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.

It's All Kicking Off

Now we are into April we are hitting the sweetspot for sowing just about everything.  Already in March the broadbeans and first early potatoes have been planted out.

The broadbeans were looking strong before and after planting out.

The potato variety is Epicure. We like floury potatoes and these fit the bill.  Also they are about the hardiest potato variety known to me and will shrug off any frost damage. (Famous last words)

 

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

 

Germination Station

 

My coal cellar germination station is in full operation now.  The top shelf has LED lights whereas the lower legacy shelf is the traditional fluorescent strip light. Both shelves have got heated trays which raise the temperature to about 20C

These lobelia seedlings are stealing a march.

Once germination has been achieved the hardier seedlings (broad beans and alliums) go out into the greenhouse...

...and then outside for good days.

The broad beans to left of the picture went out to the allotment yesterday, under fleece protection to start with.  The set up has evolved over the years and seems to be working well this year.

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!

Allotment Tour May

It is raining again today, but yesterday was a surprise sunny day.  I took the opportunity to take some snaps of the allotment.  First, appropriately, the potato patch.

The shaws are appearing above ground and very soon it will be time to mound them.

Beyond the potatoes is the fruit cage.  The first of the three bays was strawberries.  Notoriously these have to be moved around in order to avoid build up of disease.  So currently this bay is garlic,  Elephant to the left, ordinary to the right.  In between are two rows of parsnips which are indistinguishable from the germinating weeds currently.  But believe me they are there!

The remainder of the fruit cage is more conventionally raspberries and a mixture of currants and berries:

Reaching the turn at the end I am most pleasantly surprised by these autumn planted red onion sets.  I had given them up for lost but come the new year they have reappeared and are thriving.

Also at that end are spring planted onion sets (tent to the left ) Carrots (temple to the right) and leeks between them.  Next  is onions and shallots from seed (I went a bit mad on alliums this year) and the start of the brassica patch in front of that in the picture below.

Working back to the start I have covered the ground, temporarily with weed suppressant fabric.  This is going to be the the other half of the brassica patch and the legume/cucurbit patch which currently only has broad beans and a row of peas on the go along with some salads.  The runner bean poles are up in readiness but the runner beans are only now germinating back at home.

Broad beans (under netting)

For the sake of completeness here is the last section with strawberries and blueberries to the left, rhubarb to the right and asparagus bed featured in my last post in the middle.

 

So there you have it.  Together with the seedling nursery at home this is my vegetable home!  Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Harvest - 1st July

It's a new month - and harvesting has started!  The Raspberries competed with the lettuce thinnings but now the big guns are out:

First Early Potatoes

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Three courgettes do not a glut make.  But once you have three it won't be long before you have 30.  The raspberries in this picture represent those that ripened overnight between two rather wet and dull days!

Lights Camera Action!

This year I have deployed conventional light to stop my seedlings getting too leggy. It seems to be working for these annuals which currently have light but no extra heat. (The lights are located in our coal cellar).  New this year is a new LED light setup.  It is made up of small red and blue lights which explains the funny colour of these pics:

But it seems to work for tomatoes:

and peppers:

Outside in the (unheated) greenhouse  transplanted lobelia ...

...and other hardier plants...

Leeks

 ...have rapidly been moved on after tricking them into germinating indoors!

Broad Beans

It is always a juggling act finding protected space once seedlings require transplanting into bigger containers. The greenhouse is the last resort and offers shelter from wind and rain/hail/snow but is no protection from the cold. I have a paraffin heater at the ready and will be keeping a watchful eye out for any sub zero predicted overnight temperature once the non hardy plants take up residence.