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.

Reflections - Spotlight on Brassicas

It is just about the end of the brassicas.  They have been a mixed bunch this last year.  I planted 3 sorts of kale and 2 sorts of broccoli which was fairly adventurous.   Not surprisingly the cabbages ran out rather sooner than I would have hoped. For some years now I have deployed weed suppressant fabric (WSF) on the brassica section although I left a bare strip for those brassicas that hate to be transplanted (turnips , swedes, pak choi, mooli). This has confirmed me in my opinion of the benefit of using WSF.  The weeds grew away happily in the bare strip and as the bird netting is in place it was no joke removing them - a back aching hands and knees balancing act.  

Brassica patch with bare strip to left at planting time

A few weeks on - weeds on the rampage to the left, WSF doing the hard work to the right!

The kale was great with the Dwarf Curled being the star performer for volume and hardiness.  The Cavelo Nero is excellent too but not as hardy.  The purple veined variety lost out although it was a great novelty before it got a bit tough and tasteless.  I did grow some Brussels (Evesham Special) but they were too small to grace the Christmas table. I grew two crops on the bare strip - early cabbages (Greyhound) and Caulis (All The Year Round) and then successional sowings of Turnip Swede, Mooli and Pak Choi.  These sowings either failed or faired poorly for size.  I think I should have fed the soil more before the successional sowing.  Pak Choi just gets wiped out by pests (from flea beetle to slugs) whenever I try to grow it on the allotment. Probably will not try growing it here again. 

  As always I have managed to put the latest crop (purple sprouting broccoli) in the most inconvenient of places - right where I want to plant my new strawberry patch.  The net has been raised, but not before the pigeons had a go at the PSB pecking through it when the snow weighed it down!  All will be forgiven - provided it still comes good.

Bedraggled brassicas PSB nearest

Next year I will have a smaller brassica patch as I am adjusting my rotation.  More over wintering cabbages, less Pak Choi and Mooli, some kale.  Lime in advance and a good feed for any successional sowings. And even the Swedes will be sown through WSF this year!

Here Come The Carrots

There is a notable addition to the harvest table this week: carrots. It is also the final picking of the gooseberries, broad beans, potatoes courgettes are all going like the clappers, but it is the carrots that take star billing.  That's because of their problematic history.  We eat carrots all the year around and lots of them.  Only organic shop bought carrots will do, but even these cannot compare with home grown. Yet mastering the carrot is not so easy: They don't like a rich soil (or they will fork). Sandy but not stoney soil is best. Germination can be poor if sown too early or with old seed. Watering is left to nature except in drought conditions (like April this year). Above all you have to take measures to keep the carrot root fly off or you will get a useless tunnelled crop. Fine thrip netting (see below) is the answer but even then there is the danger that weeds will overrun the carrots. Out of sight is out of mind and you will find many warnings about carrot root flies just waiting for you to lift that netting so that they can get access.  It is said that they can smell thinnings from a mile away.  So a lot of people sow sparsely and never thin or weed.  That is what I did last year, and the weeds got the better of a pathetic crop)
After a poor year last year I decided on the double or quits approach and sowed lots. I did thin and weed - just as quickly as was practical. So it was with some trepidation that I dug up the first of the crop. They came up clean, a good size and undamaged by root fly grubs. It looks like we could be eating our own carrots well into next year! 😀

Carrot Protection

Gold

BREXIT Harvest

Meagre pickings on the Brussels this year. By a process of protracted negotiation the position is this: Despite my dislike for them I agree to grow enough Brussels for Christmas dinner.  This year's crop was laughable so we had to buy some in. (It must be said that the purchased brussels were pretty small and a bit holy too, which I found encouraging).  Today I picked the lot from the plot and tonight it's Meera Sodha's "Shredded Brussels Sprout Thoran" - and that's it with Brussels - for this year.  Negotiations for next year start here.

Also picked today a selection of trusty cabbages. Now you know what you're dealing with with your cabbage...

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