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.

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.

Allotment Tour 27/5/20

 Here is the current state of play in my warts and all circuit of the plot:

Rhubarb is at one end (together with a globe artichoke).  The bare patch before the blueberry pen and strawberries is my aspiring asparagus patch.

...beyond which is the potato patch...

...then peas and beans (with their scrap heap supports) ...

...climbing beans and cucurbits (currently finding their feet under netting). The cages are protecting celeriac. ...

Beyond that is currently a sight for sore eyes - soon to house sweetcorn and my brassica patch.

That takes you from end to end on one side.  Heading back along the other side in the reverse direction you start with the fruit cage.  This is three bays (Berries/Raspberries/Strawberries)...

...but the last (former strawberry bay) now has been given over to new salad sowings...

We are big on carrots - but so is the carrot root fly so they have to be covered .

Bringing up the rear are the alliums.  Onions to the left, garlic and elephant garlic to the right.

That gets you back to the shed!

Thank you for visiting my site!

Purple Reign

At long last the purple sprouting broccoli has started cropping.  This one plant is in advance of the other three, probably because it is the tallest plant and the only one the pigeons were able to attacked  through the net. The next in line has just the one central crown (which I removed today)

Together with the rhubarb and the last of the carrots (not pictured) it felt good to be heading home with a significant harvest today.

The rhubarb has come on tremendously in three weeks:

Rhubarb Today

Rhubarb 3 weeks ago

Tune dictated by the title:

Roots and Shoots

Finally getting towards the end of the carrots.  These have been left in the ground, but covered with straw, throughout the winter.

Also covered with straw - but only recently -  rhubarb.  The bin went on in February, but I had plenty of straw doing nothing.

Another overwintered crop, but one not requiring any protection, is Jerusalem artichoke. These reached 10ft high and were chopped down in two stages.  First to about 6ft  to protect them from wind damage, and then to two foot after the frost had killed off the tops.  The yield is phenomenal - at least twenty fold.  There's only one problem: the limit to the number of times you can serve up artichoke soup before rebellion sets in.

Jerusalem artechokes

 The autumn sown broad beans failed, but these autumn sown onions look like they have survived and have started growing away!

Japanese Onions

That puts me in mind of an old song....

Vegetables Having a Dance

Raspberries for Freezing

Despite the  weather the raspberries continue to ripen. I have been picking them every second day.  It is time to resort to freezing and jam making as we can't keep pace. Although the strawberries have stopped the rhubarb is really appreciating the rain. I had to pick some just to stop the encroachment onto the parsnips and carrots. The second lot of peas are ready for podding and one of the two lots of broad beans (The Sutton) are big enough to harvest.  Add to this the potatoes (not pictured) and the vegetables are having a dance!

Friday's pickings 

 Vegetable Dance

Book Review - The Jam Maker's Garden

There are three bays of cookery books in our local bookshop, celebrity chefs beaming out from the front cover of most volumes, but I could find only one book devoted to preserves (a worthy River Cottage manual).  So I was more than happy to hear about this new book by Holly Farrell published today. In one volume there are fifty recipes covering the the full breadth of ingredients and techniques.  The presentation is modern: recipes are afforded a page each with a facing page picture.  The content is modern to match:  No old fashioned Piccalilli, but in it's place Giardiniera  (or Mostarda di Frutta if you really have a craving for mustard).  No pickled onions as such but pickled garlic instead.

The organisation and internal cross referencing, from the fulsome Contents page to the separate indices for plants and recipes, ensure easy navigation to your chosen topic one way or another. I particularly appreciate the "Use in" jam jar tag on the Growing pages. So if you have a glut of apples, for instance,  you can see that there are eight recipes which include this ingredient. Unlike the celebrity chefs this author is happy to keeps a low profile and allow the recipes to take top billing.

My Pickled Rhubarb

My first cheeky question to the publisher was: Are there any rhubarb recipes? and sure enough there are two - both of which I have now had a stab at. There is also the option to make rhubarb cordial/syrup. The instructions were easy to follow and the quantities sensible rather than industrial.   Other inclusions you wouldn't find in traditional preserves books: Pesto, Chilli jam and Chilli dipping sauce as well as "so retro as to be modern" Rosehip syrup.  I have not focused closely on the Growing pages mostly because I am up and running on the ingredients front. All the signs are that the recommendations have been well considered.  I feel a novice would have to be very patient to hold off on these recipes until their growing plans came to fruition but I guess that is the nature of growing. You can also buy when seasonal to enjoy the lowest prices. Having said that, now that I have a recipe, I just might get a quince and/or medlar.

All in all I have no hesitation in giving this book 5 stars and recommending it to anyone looking for a  comprehensive contemporary preserving guide.

Making Jam

Shooting Up - Rhubarb

 Picked today:

After lifting the bin the difference between the blanched and the ordinary rhubarb clumps was dramatic:

Higher and Higher

Eats Shoots and Leeks

 

 



The leeks have overwintered but the rhubarb has only just emerged. 

 

As in previous years I plonked a dalek over one of the crowns to exclude the light and it has responded accordingly.