Mmm, taters

Wahey! Potatoes! I still get over-excited digging up spuds, especially when you can hold up the plant in a celebratory manner and say "Look! Look what we've got! For practically free!!!" So after four, or was it five, plants, we'd got a good half-bucket-full of tasty new potatoes.

We also had a big handful of broad beans and mange tout, as well as the first artichoke bulb (bulb? head?) which I haven't quite worked out what to do with yet. I'm hoping to sow some more mange tout next weekend, to see if we can get a late crop from them. They've been a bit neglected this year, but these ones tasted so good, even if they were a bit old and crinkled, that I want more! We're also keeping an eye on the blackberry bushes too, as I have plans for jam, puddings, cordials and various blackberry-infused alcohol concoctions.

Loads of bees are bee-ing (!) attracted to the purple alliums, which were dancing about in the wind like cheerleaders shaking purple pom-poms. The bees clinging on for dear life. Although if they do get shaken off, hopefully they'll head over to the squash and courgette...

Lots of stuff

We've been shopping. Yesterday we went to the allotment shop to buy our seed potatoes. We've ended up with 'Arran Pilot' first earlies, 'Wilja' second earlies and 'Cara' maincrop. I'd post some pictures, but I think you can all just imagine what a string bag of potatoes look like...

We also got a bag of 'Green Windsor' broad beans, ready to sow when the weather warms up a little bit. And we got some 'Centurion' onions and 'Yellow Moon' shallots. We've already planted some red and some white onions on the plot, but we use onions in everything so a few more won't go to waste!



We had some garden centre vouchers from Christmas so today we decided to use them to buy our seeds, rather than send off a big long list and pay postage. And - extra bonus - the garden centre had 25% off all seeds! Excellent! We had a list of things we'd chosen from a catalogue, but there weren't as many varieties available on the shelves so we didn't always get the exact variety we wanted. But then, a beetroot's a beetroot, when it comes down to it. As long as it grows and can be eaten, I'll be happy.


Ready for a list? We've bought...

• 'Cobra' climbing french bean
• 'Firetongue' borlotti beans
• 'Oasis' and 'Twinkle' peas
  
• 'Cobnut' butternut squash
• A mixed selection of winter squash
• 'Marmande' beef tomato
• 'Alicante' regular tomato
• 'Golden Sunrise' yellow tomato
• 'Marketmore' cucumber
  
• 'Sundance' sweetcorn
• 'Bosworth' brussels sprouts
• 'Autumn Giant 2' leeks
• Perpetual spinach / leaf beet
• 'Kilaton' autumn cabbage
  
• 'Ruby Ball' red cabbage
• 'Neapolitan' basil
• Mixed leaf salad
• Rocket (great on pizza!)
  
• Swiss chard 'Bright Lights'
• 'Parador' yellow courgette
• 'Defender' green courgette
• 'Globe 2' beetroot
• 'Purple Haze' carrots (purple!)
• 'New Red Intermediate' carrots

And left over from last year we have:

• 'Scarlet Emperor' runner beans
• 'Panache' parsnip
• 'April' spring cabbage
• 'Rainbow' mixed radish
• Dwarf green curly kale
• 'Marian' swede
• Acorn mixed summer squash
• 'Tasty Trio' beetroot
• 'Emilia' spinach
• 'Rainbow' mixed carrots
• 'Golden Ball' turnip

Plus (plus!) Suttons were offering a free pack of certain seeds when you bought two other packs... so we've also got three (three!) packs of 'Purple Dragon' carrots, two (two!) packs of 'Hilton' Chinese cabbage and a pack of poppy seeds, called lilac pompom.

Can't blame a girl for sneaking in some flowers...

They're taking over!!!

We popped to the allotment during this week to pick a 'few' veg, and ended up with a whole carrier bag full of courgettes. It's obviously that time of year when the courgettes decide to go mad. We've had stuffed courgette, barbequed courgette, fried courgette, a mousakka with courgette in, the funkily-named 'courgetti spaghetti', and now I've made a whole load of courgette chutney. And still, when we went to the plot today we came back with another bag of courgettes... and that's not counting the ones still in the fridge.

We also picked the first scallopini squash, which we simply chopped into eighths, skin on, and baked with olive oil, salt and pepper. Delicious, light, slightly buttery taste. Yum! Everyone should try it.

Today we had a big weed and tidy up session as we're due to be going on holiday next week for a fortnight. Good ol' parents have agreed to keep an eye on things, though we're not expecting them to start weeding and digging, just the odd splosh of water here and there (if it ever stays sunny for more than a day) and the chance to pick whatever's available to take home. My poor mum is going to be overrun with courgettes...

Do courgettes freeze? I doubt it. Drat.

Part of the general tidy up involved digging up all the remaining potatoes and onions, plus picking a couple more squash, a couple of cucumber, some runner beans and the aforementioned carrier bag full of courgettes. The potatoes were our maincrop, Picasso, and were a decent size - we even got a couple of jacket potato-sized spuds which is great. As for the onions, well, we had some titchy ones as well as some absolute monsters. Strange, seeing as how they were all planted the same time, in the same bed, with the same conditions. I was really pleased with the onions, cos' as well being pretty much hassle-free, I thought quite a few would have gone mouldy in the ground, what with all the recent rain, but only 5 had to go straight in the compost heap. Here's the onions drying in the sun...

I think I'm going to have to dedicate some time to preserving and pickling (or something) this week, or our families may end up with a big bagful of courgettes on their doorstep before we go on holiday. I enjoy sharing the fruits (and veg) of our labour, but I admit I'd prefer to be able to store it for future use, especially as I'm not sure we've planned far enough in advance for the winter.


Here's our haul - and yes, we did have to use the handy fold-up wheelbarrow to get it home - that's a half sack of potatoes and a nearly full sack of onions in there! No way I'm carrying one of them home with my delicate girly arms!

Oh, you may also spot a little purple kohl rabi on the side. this time it's gonna get boiled and maybe mashed. Barbequeing one last month was not really a success.

And as far as 'not successes' go, the asparagus peas are right at the top of my list for Things We Will Never Grow Again. We tried them, little wiggly pods that they are and, frankly, they ming.

Spring greens and a tiny invasion

Finally, I've got around to updating what we did last week...

Here (as promised) is a pic of some of our tomato seedlings as they were last week. They've grown a lot more already! I'm amazed that so many have germinated, so it looks like there'll be a lot of thinning to do. (Is it just me, or does the one in the middle looks like it's going 'taa- daa!' ?)

At the allotment last Sunday Adam finished digging the far end of the plot - the section that's been covered over for the past year. Apparently he still hates bindweed... There were so many roots in the soil it was impossible to get it all. I think we're going to have a problem for a few years to come!

I sowed some more spinach for some greens in the summer. We also sowed a double row of mange tout and a double row of sugar snap peas. I'll need to get some twiggy sticks to protect and support them and keep the birds off.

The radishes are coming on nicely. Speaking of which, Phil came over to show us his first 'crop' - a small but perfectly formed radish. Can't wait 'till ours are ready.

We've decided to make one of the cabbage beds into a salad bed. It's already got the radish growing in one corner, and the lettuce along one side, so as we pick the cabbages from now on we'll sow beetroot, more lettuce and radish, and maybe some basil and salad leaves and see how things go.

No sign of the carrots or parsnip germinating. How long do you give things before you give up and sow some more???

We picked a couple of cabbages for dinner - and on one of the smaller ones I discovered an aphid invasion...

Aaah! Gerroff!!!



I also cleaned out my shed and had a bit of a sort out. I used a couple of bits of carpet and some water containers to make a bench seat at the back of the shed. So now visitors have somewhere to sit and we can hide from the rain in comfort!

I hope to get lots done this week - I've got a week off work and a friend coming to stay who's really keen to help out. And that's great because I was looking at the packets of seed last weekend and we have LOADS to do! All of a sudden it's 'all systems go'! It only seems like a few weeks ago it was the middle of winter and I was longing for spring - and now it's here I wish I had a bit more time for planning things!

Someone has also started working on the plot behind ours - one which had a massive blackberry bush on. Somehow they managed to clear it in one day! That's what I call hard work! It's nice to have more people around us - last year we felt we were slightly on the edge of the 'good' plots, but now we have neighbours all around which is great for sharing tips and seeds. Plus, the more plots that are cultivated the fewer weeds go to seed and blow onto our nicely tilled earth.

Here's a bit of an update...


The front left bed has cabbage, lettuce, a few radish on the far left and some spinach just sowed (This'll be the salad bed). Behind that is the carrots and parsnip (supposedly, no sign yet), then there's the broad beans with 2 artichoke plants on the left. Past that is the onion-y bed (onions, garlic and shallots), and then in front of the compost heap there's the seed bed with kohl rabi, leeks and brussels sprouts which will germinate any time soon, I'm sure...

Then, front right - well, there's nothing in the first bed yet (!), then there's some peas sown under netting, with more cabbages behind. The next one has the first rows of mange tout and sugar snap peas, then there are 2 beds of potatoes (picasso, then home guard), and that's as far as we've got!

Spring has sprung! ...or not

Well, we managed to get to the plot on Sunday, despite being greeted by this chilly view first thing in the morning. Not really the type of weather you want to be sowing peas in, eh? Brr.

There's us, thinking it'd be warm and spring-like, and so nice you feel like you can almost hear things growing if only you listened hard enough, then Bam! You wake up and your plans are scuppered by the weather.


But by lunchtime the snow had melted and the sun had come out, all the better for allotmenteering. Adam jumped in feet first - literally - to give the compost heap a much-needed turning. We took our compost bin from home to empty in as it was getting pretty full, and at this time of year it gives our allotment compost heap some much needed greenery and kitchen waste. Since we moved the compost heap we haven't seen the little mouse - or possibly vole - which was living in the heap beforehand. I know they can be a bit of a nuisance, but I hope it found another warm home!

So, Adam got on with some digging up the far end of the plot, while I pottered about for a while, getting excited about the Things Which Have Started To Grow...

Damson blossom! It looks really good this spring, there's lots of blossom, so hopefully we'll get pounds and pounds of damsons - and make gallons of damson gin. Yes, Mum, you can have some.


Home Guard early potatoes! Yeay! These little shoots are possibly the speediest things to burrow through the soil EVER... I got very excited about these.


Rows of broad beans! After surviving the snow these little fellas are coming on great guns. The final three rows - on the right - are just breaking through the soil.


Rhubarb! We picked some more to make another crumble. Unfortunately, this one made our teeth go funny, so it hasn't been a complete rhubarb renaissance.

Lots of little radish seedlings have also germinated. I was going to take a picture, but they're really not very exciting. The epitome of a seedling, really. Just imagine the number 8 on its side, colour it in green, and that's about it.

After I had hoed (stupid word) around the garlic, onions and shallots, I spent the best part of an hour sitting in the sun, talking to an old friend on my mobile, Adam had almost finished his digging. Whoops! I was slacking off a bit there!!! But I did offer my love and support while he was wielding a spade in a manly fashion (and I did make rhubarb crumble afterwards to make up for my lack of effort!)


And later I planted tomato seeds back home, in 40 (count them!) toilet rolls. (That's a lot of bottom wiping!) So these are sitting in a tray on the window sill, with 2 or 3 seeds in each one, and we'll see how many germinate. Hopefully we'll be able to emulate Frank, our Italian allotment buddy, who grows fields and fields of tomato plants so his wife can make real Italian pasta sauce. Must get the recipe.

Visitors!

Today we had some visitors to the plot. After a lovely lunch at Mum and Dad's with my cousin Chris, my sister Jen and her fella, Elliott, they all came to see how much work we'd done. Adam had been working like a trooper, doing some more digging while I went off to lunch (lasagne, if you're interested).

They were very impressed, of course. We had a trip to look at the communal well (oooh!) and had a peer inside which revealed a high water level and and a floating dead rat... nice. Then Dad poked at a strange metal thing we'd found on the allotment last year, while I kept my distance as, frankly, it looks a bit like a bomb. (If anyone can zoom in on that thing my dad's holding and knows what it is, please let me know. It's got a kind of valve on the top... ta).

Then dad showed us how to force the rhubarb. We'd been dithering, trying to find a big black bucket, but apparently an old flowerpot stuffed with dry long grass from the plot next door will do just as well. The canes are to stop it all blowing away. If this rhubarb is actually nice, I'll eat my hat. And the rhubarb, obviously.

And please note the fancy iron bedstead headboard thing in the background. Found in the bushes, and now being used as a bit of fence. Ah, the random uses for things found at allotments. Next time you're on a train, look out for allotments as you whizz past. They're often near train lines, and look a bit ramshackle from a distance but I find them fasinating - always have. On the commute to work I go past one on the outskirts of Leagrave, and usually end up peering out of the window, nose pressed to the glass like a madwoman, trying to see what people are growing.

The weather actually wasn't as grey as it looks in the photo at the top, and the sunset was gorgeous. (I wonder if the electricity people would consider taking the pylons down - they're ruining my sunset views....)

Oh, by the way, Louise, the site secretary went round yesterday Sorting Things Out, so we are officially on plot number 145A. (Yes, 'tis true, we didn't even know our plot number until ten months down the line.) Now I can make a number to go on the shed(s), and then the plan is to paint them in beautiful colours. Sky blue with daisies? Mr Men themed? Only time will tell....











Back home, and ooh, excitement! Our potatoes are chitting! Or is it called sprouting? Last week I'd laid out the Home Guard earlies to chit, and left them in a corner of the room, in light, but not direct sunlight, as the books said to do. Then when I went to put the tray of Picasso maincrop taters next to them, discovered that the Home Guards have little sprouts! This isn't the most exciting picture in the world, I appreciate, but - look! Little sprouty bits! Usually the only time I see potatoes do anything is when they've been left in the cupboard for too long in the dark and are trying to come out and play. These shoots/sprouts/chits look like they'll be big and strong and give us lots of tasty tubers.

I will now take a moment to wonder at the marvels of nature....
The potatoes are Growing. By. Themselves.

Rainy Saturday - but bargains galore!

It rained a lot on Saturday, so we decided to go to the Allotment Society shop which is based at some allotments to the other side of Bedford. We ended up with seed potatoes - Home Guard which is an early cropper, and Picasso, which is a main crop and should get nice and big, big enough to use as baking potatoes, anyway. I'm looking forward to our first home-grown jacket potatoes, crispy skins with lots of butter.

We also got Centurion onions, which are the little yellowish ones on the right - each little bulb should just get bigger and bigger - and also shallots. Can't remember the name exactly, it's Red something... The shallots'll create clumps of up to 10 or 12 bulbs, which got me thinking - why do shallots do that when onions don't? How do they know? It's like garlic bulbs which also create a whole bulb from a single clove. Ain't nature clever!

Oh, and we also got some sugar snap peas, in the bag on top there, which we're going to try this year as well as mange tout, which were really tasty last summer. That whole bag was 50p! In fact, everything in the picture came to a grand total of £7.50! Bargain! Just think how many packs of mange tout you could buy from any well-known supermarket for that amount... about 4, if you're lucky.

We also wandered down to the plot to have a quick check up on stuff. Waaaay too wet to do anything really, but I got to wear my wellies and splash in some puddles (big kid). These bricks in the pic are just outside my shed - we uncovered them when we were tidying up last spring... need a bit of weeding now, but nice eh?

Adam also fixed a bit of fence next to the compost heap that had come loose in the wind, using his double-edged billhook. Here he is, whittling away and looking very pleased with himself. A very handy item, that billhook, especially if you're wanting to make things pointy and stick 'em in the ground, or hack at brambles which are trying to take over the world. (Grrr. It's lucky that blackberries are so tasty, 'cos the goddamn plants haven't got anything else going for them.)

Using the billhook is good fun, too - makes you feel like Ray Mears. I think Adam was Mearing very well in this instance.

After a bit of pottering, I mainly sat in the door of my shed, out of the wind and rain, hoping for a rain-free Sunday.