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.

Celery - C'est la Vie

Celery Rosetta

I have been trying to grow a decent celeriac root for about a decade now, with limited success. Rather than accept defeat I have doubled my trouble. This is my second year of attempting to grow celery too!

Last year I grew Victoria, a self blanching F1 hybrid. They were rather straggly an not big enough for kitchen use.  Then I heard that Loretta is the go to celery variety for allotmenteers. (It is also self blanching)  Above is the first picked plant.  It is heading for a minestrone soup pan. Not really a challenge to the shop bought product, it is nevertheless a source of some pride. I grew it close together, next to the celeriac, giving both copious amounts of water.  The plants have turned yellow, leaves included, so clearly there is a nutritional issue still to be address.  Boron deficiency? I have ordered a tonic, and next year I will use a top dressing mix that contains boron.  Yes, there will be a next year for celery. 

 The neighbouring celeriac has been as bad as ever with 5 out of nine plants bolting.  But then again the soil amendment for the celery might work for the celeriac too....

Now how big is the celery? This gives a sense of scale. I do have very big feet BTW.

Summer Plot Review

 

A lovely morning of sunshine, after what seems like weeks of wind and cloud - but no rain to speak of.  So off to the plot to water.

Alliums in the foreground. The leeks onions and shallots are green, but the yellow strip is three rows of garlic.  (Digging up the first few they are rather disappointing.) The potatoes behind are looking really happy. 

And what pretty flowers on the Blue Danube!

Beside the alliums the brassica patch is looking a bit sparse, but is nearly full up now and will come into its own later when the seedlings put on some leaf.

The cucurbits are showing plenty of leaf now. Fruit will follow and an avalanche of courgettes is anticipated.

Separated by a row of broad beans that has been cropping for weeks we have celeriac, celery and runner beans. I have high hopes for all three. The runners have just reached the top of the canes and I pinched out the tops today.

One rather unsightly crop is peas  (alongside a second,later, row of broad beans). The pigeons discovered the peas, but not before they had podded. While they decimated the leaves and stems the pods were not to their taste, so we humans got them!  Next year either taller pea sticks or netting will be deployed.

Last word goes to the carrots. Not pretty due to the protective net, but they deliver for months provided you keep the net on and the root fly out.

So, all in all, I am pretty happy with progress on the vegetable plot so far this year.

End of Year Report

 

Pride of place has to go to the brassica patch. Brussels, kale and PSB still to come. Far left is a short row of mooli that I keep forgetting to check for root development. 

The old potato patch looks like a building site, but there are garlic bulbs planted at this end and two short rows of potatoes left under the fabric. 

At the far end are parsnips for this winter and 10 bags of farm yard manure to beef up the fertility for next year.

The contents of the fruit cage looks suitably dormant. I am currently half way through pruning . The net has been removed to avoid the danger of snow damage.

My customary "view from the end" looks a bit bleak but the leeks in the foreground should come on in the spring. The net hides the end of this year's carrots and next year's spring cabbages. To the right of the net are the last of the celery and celeriac.  Both were high on expectation and a little short on delivery. ( The white piping is just awaiting deployment as protection for plants)

Just for completion, here is the pumpkin patch, currently fallow. There are beets, root and leaf, under the net, and some spring onions.  Beyond are strawberry plants and a wannabe asparagus patch.

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.

Winter Vegetable Bed - Judgement Day

It is time to revisit the 4 seasons square foot vegetable bed for the winter harvest.  The above picture was taken on 21st December and the ones below were taken today as the crop was lifted. ( If you want to see previous seasons posts just click on "4 Seasons" in the labels list.) 

Here is the day's harvest 

    

First prize has to go to parsnips. 5 roots out of 5 and all of them stout and long,  The only problem with them was that they grew so strongly that their leaves flopped over their neighbours, depriving them of light.

The leeks also showed well with 6 out of 6 transplants growing long if slender.  Some bonus parsley was also grown in the same square foot.

Celeriac was a bit bullied by the parsnip foliage, One tennis ball sized bulb (or swollen stem) would be a fine addition to a stew.

I left the swiss chard in the ground.  It has already provided several meals worth from earlier harvest. Light picking over winter progresses but there is plenty more to come in late winter and early spring before new seedlings will catch up with it. 

The pigeons had a good go at the Swedes but three survived and grew larger than tennis ball size after netting.  These would have happily waited for Burns' night on 25th January.

Beetroots were only salad size, despite the long growing season.  To be fair I think the larger ones were raided to make soup by one of the classes.  These are just the tiddlers left behind.  Also featuring in the picture below is the one mooli (white radish) that reached any size.  There were some tiddlers too but this crop  was the victim of being overshadowed by it's neighbour - parsnip.

Next is a real experiment: scorzonera.  Plenty grew.  The roots are long thin and whippy. Very hard to dig out without snapping. There is also the challenge of how to prepare them.  Once peeled the white flesh oozes latex and rapidly turns brown.  You need to turn to French cuisine to get tips on how to use this exotic ingredient.  That said, they grew well regardless of the cold.

The only no show was carrots, which was a victim of its popularity with badgers.  No sooner had they reached a reasonable size that the whole square foot was excavated and only the tops left as evidence!  I am just relieved that the badgers restricted their mining activities to these (and some potatoes).

It is only a shame that this exercise can only be reported virtually as it was designed as an educational exercise for the children to participate in,  Perhaps next year?