A long overdue plot visit

In the weeks where I have been enjoying events such as Duxford airshow, yes the parking was awful; London Open House, queues were pretty bad; and several visits from family members, the weeds have been playing havoc with my allotment. Finally this weekend was free so I managed to get down to the plot twice, although to be fair I could have done a lot more work whilst I was there...


The brassicas are growing incredibly well despite the weed competition. The white fly were so bad earlier in the year that I though all my brassicas would be sucked dry but it did have the unexpected effect of giving me my first cabbage white free year and that was without covering them. On Saturday I picked a few of the larger kale leaves and we enjoyed them baked and salted.


The leeks are looking very good (again there are a few weeds...), I am growing my usual 'Musselburgh' which are a very late variety along with 'Monstrueux de Charentan' which are almost ready. I used the dib a hole, drop leek in and fill with water and it has been very successful.


Quite a few of my early, and mid, sowings failed to germinate but the rain and sun we have been having for the last 6 weeks has done wonders for my late sowings. Hopefully the fennel will have time to bulb up before the cold weather really hits, but if not I'll use the leaves as seasoning.

Finally, the very odd fungi that appears on my allotment, it is about the size of a football and seems to grow and grow. Anyone got any ideas what sort it might be?

Potatoes are in

This week has turned out to be rather hectic and it is already Wednesday! The weekend was just incredile, two days of sunshine and as it looks set to stay. I finally got around to planting the potatoes, which turned out to be a bit more stenuous than I had anticipated. Somehow the potato area always seems to need to be twice as big as I planned but after 3 hours of digging and lining and measuring I had the four rows planted up. No doubt we'll see just ho9w wobbly my lines are when they start growing!

This year I bought my potatoes from the local garden centre, mainly because of the cost of postage, this limited choice a little but I have Charlotte as usual and Desiree for Maincrop. I don't think the quality of the potatoes is as good as the ones I have had in previous years, the chitting was certainly slow but hopefully now they're in the ground they'll get to work.

At the same time as buying the potatoes I treated myself to a bag of Shallots, it was quite late to be buying shallots so I started them off in modules and planted them out this weekend. They have put on great growth and had excellent roots so hopefully they'll cope with the transplanting and I'll be on course for a bumper shallot harvest (well you gotta hope).

The coldframe is almost full so I have started to harden off the salad leaves, white beetroot, leeks and celeriac which should mean that I can sow some more seeds this weekend. Finally it seems the growing season is on the go.

Sowing, sowing and growing

Well the weather has turned, the snow seems like a distant memory and everything is going full steam ahead. The allotment is going wild and I have spent a fair few hours battling with the weeds, so far I am winning but the ground is definitely getting harder to dig. So far 3 rows of carrots have been sowed and 3 rows of parsnips are in, 2 of the parsnip rows are from chitted seed so I will be able to compare the results (provided at least some come through of course).

With all this beautiful weather it is easy to get carried away and in fact my neighbor's row of tomato plants has had me very tempted but there is still a risk of frost for a couple of weeks yet so I am going to play it safe and keep my tomato plants in the crappy greenhouse until we are well into May.

The celeriac and leeks were started off inside, so far both are growing well and I allowed them out for their first day of sunshine today, they'll go back inside for the night and I'll begin the tedious task of moving things inside and out for the next week or so. The spinach was also started off inside to keep them safe from slugs, they'll be planted out when they are a little larger.

Last week I also sowed rather a lot, probably way too much, sprouting broccoli, so far most of it has come through so if I case just keep it safe from the cabbage whites and the rabbits I am in for a bumper crop. We are due a week of rain so hopefully the soil will get a thorough drenching without losing too much of the heat and then next weekend can be a complete sowathon!

This weekend if has been wet and windy, not exactly the weather to make you want to go to the plot, so I have stayed closer to home and cooked up some fantastic Leek, Carrot and Ginger Soup:

Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 red onion, skinned and chopped
2 large leeks, chopped
1 kg carrots , peeled (unless organic) and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, skinned and chopped
1 inch of ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1.2 litres of vegetable stock

Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large pan until hot, then add the onion, garlic, leek and onion and sweat gently for 10 minutes. Add the carrots and mix together then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Smooth in a blender and enjoy.