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) 

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Although a bit out of date this last picture is indicative of what is harvesting now.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.  

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.

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

 

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

Add caption

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!

Plants on Lockdown

Peppers, tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers and squash.

The greenhouse plants are growing on ...

More tomatoes, peppers, squash

...and I would dearly like to move them on...

Flowers seedlings, basil and celeriac (top right)

..but this weekend we are threatened with the possibility of a frost....

Flower seedlings and veg too

...so I am having to improvise with the overspill...

Mostly Hardy perennials 

... and bring some indoors for the night.

Flowers Lobelia, Cerastium, Lobelia, Tagetes

Once the seedlings move on I will have room to set out the tomatoes peppers and cucumbers in the vacated space.

At least I held off sowing the sweetcorn until now!

A Voyage Round My Parterre

It is time for my warts and all annual review.  Viewed from the East it is not very photogenic.

The view from the East End

In the foreground you have rows of brassicas (turnips, kohlrabi and swede) which I have as catch crops between the asparagus.  Very few asparagus fronds came up after the last winter.  I will be filling in the gaps next spring.  Beyond the "asparagus bed" are next year's strawberries (Malwena) and a row of cucurbits. Aside from the Romanesco Courgette bush there is little to show.  Beyond that is:

Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn.  Really just an exercise in thumbing the nose at the naysayers who don't think it could possibly be grown in Scotland. It can - just!

Beets and Fennel

Beyond that we are on safer territory with beetroot, fennel, Swiss chard and lettuces.  The beetroot this year has been very boistrous and I am hopeful that some of the bigger "roots" will survive well into the winter. Once they get gnawed though they won't keep, so some will be coming home for home storage in the coal cellar. Next is the remnants of the allium patch.  Just a few shallots from seed left aside from the stalwart leeks. Beyond that is...

Allium Patch 

The carrot temple.  Looks rubbish but is the key to keeping the crop free from the tunnelling root fly maggot.

Carrot Temple

On past a row of scorzonera I am growing for a laugh, there is a solitary parsnip and 4 half haearted  celeriacs. Then 3 rows of winter spinach (Amazon/Medina/Winter Giant) Only sown recently I want to see if any can survive rhe ravages of winter.

Spinach + Parsnip + Cleriac

Finally, to complete the run from end to end, we arrive at the potato patch.  The main crop is still showing impressive folliage, I think you will agree?

Main Crop Potatoes

Earlies + Artechoke

The earlies have been harvested but there has been an unplanned  reemergence of last year's Jerusalem artichokes smothering one corner of the patch.  Turning through 180 degrees here is the single tubor I purposely planted in order to establish a new patch for the future:

Next Year's Artechoke

Moving to the Northwest corner to start the return sweep here is my fruit cage.  The first of the three bays has goosberries redcurrants and  new jostaberry and gojoberry bushes.  The current cropper is....

Fruit Cage

Blackberries:

Blackberries

The middle bay is chocka with raspberries (Joan J producing Glen Ample and Glen Moy finnished but not yet cut back).  Then the third bay was Marshmello strawberries but these have been grubbed up after a poor showing.  To use the netted space I have planted out some spare brassicas in the hope of overwintering them. Already I have some casualties but the Daikon Radish is looking happy - and needing to be thinned.

Late/Early Brassicas

Also squeezed in are some very late sown peas.  Hopefully I will be as happy as Monty Don in a few weeks if these come good.  In the background is a fill in row of flowers where the early peas were!

Very Late Peas

Beyond them is a patch of green manure (clover) where the later peas were, and then there is a riot of runner and French beans.

Beans and Green Manure

The last "room" is the brassica patch proper.  Not particularly pretty but a stalwart of any allotment.

Brassicas

Brassicas reverse view.

After the photos some harvesting:

I hope you enjoyed your tour of Mal's Edinburgh Allotment.

Check

It's that happy time of year:

Runner beans started? - Check
Courgettes in full swing? - Check
Carrots big enough to eat????   Oh Yes!

Of course I was just checking on the weed situation and congestion under the net when I realised some of the "thinnings" were a reasonable size, despite the low water provision.