Tomatoes are romping away

The tomato plants which I sowed back in February have now been planted out and the first fruits are forming. Last years tomatoes produced some amazing fruits but then succumbed to blight, so this year I have followed advice about planting distances to hopefully keep air moving between the plants.

I had heard that you shouldn't plant tomatoes out until they have formed their first flowers and it seems this is true; the plants which had flowers have stayed small and focused on producing flowers whereas the plants which didn't have flowers are definitely just growing big and leafy. Someone remind me of this next year! arr

I have 18 plants, mostly "Gardener's Delight" but also a few "Sungold" and "Gartenperle", all of them are cherry tomatoes which should increase the chance of any actually ripening outside.

I love growing tomatoes, mostly because the rewards are great but also because they have so many demands, but unlike some things, if you can keep up with the divas you will get the rewards. At the moment I am frantically tying up, pinching out side shoots and trying to water them consistently which is quite a challenge in this weather. Luckily the plants don't seem to be bothered by pests.



I am already dreaming of home made tomato sauces and fresh salads with basil.

First potatoes

The first potatoes have been harvested and eaten! They were Charlottes, which although not technically an early (they are a salad which I think makes them a second early) still produces enough baby potatoes to be eaten as new potatoes.

I managed to harvest them by rummaging around the roots of the biggest plants rather than actually pulling anything up, hopefully they plants will continue churning out the beauties.

So this is it, the official start to the summer accompanied by a bit of butter and plenty of fresh mint.

Fruitful

The hot weather is certainly doing the soft fruit some good.

The plum tree is in its second year and is covered in baby plums. It will need some serious thinning out in a month or so.


Not quite ready but the blackcurrants are swelling up quickly. I think there will be some eating in just a couple of weeks, this year I might even have enough to take some home rather than just grazing on them as I go.


The new gooseberry bush is doing well and has plenty of berries ripening, hopefully there will be enough to make a crumble.

Sun, Bank holiday and beer

Unbelievebly the bank holiday weekend coincided with one of the hottest weekends of the year. As I hadn't been down to the allotment for 2 weeks I was feeling guilty enough to leave the fun jobs (sowing) and get straight on with some weeding, so the garlic, onions and cabbages are now weed free and thoroughly watered.

I managed to clear 2 of the embarrasingly weedy areas but only with the dutch hoe, it is far too dry to dig over so that will have to go on to the To-do list for a wetter week than this one. Still I am hopeful that if I keep the leaves off the weeds then the roots should weaken enough to make the removal just a little bit easier. Only 2 more embarrasignly weedy areas to go.

Still no sign of the carrots or parsnips but the new carrot seed arrived so I sowed another few rows and gave them some all some water. It should be noted that watering is no small task, each can requires a walk past 4 other plots and then a thorough soaking as you remove the full can from the water trough (no we don't have taps). Next year I intend to have one of those funky hand pump hoses.

As I was weeding away it occurred to me that we haven't seen much of Joe Swift's allotment this year, what do you reckon, has he lost it to weeds?

Anyway after all this exertion, and in the full sun too I had to go home to have a beer or three.

Carrotless!

Several weeks ago I started my successive carrot sowing, a little late but at least there was a good chance of them germinating. Of course there is no sign at all of the little terrors, not even a groan of soil to indicate they are down there.

Picking my dignity up I prepared to sow again, well it is successive sowing so 3 rows every 2 weeks should give me a beautiful, and continuous, carrot crop and than was when the disaster stuck - I have lost the seeds! Thats right not only have I failed to germinate a single seeding but I have somehow failed 2000 others! Surely this is a carrot disaster?

Slow but steady progress

Today I managed to earth up the potatoes, I only covered the leaves with a very thin covering of aoil after reading this on Pumpkin Soup's blog. This year I will be aiming for little and often and hoping for a bumper crop. Strangly the Rooster potatoes (a maincrop) are far more vigourous than the Charlotte (a salad crop). Go figure.

I also got around to sowing 8 more squash plants, the batch sowed 3 weeks ago came through ok but then I lost 3 so hopefully I will have a full set before the month is out. I have also sowed my courgettes inside, two plants this year and also a full list of couregette lovers from work, well you need to have somewhere to ofload the excess.

No sign of the carrots or chitted parsnips on the allotment, hopefully they are just biding their time. Managed to get the dward beans, pak choi and beetroot sowed but sadly no extra carrots because I left the seed at home, doh!

With 2 more days of the bank holiday stretching ahead I am hopefull that more sowing will happen, some weeding might not go a miss and if the weather stays like this there will certainly be more watering.

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!

Potatoes are in!

I didn't have as much success with the chitting as I did last year, for a start the bookshelf had more books on it so there was less room for potatoes, the addition of a dehumdifier seems to have left the potatoes a little wrinkly. Still I am thinking positive so lots of digging later and the area which was a nettle patch just 4 weeks ago has been turned into a potato bed. The potatoes should also help to prevent the return of the weeds.

This year I am growing lots of Charlotte, these did very well last year and kept us well supplied with lovely new potatoes. Being a salad potato and therefore a potatoe which holds together well when cooked I found Charlotte to be very useful for putting in Spanish Omlettes as well as for potato salads.

I am also growing Rooster and King Edward as my maincrops. Rooster is a red skinned variety which is very popular in Ireland, the Potato council rate it as a 6/10 for flouryness so it should be good for mashing. King Edward is also rated as a 6 but it is more suited for roasting. Both are good for chips.

Hopefully I will also have some volunteer Arran Victory potatoes overlooked in last years potatoe bed. If I do then these should crop much earlier than a normal maincrop, they might even miss any blight.

Early birthday pressies

It is my birthday on Monday but my pressies from OH arrived a little early and so of course they had to be opened. And planted.

I have 5 Glen Moy raspberry canes to join my other 10. Glen Moy is an early summer variety and spinefree - yey. In the background you can see my new pistachio (no it is NOT green) trug which is a present to myself (well you need to be sure there is at least 1 present).

I have also got a pear tree. This is a 'Concorde', a late variety, and hopefully a heavy cropper even on juvenile trees (I hope Ken Muir is right!). Yes it looks a little wonky but after I took this picture I dug it up and planted it straight so all is well.



Now that the weather is turning warm and sunny the work is progressing at the usual frantic March pace. Most the plot is cleared of weeds but there is still plenty of digging to get the soil ready for sowing.

A year of Celeriac

Celeriac is likely to be the slowest growing vegetable you will ever attempt to grow, sow seeds in early March, and then wait until December (if you're lucky) to start harvesting them. Finish harvesting before the end of March and you can begin all over again.

All this means that Celeriac will be present on your growing schedule for 12 months but it really is worth it. Shop bought Celeriac will cost you at least £1 and is miles away from the tender home grown roots. Easier to grow than Celery but with a similar albeit milder taste Celeriac, or Celery Root as it is often known is the swollen root and contains most of the plants nutrients making it super good for you.

This week I enjoyed watching my seedlings stretch for the sun, maybe I could do a better job with the tray turning...
And enjoyed eating several of last years successes in a very tasty Celeriac and Bacon layer:

Serves 2 hungry people
Ingredients:
3 medium celeriac
1 onion
4 rashers of un-smoked bacon
Brown sugar
Ground Cinnamon
1/3 pint Veg stock
Grated cheese
Butter

Heat the oven to 200 oc
Peel the celeriac and chop in half. Boil for 5-10 minutes until soft
Meanwhile chop the onion and fry until soft
Add the chopped bacon and 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Fry until the bacon is cooked.
Add 1 tsp of brown sugar to caramelise the onions. Then turn the heat off
Remove the celeriac and chop into 1 cm thick slices
Butter an oven proof dish that is about 15 cm wide and at least 10 cm deep
Layer the celeriac over the bottom of the dish, add half the bacon and onion mixture
Repeat with another layer of celeriac and the remainder of the bacon and onions
Finish with a layer of celeriac
Pour over the stock and finish with the grated cheese
Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour
Remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling.

Serve with veg.