Arms full of goodness and a tiding up a bit

As the title suggests this weekend we harvested literally an armful of  veggies. I loved my mothers reaction when she opened the door and there I was trug in hand and piled up to my chin with veggies. She was so surprised and proud of us, it was amassing. 

We also tackled the big task of moving the compost. Now we have the second plot and the lovely compost bins that Bill built we thought it was time to move the contents of the old compost bin down. The top corner of the plot around the compost has always been used as a dumping ground but now we are clearing it out so we can have a nice place to sit and look at our work. Above is a picture of the area before and below is a picture of after. 

It looks much better now. We took the metal box down to the other plot for now but will be getting rid of it. One day in the not to distant future we hope to have a nice little area where we can sit after the hard work is done and survey our a veggie kingdom.

Generally its all going quite well. The salad may be bolting, the beans may have bugs, the carrots have been decimated, but there is lots of wonderful thing happening too. We have harvested cauliflower (something Bill hadn't managed to do till this year), we have tons of onions looking big and strong, the apple tree has so many apples we are going to have to take some off. The beetroot are lovely, the beans are plentiful, even the troubled yellow one are swelling nicely.

And then there is the tomatoes, after last year mediocre harvest following the decimation by slug I have a bit of a thing for the tomatoes. It may be the smell of the tomato plants or it may be the fruit in huge numbers swelling beautifully on the trusses, but I love them. 

And then there is the runner beans, so many beans, and they taste so good. It feels so good to be growing my own food, to sit at the table and count up how much of it is grown by me. To be able to share my veg with others be it family or friends, it feels so wonderful. 

The harvest begins

Its been a while since my last update, and lots has changed on the allotment. Its all in full swing now. the runners are running up their polls, the tomatoes are in and strong, and the brassica are huge. And more.

We are also able to harvest some produce. This was a perceptually good harvest from two weeks ago. featuring new potatoes, beetroot, cabbage, salad leaves, and kohlrabi. This week we brought home the first runner beans and perfect little cauliflower. 

Kohlrabi as you can see above is a crazy looking veg, sputnik of the veg patch is one description i have heard for it and its quite apt, it really does look like something from outer space. Taste wise its hard to describe, a bit swede, a bit broccoli stems, almost radish, but I like it. The same cant be said for the rest of my family, so we wont be growing too much of it. 

 Continuing my food exploration on from kohlrabi and onion humus, I have been eating flowers. The addition of marigold petals and borage flowers to salads makes it a little more colorful and interesting. I am looking forward to trying more new things, its a shame really that our attempts to grow broccoletto.

 We planted a total of 32 tomato plants since my last update. 9 outdoor girl (good at growing outdoors, producing standard red tomatoes), 9 current gold rush (tiny yellow fruit), 8 pineapple (stripy orange beefsteaks), and 6 money maker (the classic tried and tested red tomato loved by growers)

A few weeks later on they are now big and healthy and starting to form fruit. I can't wait to try the different types, how will the outdoor girl compare to the money maker? How small and sweet will the gold rush be. How big will the pineapple be. 

Ans speaking of bit, we have gigantimo in the potting shed, will any luck and lots of care they should grow some huge fruit.

On the new plot we (well Bill) has built some compost bin at the bottom. Not much else has been done as its quite dry and the first plot has been demanding a lot of time, so much weeding. 

On a side note, we are also started having a cooked breakfast together with the rest of the family before we head out. This has proven to be an amassing idea and I cant wait to include some of our home grown produce in these meals. 

A Sunny Day in May

As the title suggests today was a very sunny May day. A little too hot for my liking but I am sure that the plants will be loving all the sun now they have had a good water. 

Lets start with the amassing work Bill has managed to do on the new plot. I was really shocked when I got down to the plot to see it so cleared. His new job lets him have a little more time in the evenings and he has been putting it to very good use. Most of the plot has had its brambles and grass removed. 

 Very impressed.

Overall the allotment is looking really good, I am so proud of how well its going. It still impresses me how much it has changed in the time we have had it. In just over a year we have turned a scruffy patch of grass into a productive veg plot. 

The salad bed is filling up with lots yummy things. We have headed lettuce, leeks, loose leaf lettuce, beetroot, shallots, and spinach. And as you can see they are all coming along nicely. 

The brassica bed is also looking wonderful. We have sprouts that went in today with cabbages, cauliflower, broccalli and some kohl rabi.

The big ones in the middle are cabbage and they look wonderful. And below is the freshly planted sprouts. 

And this is one of the kohl rabi, they look so strange and kool, I cant wait to see what they taste like. 

Can you guess what this is?:

Now lets talk fruit, we have rhubarb and strawberries already in, and today we added blackcurrants and gooseberries. 

We had space left that will next year be filed with more fruit plants but this year we filled it with onions. Don't want space going to waste, plus crops in the ground will always be better than bare earth.

 We planted out the broccoletto, so as they are a rather fast crop we will get to try them soon. Another something new to try, which is one of the big things I love about having an allotment. 

The above is the view from under the bean poles, one of my favourite places atm. We planted some marigolds under them today. Back in the potting shed we also planted some more yellow beans because the ones we planted out are looking quite unwell, see the ones closest to us. 

We also planted some more salad leaves and beetroot, potted on the okra and cucamelons, and back at mine I planted out some borage.

What do you think?

Another over due update

I so need to get better at writing updates. We have been super busy. 

Last time I updated the plot looked like this:

and now it looks like this:

So as you can see we have got a lot done. We now have plants in the ground growing. But more important than that, is before the plants went in we rotavated all the beds. We always said that before we got seriously planting that we wanted the ground fully prepared and so hiring a some heavy machinery made it so much faster, and this means that this year we will be getting a good haul of crops. 

Here is some pics of our rotivating day. 

 Billy rotivating

One of the beds before 

And the same bed after, see how much better it is :D 

And here is the whole plot once we finished. 

And then came the hilarity of getting a rather large rotivator into a fiesta and then out again at the other end. 

Bill was rather chuffed with this.

We also, as mentioned before, planted lots of seeds in the potting shed. Some of the seedlings have been planed out onto the plot and more is waiting for slightly warmer weather. But if we are talking about plants check some of these out:

 Broccoli? I think

 A radish, all ready to go to the kitchen.

Check out the root system on these beans. 

But there is more! We now have another plot! 

As you can see Billy is very excited. 

We plan to treat this plot much like we did the first, in that this first year we are going to focus on preparing the ground and not really planting much. That said we have set our selves some planting targets. We want to plant some potatoes in September for a harvest of xmas new potatoes. We also want to plant some broad beans in early November. 

Both of these give us a target of when we want the first beds dig, but also the crops should help break up the soil ready for next year when we will be planting on that plot in earnest. 

The other thing I have been doing is planing, lots of planning. I now have a set of spread sheets, one for each bed. We have been using them to know when to sow stuff. I am also converting it into a month by month calendar to keep us on track. 

But that is enough of an update, I will try my best to not leave it so long next time. 

Here is a few more pictures of what we have done in no particular order:

Runner Beans - My Guide

Variant being grown is called Moonlight.

Time to start:            Early spring under cover
Starting needs:         Individual 3-4 inch pots, or in seed tray
Seed depth:              1", 2.5 cm
Germination temp:
Germination time:    7-14 days
Potting on:                Not needed for pots, as required if in trays
Planting out:             Harden off after risk of frost has passed
Position:                   Sunny or light shade
Soil + prep:              Incorporate plenty of organic matter before planting,
Spacing:                   18 by 8-9 inch
Watering:                 Water well while flowers are setting
Feed:                        Occasionally liquid feed during cropping
Temperatures:
Frost Tolerance:       No
Weeks to harvest:    12-14 weeks
Ready when:            Up to 10 inch long before beans start to swell

Additional care:

• Plants will need canes to grow up
• Young plants will need protection from pests
• Remove growing tip when plant reaches top of cane

Grower's notes:

• Keep picking to encourage more flowers and and fruit. 
• Can plant out directly in late spring, once temperature is above 10C
• Dig in roots and stems at end of season

Liked variants:

• Moonlight was given a RHS award of merit, still not tested on our plot

Trivia:

Tomatoes - My Guide

All varieties chosen are indeterminate
Cherry - Current gold rush
Standard - Moneymaker
Beefsteak - Pineapple

Time to start            Early to mid spring

Starting needs: None special
Seed depth: 1/16", 1-2 mm

Germination temp: 18-24C

Germination time: 6-14 days

Potting on: Once big enough to handle transplant to 3" pots
Planting out: When 8" tall

Position: Sunny

Soil + prep: Well fertilised
Spacing: 18-24"

Watering: Keep well watered

Feed:                   Regularly with tomato feed

Temperatures: Warm

Frost Tolerance: No

Weeks to harvest: 3 - 20 weeks

Ready when: Refer to variant for size and appearance of ripe fruit

Additional care:

• Remove growing tip once 4-5 fruit bearing trusses have formed
• Remove suckers where necessary to maintain air flow around plant to prevent disease 
• Indeterminate varieties require support

Grower's notes:

Liked variants:

None tested yet

Unsuccessful Variants:
None tested yet

Trivia:

A long over due up date

So its still winter, but even so we have had a couple of warm, dry enough weekends to finish the digging. We have some really cold days as the pictures show. 

Along with the digging we also got the green house and the grow house built.

Although the grow house got moved into the potting shed to give our seedlings a little more protection from the frosts that soon followed. And the green house got destroyed by storm Doris (the same name as my cat that lives with my mum). 

Speaking of seedlings we have sown 2 batches. The first batch is shown in the pictures here but the second batch didn't get photographed. 

The first batch consisted of:

Cabbage - golden acre

Flower sprouts 

Broccoli - summer purple sprouting

Leeks - all season mix

Shallots - zebrune

Radish - rainbow mix

Lettuce - gourmet loose leaf mix

The second batch consisted of:

Tomato - pineapple

Tomato - moneymaker

Tomato - current gold rush

Basil - purple ruffle

Beans - runner

Beans - marvel of venice

Cabbage - greyhound

Spinach - red kitten

Beetroot - rainbow mix

Borage 

We also planted some sweet peas, and Bill planted some other stuff too. 

Its an exciting time, seeds sprouting, got to build a fruit cage, and soon it will be spring, and that is going to be wonderful.