. If anyone else has any tips or tricks or even an alternative treatment I’ll gladly give them a try.

PS. My son spotted this little beauty today at the allotment too, aren’t dragonfly wings just amazing?

Harvest-a-rama

It’s happened. It’s official. We’re harvesting vegetables!

It’s sometimes hard to believe that only a few months ago, the vegetables on my plate for tea tonight were just little seedlings starting out in the big wide world.

Garlic ready to be lifted

About a fortnight ago I kick started the harvest by lifting the garlic bulbs. I’ve been waiting for about half the foliage on the plants to die back before lifting them from the pots they’ve been growing in since November last year. The reason I grew them in pots was because at the time they needed to be planted, I was still cultivating the plot, and I wasn’t quite sure where would be best to put them! Because I was limited by the size of the plant pots, I only planted 8 cloves; 6 Lautrec wight and 2 elephant garlic. Now, I’d had high hopes for the elephant garlic as it was by far the biggest of all the cloves planted, but unfortunately, one of the cloves didn’t really come to anything and the other clove that did grow, didn’t really get to the enormous size I’ve seen elsewhere. It looked like some additional cloves had tried to grow around the outside but thought better of it and gave up! The Lautrec Wight however has been much more successful. I’ve now hung the lifted bulbs in the garage to cure and dry naturally so that they store well over the winter, and we can use delicious home-grown garlic for the next few months.

Garlic, fresh from the ground

Drying the garlic

The purple tinged bulbs of the Lautrec Wight garlic

Each time I’ve dropped by the allotment, I’ve been taking a handful of the peas, ever mindful that if I don’t harvest the peas at the right time (when the peas are still tender) the pods will start to get a bit starchy and the lovely fresh taste of the garden pea will be lost. I was delighted yesterday to notice that the plants have started to produce more pea flowers. I had no idea that peas did that. I had thought that once you harvest the peas, that was it, but it seems I might be in store for more pea harvests over the next few weeks.

Pea jungle

The last of the Spring/early Summer crops are being harvested now. I’ve been really happy with the strawberries so far, considering that I only bought the plants this year. This leaves me wondering how they’ll fair next year. I’m hoping to clear an area at the allotment to make a dedicated strawberry patch. My goal is to have enough strawberries ready to harvest all at the same time, so that I can make my own home grown strawberry jam, without having to buy additional fruit from the shops. I don’t think I’m asking too much there!

The final few pods of broad beans have been picked this week too. Again, I’ve been happy with the yield from just a short double row of plants. The variety I grew is the Crimson flowered type and I’ve got to say I’ve not had a single black fly touch the crop. I didn’t pinch out the growing tip and they’ve still produced lovely tasting beans. The only down side (if you can really call it a down side) is that they’re a really short podded variety with only 3-4 beans per pod. They taste lovely though, the flowers look and smell amazing in the spring and the pest resistance is way beyond what I had hoped for.

The final few of my Lady Crystl potatoes were dug up this week. They’ve been a lovely early potato and have been enjoyed by everyone who’s tasted one (or two). They’ve grown to a really good size and I’ve only lost a couple to slug damage. The disease resistance has been really good too. Apart from one solitary potato that seemed to take all the potato scab the ground had to offer, the rest have been untouched.

Strawberries, potatoes and broad beans

Scabby potato

In the next few weeks I’m hoping that the courgettes will be ready to pick and that I might even get to cut a head of broccoli too! The apples are looking good on the tree and the pumpkins and squashes have been thriving from the recent rainy weather. The blackberries are also just starting to plump up ready for picking in the autumn, you know they’re destined for jam right?

Baby courgette

Broccoli head

Apples

Uchiki Kuri winter squash

Buffy Ball squash climbing the frame

Blackberries

It’s been great to see the harvests in the trug gradually get bigger as the weeks go by, although, if the pumpkins keep growing at the rate they are, I might need a trailer to get them home (Fingers crossed)

Girlinthegreenwellies

Heads up

Allotment time has been tight this last week. The weather has been down right awful recently, making what little time I’ve had to get to the allotment tricky to say the least, with hail and thunder one day, searing sunshine the next followed by drizzly rain after that. How’s a girl supposed to keep on top of the weeds?!

I had a little trip away last weekend to visit a lovely group of girls I met at University 17 years ago. It’s only the second time we’ve met up since we left, but when we get together, we all just fall back into each other’s company so comfortably, it’s like we just saw each other last week. I love friendships like that.

My University girls

After my time away, I was keen to check up on the plot before the working week started. To my delight the plot had survived without me, the slugs and snails didn’t launch a stealth attack in my absence and the birds hadn’t devoured the strawberries.

I have to say, I’m loving the way the allotment is looking at the moment. It’s great to see all the beds being used and little by little there are signs that vegetables are either ready or on their way. I’ve started to harvest my new potatoes now, even though they’ve not flowered yet. They’ve been in the ground for about 13 weeks and quite honestly I couldn’t wait any longer to get digging! The crops per plant have been just big enough I think, but I’d definitely manure next year to increase the yield.

I’ve been harvesting the Lady Chrystl variety mostly and they’re quite delicious. They take only 8-10 minutes to cook, hold their shape well, and taste fresh even after they’ve been stored for a few days. I’m keeping the harvested potatoes in a closed cardboard shoebox lined with absorbent paper in the kitchen until I’m ready to cook them. I know it’s a little unorthodox as far as potato storage goes but I don’t want to keep them in the fridge in case they absorb any moisture and disintegrate when they’re cooked and I’ve read that if they are too cold when stored the starch in the potatoes will turn to sugar which will affect their flavour. Not having a paper potato sack handy, the next best thing I could find was a cardboard shoebox and some kitchen roll and I’ve got to say it seems to be doing the trick.

I had a fleeting visit to the allotment on Tuesday, again to make sure no critters had been eating the crops but was able to spend about an hour and a half yesterday getting a little plot maintenance done. I swiftly cut the grass, as my mum deadheaded the roses. I also had to add another rung of support canes to my squash hide out. Since mulching the squash and pumpkins with manure a couple of weeks ago they’ve put on a huge amount of growth.

This is a picture of the Buffy Ball squash plants taken on the 2nd July

This was them yesterday

I can’t believe the pictures are only 15 days apart. As I was tying in the stems, I noticed my very first squash fruit. Fingers crossed it was pollinated and doesn’t drop off!

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the brassicas recently as I found a caterpillar and a whole load of eggs on one of the broccoli plants last week. After their swift removal I’ve been a little obsessive with checking all the leaves front and back to make sure I’d not missed any more. Well I think I’ve been focusing too much on the creepy crawlies because I completely missed this beauty

A cauliflower! An actual real cauliflower, and it’s growing on my allotment! Even better, there’s more of them! I spotted 3 the size of the one in the picture and 2 smaller ones. How I missed these I’ll never know. Quickly I cut some twine and gathered the leaves around the heads and tied them together. Using the outer leaves to cover the cauliflower heads will keep them a creamy white colour as sunlight can turn the curds a brownish colour.

Feeling like a proper gardener I quickly harvested some more potatoes, broad beans and some strawberries before leaving for the day.

The potatoes and broad beans I’m using today to make a summer vegetable frittata.

The strawberries have gone already…

A watched pot never boils

For the last few months I’ve been making daily trips to the allotment whenever possible. Primarily this has been to make sure that all the plants in the greenhouse have had enough water and to check all the plants out in the plots have survived the elements. It really seems like the first half of the year has flown by.

Now that most of the plants are out in their final positions (I’ve only got the find homes for the tomato plants) it feels as if I’m playing a waiting game…which vegetable is going to crop first! On each trip to the allotment I spend the first 10 minutes or so assessing the progress of all the vegetables, and in my head I recall how they looked last time I was there (usually the day before). It never seems as if any of my plants are growing!

I love checking out everyone else’s plot progress on their blogs and I’m practically addicted to Instagram and it seems like everyone else’s vegetables are light years ahead of mine, so much so, I’ve had to check the seed packets to make sure I’ve planted everything at the right time.

Drastic measures were called for. I decided that I’d not visit the allotment quite as often this week, as a kind of experiment, to see if the vegetable progress would be more noticeable. In the last 7 days I’ve only been to the allotment twice. Both just to check the plants were still alive, the weather here’s been rubbish this week so they haven’t been short of water.

Good news. On my visit today I noticed a massive difference in almost all of the vegetables.

These were the broad beans 3 weeks ago

These are the broad beans today

I didn’t think it had only been 3 weeks since the beans started appearing but I had no idea they’d grown so much. I think they’ll be ready for picking in a couple of weeks, perhaps earlier if I can’t hold myself back!

Same with the peas. I’ve been watching the foliage of the peas climb higher and higher but I’ve not been able to see any flowers at all…until today!

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Pea flowers. I can hardly hide my excitement! These are on my shorter variety, Hurst Greenshaft which are double podded and are a slightly earlier cropper than my main crop variety, Alderman. Hopefully this is a sign that peas will be following shortly and I can finally make Raymond Blanc’s pea risotto from Kew on a Plate.

I’ve also spotted my first flower on my Buffy Ball squash

I’ve been swatting up on male and female flowers on squash and pumpkins and on closer inspection, this appears to be a male flower. The female flower will have a slight bump behind it as the bump will eventually turn into the fruit or pumpkin. Feeling very proud of my plant anatomy knowledge I checked out the giant pumpkins. There’s only a flower appearing there too!

How fantastic is this? It seems to be a female flower, so I’ll have to keep a look out for some male flowers too to ensure successful pollination and those enormous pumpkins.

The tomato plants have started flowering, the onions are starting look bigger towards the base and the bean plants are twirling up their canes now too.

Tomato flowers

Red Baron onions showing their colour

It seems like the allotment’s been waiting for me to look away before unleashing it’s growing potential. If someone could just pass the message onto the strawberries, that would be ace.

Eyes down for a full house

At last, the beds are full at the allotment. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been a busy bee planting out the last of my home-grown seedlings to finally fill the vegetable plots.

Last week I gave myself the task of getting the Brassica beds finished. If I’m being totally honest, I’ve been putting this off a bit as it would mean I’d have to build some kind of netted structure to protect the crops but I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to do this. I’d had an idea about using an old garden hose to make an arched tunnel  across the bed. This plan went quickly down hill after I cut the first length of hose, secured each end into the ground across the vegetable bed then watched the hose arch promptly collapse to the ground.

Under construction

Plan B was to use bamboo canes along the outside of the vegetable beds and to attach the net to those. I’ve been saving squash bottles to use as snail and slug protectors and I’d kept the tops of the bottles to put on top of the canes to secure the netting. This plan was much more successful and after an hour or so I’d made 2 Brassica cages. In went the Calabrese, the Kale and the Purple sprouting broccoli, along with the green and red Brussel sprouts. I’ve still got a little room left in one of the beds for the cabbage. I’ve not been so successful with the summer cabbage this year, but I’ve still got my winter cabbage and my turnips to sow so I’ll probably use the space for those.

The beginning of a much more successful plan

Ready for planting

Bird Proof Brassica beds

Cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts

Calabrese, Kale and Purple sprouting broccoli

Now, building the cages was primarily to keep the birds and butterflies off the Brassicas, but I was still quite concerned about the slugs and snails. I’ve been reading about organic ways to keep these types of pests off the vegetables by using beer traps, wool pellets, crushed egg shells, sharp sand or nematodes, but the method that appealed to me the most was to sprinkle used coffee grounds around the newly planted vegetables, the main reason being that I could get a huge box full of them for free from work – it’s a no brainer really! So far I’ve been really pleased with this method, I’ve used it around all the Brassicas, the beans, sweetcorn as well as all the squash and pumpkins I planted out the week before and there’s only been a very slight nibble to one or two of the leaves, nothing more…brilliant.

The only things I had left to plant out were the leeks and the courgette plants. I’ve had to make a bit of a “space sacrifice” in order to plant out the leeks. I’ve decided not to plant parsnips this year and only plant 3 short rows of carrots so that I can fit the leeks into their allocated bed. The reason for  this is that I’ve got really heavy clay soil and I don’t think the carrots or parsnips will be particularly successful, but if they are, I’ll reduce the number of onions next year to give me more room.

3 short rows of carrots

So, on with the leeks. I’ve been intrigued about planting leeks, all because of how this is done. Puddling in. Doesn’t it sound great! Armed with the handle of my garden hoe, I started making deep holes in the ground for the mini leeks to be dropped into. Once they were all cosy in the holes I topped them up with water to allow the earth to settle around the base of the plants. Hopefully I’ve made the holes deep enough to blanch the base of the leeks, giving them a lovely white stem. I’ll earth them up later on in the year to help with this too.

Leeks ready for planting out

Leeks ready for puddling in

30 leeks, puddled

Last but not least were the courgettes. I cleared a bed for them last week, thinking I was digging up a couple of errant brambles but to my surprise this is what I found…

Surprise potato

More potatoes

I must’ve left a couple of little potatoes in the ground when I cleared the patch!

Once I removed the last of the potatoes, I planted my 6 courgette plants. I’m growing 3 types, an Italian striped variety, Defender which is a deep green variety and Atena, a yellow variety. They’re all suppose to be good croppers too so I’ll be sharing them with friends and family.

Courgettes planted

After they were planted I gave the area a good sprinkling with the coffee grounds and stood back to survey the plot.

The sunflowers are starting to flower now, mine was the first to bloom (much to my son’s disappointment) closely followed by my Mam’s and my sons in third place.

The Alliums are starting to flower in Nature Corner now which is great for attracting bees and hoverflies to the plot

 

The apple trees seem to be doing well with the new fruit starting to swell. There seems to be loads of new fruit on the trees at the moment, I’m in two minds about whether to leave them or to remove some of the fruits now to allow the remaining ones to get larger. Any thoughts on this would be fantastic.

Apples

Lots of apples forming on the tree

Last but not least the Nasturtiums have started to flower. I had planted these to attract the green-fly away from the crops but they’re too pretty to be sacrificed! Don’t they just look lovely.

 

It could happen to anyone…

We’ve all been there. That moment you realise you’ve just done the most ridiculous thing, and you’ve no idea why. It’s never happened before, you’ve taken steps in the past to avoid it ever happening in the future but some how, against all your best efforts, it’s happened.

Over the past week I’ve been making steady progress at the allotment. I’ve been re-digging and re-weeding the larger plots while waiting for the tender crops to be planted out. I also managed to plant out the cauliflowers and get some brassica collars to put around the base of each plant. I found  a net tunnel protector lurking in the shed which I managed to stretch over the whole row to protect them from the birds.

Next on the list was the onions. I’d been hardening them off for about a week and a half so they needed to be planted out, all 120 of them. I’ve got 3 varieties (2 rows of 40 for each) – Bedfordshire Champion, Red Barron and  Ailsa Craig. I hadn’t appreciated how many onions I’ve been growing and had thought I’d have room in the onion bed to plant out my leeks along with my carrots and parsnips. That’s a plan I’m going to have to revise! I’ll be lucky to get just my carrots in the space that’s left. No matter, I’m sure I’ll find space somewhere.

In the short time I’ve had at the plot this week I’ve potted up all my squash and pumpkin seedlings. I’d planted them in cell trays next to some sprouts and cabbages to save on space and pots but they’ve grown so fast they’ve started to over crowd the other seedlings. I reused the pots from the cauliflower plants to re home the squash so it was a win-win all round.

Every day, before and after work, I’ve managed to pop along to the allotment, just for 10 – 20 minutes or so to check on the plants, make sure the slugs are keeping their mitts off my cauliflowers and to check the birds haven’t pulled up any of the onions. All the plants have been watered, the new seedlings are popping up and everything that’s been planted out has survived the elements.

Climbing peas

Potatoes

Blooming broad beans

Today before work, I was a little pushed for time so I only managed to water the plants in the greenhouse. I made a mental note to swing by on my way home to give all the plants a check over and to nab a few stalks of rhubarb to make a crumble tonight. When I arrived at the allotment I opened the shed, checked on the plants in the greenhouse and assessed the crops already planted out. Nothing unusual to report, no pests or green-fly on the broad beans, the peas are making their way nicely up the twine supports, the onions are still there and are starting to perk up a bit and the potatoes are sufficiently leafy enough to warrant their first earthing up tomorrow. Feeling pretty good, I grabbed a few stalks of rhubarb, lopped their leaves off and returned the cutters to the shed. I shut up the shed, padlocked the door and headed out.

It was then that it happened.

Looking back at the shed door I realised I’d left all my keys hanging up on a peg inside. My car keys and the keys to lock up the whole allotment site. I couldn’t believe it. How could this happen? I can’t even remember hanging them up, I never hang them up, I always put them in my bag and keep my bag with me wherever I am on the plot to avoid ever leaving the keys hanging up and inadvertently locking them inside the shed. To say I was annoyed with myself was an understatement. In times of trouble there’s only one thing to do. Reinforcements were called and my Dad headed along with a hammer. I had left a window open on the greenhouse which is attached to the shed, so the first plan was to try and climb in. Cat burglary is clearly not my strong suit and after realising there was no way to get through the window, even after using the upturned burning bin to give me a bit of extra height, we finally decided to get the hammer out and jemmy one side of the padlock off.

Locking my keys in the shed is a lesson I’m not likely to forget in a hurry and before I can start to get busy earthing up the potatoes tomorrow, I’ll have to get the drill out and fix the padlock back onto the shed door.

Now I love taking pictures of all the ups and downs I encounter at the allotment, and I feel it’s important to share both the successes and failures along the way. Having said that, I am not going to share pictures of me in my work/office clothes balanced precariously on a metal bin trying to get my leg through a small greenhouse window! I will however share the picture of the apple and rhubarb crumble I made to compensate for my epic fail!

Sowing frenzy

I can’t believe its April already. It doesn’t seem 5 minutes ago since I was waiting for spring to arrive so I could get growing. This week, I’ve been unleashing my inner seed sower and I’ve been planting like mad! Spurred on by planting my peas on Monday, I thought it best to keep up the momentum and plant my next batch of seeds.

Adding drainage holes to the recycled plant pots

Thursday was the seed frenzy day. First up were the pumpkins.

When I was choosing which pumpkins to grow I was governed by 2 things, size and taste. Firstly I wanted to grow a massive pumpkin, you know, the kind of pumpkin you only hear about:

“its so big they needed a crane to lift it”

“I heard its bigger than a whale”

That’s the kind of pumpkin I want to grow! So I chose the Atlantic Giant. According to the description, it holds the world record for size, so it’s got to be worth a go. On the opposite end of scale I’m also growing miniature squash. I chose the Buffy Ball winter squash which will grow to tennis ball size and also tastes quite sweet too. I’m planning to grow them off the ground, up and over a teepee made from bamboo canes to provide an interesting focal point to the allotment (plus it’ll be a great place for me to hide out). The last of my squashes are a Japanese variety I got free with a magazine called Uchiki Kuri also known as Onion squash. The flavour is smooth and nutty which will be great roasted, perfect for the autumn and winter months.

Atlantic giant pumpkin seeds

The next lot of seeds to be sown were some of the brassicas consisting of Purple Sprouting Broccoli, regular green broccoli, another round of summer cabbage, red brussel sprouts and last but not least, kale. I’d had to take my onions and my flower seedlings to the allotment earlier in the week to make room for all the new trays of seeds. Hopefully in a few weeks, I’ll be able to move all the seedlings to the allotment and my parents can get their windowsills back!

Next batch of seeds planted

Today saw the first actual intentional harvest of the year. I’ve been forcing a section of my rhubarb plant and I promised myself I’d not look until it had been covered for about a month. Well, 3 weeks is pretty close, so I took a little peek.

Unforced and forced rhubarb plant

Lovely long sticks of rhubarb

We have rhubarb! I couldn’t resist taking a stick.

Ta-da

It’s much taller than I thought it would be considering the bucket covering the section is orange and the black plastic bag that I’ve wrapped the bucket in is quite thin, but who cares? It’s fantastic!

The other part of the rhubarb is growing nicely with the stems looking big and chunky, perfect for making crumble. Hopefully it’ll not be long before I can get some more sticks picked off.

Unforced section of the rhubarb growing sturdy stems

The rest of the plants at the allotment are doing well. The barriers I put around the broad beans to stop creatures nibbling the leaves seem to have done the trick with no more chunks being taken. The ground where I planted the peas seems un-disturbed, fingers crossed I’ve fooled the birds and mice.

Nature corner has really stared to come into bloom over the last week. The little blue grape hyacinths are growing well and the tulips and more daffodils are starting to come through. Birds have started to take some of the fillings from the bug hut to use to make their nests, their favourite seems to be the wool fleece. I’m imagining them all snuggled up cozy somewhere.

Nature corner

I’m over the moon with my little harvest today. I also picked some herbs (sage, thyme and oregano) and a bunch of daffodils to take home. I gave the flowers to my mam as she loves spring flowers.

Spring in a jug

Finally, I know you’re wondering about the the fate of the single stick of rhubarb. There’s only one thing you can do with a single stick of rhubarb.

Dipped in sugar

Going in for the kill

Perfection