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Easter is upon us and my shed building project is soaking up all my gardening time.  This is the current state of play. I have sown two rows of carrots and one of parsnips. Also a row of asparagus. It will be potatoes next.

My shorter term project is to bake HXB.  

A productive little corner

Starting the plot tidyup, right in the corner is a clump of Jerusalem Artichoke ready for harvesting. 

The soup lived up to its reputation. Sweet tasting, and active on the lower gut.

 Next door the rhubarb won't be long to first harvest.

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)

 

Overwinter?

 It is every allotmenteer's dream to be harvesting all the year around. With stored harvests like garlic, onions, and potatoes this can be a viable claim. But the fresh harvesting activity in winter is restricted to digging up parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks and carrots.  What we crave by this time of the year is a bit of freshly picked greenery.  The reality is that the best we can hope for is for leafy crops to withstand the onslaught of the winter chill and then spring back into new growth at the earliest opportunity. Here are a couple of candidates:

Miner's Lettuce/Winter Purslane

Seakale Beet/Swiss Chard

Last of the leeks and first of the onions

Spring Hero Cabbage

Just out of the (unheated) greenhouse are these winter survivors. They will be deployed in the open soon, probably with a bit of protection.  The pigeons are keen on fresh greens too!

August sown
All the Year Round Cauliflower
Red Drumhead Cabbage
Little Gem Lettuce

Spring?

I never cease to be amazed by the early flowers. Amazed and filled with excitement and surprise that it is still January.

The witchhazel  is in full bloom. I am glad I didn't try to move it in the winter.

Hellebore

I repotted this garden rescue last summer and it is now paying back by flowering for the first time in years. (Now I just need to find a spot where it will be happy planted out).

All this activity makes me realise that I am already at risk of falling behind in my preparations for the 2023 growing season.  

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.

Bee & Bee

It won't be long now until the bumblebees emerge and start prospecting for homes.  I have now set up a new motel made of bricks and slates concealing chambers lined with feathers from an old pillow.  The design is based on one promoted by bumblebee guru Dave Goulson Here.

And as for the solitary bees I have added a new wing of wood with holes drilled into them.

 

I do hope these prove attractive to the intended residents.  

Early Emerging Stars

 Yesterday I came across these two, the first wildflowers of the year.

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna), also known as pilewort.  William Wordsworth's favourite wildflower, he devoted three poems to it and even chose it to be depicted on his gravestone.  (Sadly the stonemason's template was for the similarly named but unrelated Greater Celandine - Chelidonium majus. To this day the imposter persists.

The second new arrival is the flower of Coltsfoot. Tussilago farfara. In this case the flowering stalk emerges from unseen rhizomes before the leaves.  It is the shape of the leaves that give it it's common name. The latin name comes from its reputation for easing coughs. Tussis = cough. 

Both have a foothold on the grassy bank of the Union Canal that links Edinburgh to Falkirk.  

Asparagus on Hold

Guelph Millenium

It's that DeDaaah moment: my own asparagus.  But this is not a tale of unbridled triumphalism. Oh no.  I've been through too much for that.  The long and the short is not to believe those merchants of false hope when they tell you that modern varieties of asparagus can be planted out in the autumn (fall).   One year I tried it.  Three rows - three varieties - two year old hands.  I poured my heart and soul,  together with copious amounts of well rotted farmyard manure, into preparing a bed for them. It was a complete now show.

Guelph Eclipse

Any sensible person would have admitted defeat and adopted another strategy.  But not I.  I went and bought another three the following year (from a different source). 5 or six per row.  That was two years ago.

Purple variety. Pacific?

Last year I detected one plant per row.  Ever so carefully I weeded around them as if they were babies surrounded gnashing lions.  Would they survive a second winter on the plot?  As the first three pictures attest, Yes they would!  For another year I am not cutting any but encouraging them to grow stronger.

Guelph Millenium with label

Also last year I sowed asparagus from seed  (Connovers Collosal) and overwintered outdoors in the shade of our house.  It was not collosal (yet) but it has produced tiny tiny shoots this spring.  So now I have something to fill the rest of the rows with their solitary specimens. Here's how the bed looked just before planting.

One day I will get to taste home grown asparagus. If I hold on long enough!

And by the way: Spring is the time to plant out asparagus in Scotland.

Welcome to the House of Fun

A peek inside my greenhouse on a sunny afternoon. 

 Flowers on one side

Tomatoes and chillies on the other

Chilli

Tomato

All the alliums and other hardy veg has been moved to the path outdoors.  And here is an unheated propagator with spring salads that  gets the lid popped back on at night.

Everything is labelled

Up above I am delighted with the progress of my basil seedlings!

Living in Scotland I might be a bit rash growing frost sensitive plants so early in the year.  The other side of the coin is that the short growing season means you have to make an early start to stand a chance of a harvest.  It looks like this year I have got away with it.  Tonight the temperature is set to drop to one or two degrees and I will be dragging everything I can fit into the greenhouse, shed and coal cellar for the last time.  (The greenhouse gets the benefit of a paraffin heater if  there is a threat of frost.) After that the minimum night temperature is set to be no lower than 4 degrees C until the end of the month.  I will, of course be checking the forecasters  don't change their prediction, but it looks like everything will left in the same place day and night hereafter. Just as well as there are more seedlings indoors under lights waiting to be pricked out.

Cucumbers at the back

Less worry - more fun.

Four Seasons Square Foot Beds - Retrospective

It's a strange thing when growing a square foot crop: The last thing you need is a runaway success!

To go back to the start. What better plan for a school garden than to show how vegetables can be available for harvesting the whole year around?  Space of course is limited so the square foot gardening concept is ideally suited.  A four metre by one metre bed was duly divided into 4 one metre square beds and slate labels made up accordingly.  The idea is that each 1 metre bed is divided into 9 square foot beds.  This can be done permanently with wood or slate. Alternatively a wooden 'noughts and crosses' or hash frame can be temporarily deployed to help with the spacing when sowing or planting.  

Of course the real challenge is the sowing/planting plan - and the timing.  One year in and here is a season by season report.

Spring  - Photographed 18/9/19

Spring sowing plan

Winter Purslane			Celeriac			Kohlrabi
Swiss Chard			PSB (Rudolph)			Beetroot
Swede			Leeks			Parsnip

Spring has suffered from being raided in December for the School Christmas Bazaar. The celeriac, kohlrabi, swede  and celeriac were just too tempting when you knew you had a ready market for these crops which might not survive the cold temperatures or the predations of pigeons or soil borne pests. Not surprising as nearly all of the crops for spring harvesting are already mature before the year end but are left to hang on until the target date of 15 March.The PSB was not planted out because it was realised that it would bully all 8 of the surrounding crops and deprive them of light.  Parsnips were the real surprise as they thrived in the limited space given to them.  The downside was that their leaves flopped languidly over the neighbouring Spring and even Summer squares. The beetroot and leeks in particular suffered. The winter purslane seed failed to make any headway or got eaten before getting established.  Swiss Chard is a real asset to any seasons planting.  Cropping is the only issue as it is harvested a bit at a time and the soft leaves and fleshy stems are not easily transportable.  There is a reason why supermarkets don't supply Swiss Chard and this is it.  

Summer planting plan

Lettuce			Broad Bean			Onions
Peas			Elephant Garlic			Strawberry
Radish			Spinach			Rocket

Despite appearances from the late season photo Summer was very successful.  The broadbeans cropped well but then had to be removed so as not to shadow out the rest.  Lettuce grew and then bolted.  Peas rocket and radish all did the same.  The Strawberry is the only perennial in the whole 4 beds and is of course a dwarf variety.  Both onions (from sets) and elephant garlic were the surprise winners for the Summer bed, yielding respectable quantities for the minimal space given to them (see below )

Autumn planting plan

Fennel			Cucumber			Lettuce
Beetroot			Tomato			Peas
Leeks			Dwarf French Beans			Carrots

Tomato (Totem) was the runaway winner in the Autumn bed. Despite its "dwarf" label it had to be restrained.  Neither cucumber nor peas could compete.  On the plus side it fruited well. Carrots were the surprise success here (although they would have been better if thinned more)  Fennel was a no show replaced by a late sowing of coriander.

Winter planting plan:

Leek			Coriander			Kohlrabi
Beetroot			Swiss Chard			Swede
Carrots			Mooli			Parsley

Brassicas are great winter vegetables but given the space they need the leafy ones are not suitable for square foot gardening. (We do have a separate brassica only bed next to the 4 seasons bed). Root and stem brassicas like mooli, Swede and kohlrabi are good for this purpose, although the mooli was sown too late to reach a respectable size.   Some crops (Swiss chard, beetroot) seem to suit nearly all seasons.  Leeks might be another candidate for that accolade  - except that this year they failed to perform wherever they were planted.

So many lessons learned this year.  We plan to run the experiment for another year with the possibility of building on our experience.  Seasonal greetings to you all.

4 Seasons Beds on site

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A Square Foot of Onions

Elephant Garlic

Swede

Kohlrabi

Beetroot

Celeriac

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