2025 Welcome

2025 kicked off with Storm Eowyn.  Edinburgh Botanic Gardens lost their tallest tree. Across town our allotment site we also experienced a bit of a blow. When this tree toppled its rootball ripped up the site access path. The Council Allotment Officer assured us that given the extensive damage across all of Edinburgh we shouldn't expect the Parks arboreal team to attend to it for some time.  This prediction has been borne out.

Our neighbour's greenhouse suffered a direct hit and 100% glass loss. With the shielding of the wall my new build of last year survived unscathed except for a puncture in the corrugated plastic roof from flying debris. I can repair that.  

The brassica patch is a source of some encouragement in times of adversity!  The purple sprouting broccoli and Russian kale seem unperturbed by the storm and the weeks of cold easterly winds. (The Italian kale is not so happy)

and the "Yellow Cabbage" is good and yellow.

So even at this time of year there are positives, But I can't resist suggesting this song as the allotment anthem.

  

 

Full Of Beans

 

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Greek Gigante Soup Beans

Barlotti Beans

Runner Bean

In full flush 9th August 

Starting out June 1st

Greek Gigantes podded

This year I have had a bit of a go at climbing beans. I always grow runner beans. Barlotti beans have become a fixture too, grown for drying in the pod and storing until needed in the following 12 months. 

Two novelties this year have been Greek Giant Soup Beans (or just Greek Gigantes beans) and Cherokee Trail of Tears.  The Greek beans are white butter beans and traditionally used in a baked bean dish called Gigantes Plaki. The pods are shorter and wider than runner beans and seemed to be vary widely in the number of beans per pod.  Despite my early fears about poor yield they delivered a good crop.  The taste and texture were ample reward for the effort and we recently enjoyed our first (of many) Plakis so much that we have committed to grow them again, using our home saved seeds.

Cherokee Trail of Tears will have to wait for another post because they haven't been podded yet

 

A Bit Of A Squash

 

Winter squash is a big hit with us. Harvest time is approaching and there is the usual mayhem in the cucurbit patch. A forest of leaves but what lies beneath?  While every plant has been labelled at the planting point the vines have travelled the width of the patch and well beyond laying down fruit at random intervals. 

Every plant is labelled at the planting point but has developed fruit after scrambling across its neighbours.  The conditions this year mean that fruit has not set reliably and the slugs have had a field day on a lot of immature fruits resting on the soil.  My strategy of planting parts from a bunk bed at either end of the patch for the vines to scramble up has proved a crop saver as the fruit in the best condition is raised off the ground.

This year I have grown:

Crown Prince

Buttercup

Uchiki Kuri

Marina Di Chioggia

No sign of the last one yet - although it was grown later than the other three. I have started harvesting at risk fruit to season at home in the dry. The Crown Prince is 4.5k so harvesting and transportation from the allotment has to be done a bit at a time.

Crown Prince and Uchiki Kuri

Biblical Beans

 

Forget the Holy Trinity planting scheme (Sweetcorn/Climbing Beans/Squash) I'm going for the 4 Apostles - hopefully not the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

For the record the 4 wigwams are Greek Soup Giant Beans, Cherokee Trail of Tears, Barlotti Tongues of Fire and a mixture of Runner beans (Scarlet Emperor, White Lady, Painted Lady) 

New Arrivals at Craiglockhart Pond

 

That is definitely five cygnets. One week old. Mum and Dad very attentive.  

Hot X Buntime

 

Easter is upon us and my shed building project is soaking up all my gardening time.  This is the current state of play. I have sown two rows of carrots and one of parsnips. Also a row of asparagus. It will be potatoes next.

My shorter term project is to bake HXB.  

Something Spotted

 This is the earliest I can recall seeing one of these on the loose! (20/02/24)  Given that we had a frost last night it may be regretting it's early emergence.