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.

  

 

Brassicas - Not Pretty But Productive

 

It's that time of year when the gardener gets respite from the frantic summer months.  Nothing is growing anymore - weeds included.  But beside uniformly earthy former potato patch and the skeletonised pumpkin patch there are green patches still.  This is when the brassicas come into their own!  Late cabbages, Brussel sprouts, kale and sprouting broccoli are approaching their prime.  The purple sprouting broccoli will not start producing until next March, but has plenty of leaf already.

The other green area is more of a remnant offering leaf beat, beetroot and leeks.

(Under the net is more kale and some Chinese cabbage.  Despite the net the leaves have been pockmarked by some pest).  So end of season is here but there are still harvests to look forward to.

The Shark has Jumped...

Been a bit busy since my last post. Too much gardening, and especially weeding to do. The school had a plant sale to be prepared for. To add to the mix I was allocated a place "on the shelf" at our allotment site just as the growing season got into full swing. Happily there have been family events too. The shark is a visitor to Alnwick Castle Gardens - a great otherwise safe place to take grandchildren without foregoing horticulture! (Mind you they do have "The Poison Garden" behind a closed gate.) Excuses aside, here is the current state of play at the plot:

Pride of place goes to the potatoes.  Here's the maincrop

and here's the earlies:

The soft fruit has only recently been netted

This shot takes in the broad beans, cucurbits and bean wigwams. (There are two Shark's fin Melons amongst them!!)

And here is the reverse view of the broad beans with Jerusalem artichoke, rhubarb and peas in front

This picture shows the end of the spring cabbages with short rows of parsnip, celeriac and celery beyond

And on to the brassicas hiding under their protective netting.

and the alliums all grown from seed.  (The bed to the left is going to be carrots now that the rain has finally arrived.)

 

Hope you enjoyed this brief tour.

Winter on the Allotment

 

I wouldn't have been on site, except for the annual farm yard manure delivery on Saturday.  A couple of inches of snow fell during the two hours it took to offload the lorries and distribute the bags. With frozen fingers I took this snap and retreated to the warmth of home.  At least the nets have not collapsed. The temperature has since gone up and the dramatically down to -5C last night.  The prediction is for negative figures every night until Friday. 

Dry Heat

Stuck indoors today because of the rain (hurray)  gives me the opportunity  to review recent progress.  The garlic crops, both winter and  spring plantings have been a bit underwhelming.  The autumn planted Elephant Garlic and home saved Early Purple Wight and Doocot I feel more forgiving toward. The spring planted Mersley Wight and  Solent Wight  got all the room and feed they required but turned yellow in early July. Digging them up they were small, showed signs of white rot and in many case developed as two stems intertwined below ground level.  While I will continue to grow my own Elephant garlic I don't think the return on the traditional sized garlic is worth it on my plot. Lesson learnt.  The picture shows the portion of the harvest that  justified storage.  Elephant garlic on the left, other autumn planted middle and spring planted on the right. The more fiddly smaller bulbs are still drying off in the greenhouse awaiting assessment for rot and suitability for cooking. 

Despite the heat and dry conditions the brassica patch seems to be full and ready for the coming (cooler) brassica season. The thin row is Swedes.  To the right are the winter harvested kales.  Now that we have had rain I am confident that they will survive to maturity.

Although a bit out of date this last picture is indicative of what is harvesting now.  Broad beans have been great and I have staggered further sowings.  Courgettes are now harvesting in torrents. Peas have been great this year, and again I have further plantings to come. Raspberries have been ripening daily. That is one days worth of ripened berries.

 So all in all I have been very happy with the produce so far this year, even though drought conditions have prevailed until yesterday.  

Picking Up At The Plot

 I have been indulging my newfound interest in flowering plants and particularly wildflowers recently. Despite appearances I have been keeping up with the production of edibles too.  To bring the record up to date, here is a statement of the current state of play.

I went for alliums in a bigger way this year growing autumn and spring planted garlic as well as shallots and onions from seed. These were sown indoors in February .  The garlic has emerged and shallot and onion have been planted out on site yesterday and today. 

Broad beans sown in cells and planted out a month ago are now sitting pretty at the plot. 

Peas on the other hand have refused to be cajoled into germinating early. As a last resort I have started them sprouting in a jam jar in the kitchen and only "sown" them in cells after germination and exporting them to the greenhouse and then the plot.

Still on legumes I have sown 5 varieties of Dwarf French Bean into deep cells in the hope that the improved night temperatures will help them get started.

The greenhouse has been stuffed full each night with the paraffin heater lit on any night when the threat of frost is flagged up by the weatherman.  The main beneficiaries are flowers: Cosmos, Marigold, Lobelia, but also tomato, cucumber and pepper 

Tomatoes and Cucumber

Pepper Hungarian Hot Wax

I have attempted direct sowing at the allotment but tend to hedge my bets by using up remnant seed supplies (open packets from last year or out of date ones).  This way I don't get upset when they fail - although failure is also more likely as a result!  Parsnip, carrot, Swish chard have been experimented with in this way - and have all been resown recently..

Good Friday is a traditional potato planting day.  Easter Saturday and Sunday saw me getting all but the maincrop Rooster in. 

Potatoes in waiting

The patch allocated to potatoes in my rotational plan still had "spring" cabbages at one end and leeks at the other.  Now that's what I call bad planning! The leeks are going into the cookpot.

The ground for runner beans, celery and celeriac has been thoroughly prepped with plenty of buried organic matter.  The celery and celeriac have been growing on at home

Celery and Celeriac  - Can you tell which is which?

 but the runner beans have yet to be sown.  The courgettes squashes and sweetcorn haven't been sown either yet, but I have recently prepared a bed for them too.  My method is to bag all my weeds and trimmings in old black lined compost bags and leave them for a year or two to rot down in the hope that after another year buried underground any weed seeds will not be viable.  This keeps all the nutrients recycled on the site - all except the edible part of any crops.  

Weed suppression is something I take very seriously.  The best method is to have a crop growing but failing that deployment of weed suppressant fabric in the early part of the growing season saves hours of repetitive weeding.  As the sowing season progresses so the aesthetically unpleasing fabric gets rolled back. 

Brassicas tend to be at their best late in the growing year. None more so than purple sprouting broccoli which is currently in full production mode. 

 One again my lack of planning means the row of PSB plants is right in the middle of this year's carrot patch (under the fine mesh).  The PSB needs nets to keep the pigeons off while the carrots need fine netting to keep the carrot root fly off. so it is a bit of a logistic nightmare to cater for them both simultaneously.  As the early carrot sowing show no sign of germination yet perhaps there is no imminent prospect of running out of space just yet - the main crop carrots can wait until the PSB harvesting season is over.

This years brassicas and leeks are coming on at home in readiness for planting out. It iis going to be busy for the next month or two!

Early season brassicas

Leeks

 

Allotment Tour Summer 2021

It is a sure sign of summer progressing when your fennel is ready for harvest.  After a summer where my focus has been elsewhere I realise it is time to do my "warts and all" tour of the plot. 

The parsnips are progressing steadily regardless of the stop start weather.  Alongside I have some second sowing of  autumn crops where the elephant garlic was.

The fruit cage is looking very green where the gooseberries and redcurrants are, A really good redcurrant crop but only a few gooseberries. I might have been a bit vigorous with my winter pruning?  The blackberries and autumn raspberries behind are yet to come. The two summer varieties are finished

Spring planted Onion from sets are flopping over of their own accord.  The early leeks behind show no such tendancy. 

For the first time I have tried to grow onions from seed too.  They are behind the celery and celeriac in this bed.  (It is also the first time I have tried to grow celery)

Moving along to the brassica patch there are three distinct phases as indicated by the height of the plants. The early cabbages and cauliflower are all gone but the Brussels remain tall and now suitably distanced. 

Further along the beans are hitting their peak.  Both Runners.

and Dwarf French

The winter squashes are the sea of green next door to the beans - although there are some flowers.  Fruits?  So far three marrow sized courgettes.

The foreground bare patch here is where the peas were and are now sown with winter leaves (Land Cress , Claytonia and Lamb's Lettuce.

Bringing up the rear I have hedged my bets trying to establish an asparagus bed but growing strawberries in between - at least until the asparagus gets going. It was grown from seed. (The rhubarb blueberries and globe artichoke just get on with their business year after year.)    

The final area is not very pretty,  It is the potato patch with nearly all of the tops cut off.  It looked like this in the middle of June.

But now it looks like this.

Hope you enjoyed the tour around my patch.

First pickings

 

First visit for over a week, owing to a debilitating tummy bug.  The flash flooding in Edinburgh over the last 24 hrs meant I HAD to survey the scene. 

Broad beans podding up.

Fortunately no plots had been inundated. Phew!

The plot is meanwhile entering the harvesting phase. 

First blueberry to ripen

The salads definitely needing some thinning out

Salads bulking up.

So I went home with some lettuce, leaf beet and fennel.

The early cabbages (Greyhound) have shown signs of splitting so it is harvest time for them.

Brassica Patch

Time for me to get my digestion back in order!

Here Comes The Summer

 

Broad beans flowering, runner beans planted, salads setting off.

Brassicas putting on a spurt, onions and carrots on the go.

It won't be long before the garlic is ready for harvesting.  The potatoes have been mounded.

One crop currently in full flower: blackberries. The bees are loving it.

The blueberries flowered earlier but are fruiting up nicely.  

After a cold miserable spring we seem to have flipped to a hot dry summer at the end of May. Whoopee!