Potato Time

It's that time of year again. Are the first earlies big enough to justify digging up the plant?  Yes!

The first of many.

 These are Sharpe's Express. Old fashioned and maligned by some commentators, as floury, quick to disintegrate and tasteless, these ones were  sweet and delicious and kept their shape in the pan.  Not floury at all (yet).

Good Friday Traditions

The Hot Cross Buns have been a little overfired this year, probably as I haven't got used to fan oven settings.  It is a tradition I am glad to have observed again.  The other tradition is to plant your first potatoes. Given the dire weather forecast it might be a bit foolhardy but I did plant a row of Charlotte to mark the day.  

2025 The Results

Potatoes (and Apples)

It's been a long time and you would be forgiven for thinking I had abandoned my blog - or even my plot.  I can assure you the latter is not the case.  With all the events, good and bad, of the last year something had to give and it turned out to be the blog. Another consideration is that I have always blogged from my laptop at home. My smartphone is so much more transportable and fine for accessing information wherever you are but not so handy for generating considered content.  

Without further ado here goes.  

Maincrop Rooster Harvest

The first picture shows the potato crop in all its verdant glory on 22nd July. I had already dug up my first earlies but these are 2nd Early Charlotte, Maincrops Rooster and Pink Fir Apple. All cropped heavily with larger tubers. This was a big surprise because the Edinburgh spring was so dry and I did not water at all. When the rain arrived it was enough to bulk up the crop.  Special mention goes to Rooster which in the previous year had been a disappointment as the tubers failed to reach baking potato size. This year we have baked potatoes on a regular basis and plenty more in store. The apples that appear in this shot also remind me what a fantastic year it has been for them too.  This tree was bought as a 'ballerina' but not pruned as such since planted at the plot. Elsewhere on the allotment site the James Grieve really had a mast year. I have bought a dehydrator and have been drying apple rings for weeks now but still have plenty more wrapped in newspaper in boxes and bags!

Now if the potatoes performed better than 2024 then the carrots (which failed for me that year ) restored my confidence in 2025. I sowed more than was reasonable to compensate this year and doubled up with a late sowing where the new potatoes were grown more in hope than in expectation. Guess what:  It is feast not famine.

Carrots Late

Parsnip and Carrots

I have been going big on climbing beans in recent years and set up three wigwams again this year. In addition to Runners I grew Berlotti beans and Greek Gigantes for drying. I will be scaling up the production of these next year as we use all we can grow and surprisingly home grown dried beans are actually tastier and better in texture than the shop bought which one suspects might have been harvested years  and years ago.

Beans X3

Another late season sowing that came up trumps was the mangetout Oregon Sugar Pod. Not sown until July these came up trumps in September.  Others have hailed this variety as a surefire success and I agree it is a winner.

Oregon Sugar Pod 

Another banker on the plot in recent years has been Winter Squash. They need room as they ramble promiscuously but if you hem them in they will clamber upwards. Buttercup, Uchichi Kuri, Crown Prince are all winners. Six plants, a dozen fruit,  is more than enough for us particularly as the need shelter from frost and rain in order to last throughout the winter.

Winter Squashes

One final curio for 2025: The plant below is Blue Fenugreek which I have photographed in flower as this is the only blue bit of it!  Native to the hills and cuisines of the Caucasus you will need to grow this if you want that authentic flavour. I can confirm it grows very happily in the Edinburgh climate!

Blue Fenugreek

So somethings old somethings new in 2025!

 

2025 Welcome

2025 kicked off with Storm Eowyn.  Edinburgh Botanic Gardens lost their tallest tree. Across town our allotment site we also experienced a bit of a blow. When this tree toppled its rootball ripped up the site access path. The Council Allotment Officer assured us that given the extensive damage across all of Edinburgh we shouldn't expect the Parks arboreal team to attend to it for some time.  This prediction has been borne out.

Our neighbour's greenhouse suffered a direct hit and 100% glass loss. With the shielding of the wall my new build of last year survived unscathed except for a puncture in the corrugated plastic roof from flying debris. I can repair that.  

The brassica patch is a source of some encouragement in times of adversity!  The purple sprouting broccoli and Russian kale seem unperturbed by the storm and the weeks of cold easterly winds. (The Italian kale is not so happy)

and the "Yellow Cabbage" is good and yellow.

So even at this time of year there are positives, But I can't resist suggesting this song as the allotment anthem.

  

 

Full Of Beans

 

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Greek Gigante Soup Beans

Barlotti Beans

Runner Bean

In full flush 9th August 

Starting out June 1st

Greek Gigantes podded

This year I have had a bit of a go at climbing beans. I always grow runner beans. Barlotti beans have become a fixture too, grown for drying in the pod and storing until needed in the following 12 months. 

Two novelties this year have been Greek Giant Soup Beans (or just Greek Gigantes beans) and Cherokee Trail of Tears.  The Greek beans are white butter beans and traditionally used in a baked bean dish called Gigantes Plaki. The pods are shorter and wider than runner beans and seemed to be vary widely in the number of beans per pod.  Despite my early fears about poor yield they delivered a good crop.  The taste and texture were ample reward for the effort and we recently enjoyed our first (of many) Plakis so much that we have committed to grow them again, using our home saved seeds.

Cherokee Trail of Tears will have to wait for another post because they haven't been podded yet

 

A Bit Of A Squash

 

Winter squash is a big hit with us. Harvest time is approaching and there is the usual mayhem in the cucurbit patch. A forest of leaves but what lies beneath?  While every plant has been labelled at the planting point the vines have travelled the width of the patch and well beyond laying down fruit at random intervals. 

Every plant is labelled at the planting point but has developed fruit after scrambling across its neighbours.  The conditions this year mean that fruit has not set reliably and the slugs have had a field day on a lot of immature fruits resting on the soil.  My strategy of planting parts from a bunk bed at either end of the patch for the vines to scramble up has proved a crop saver as the fruit in the best condition is raised off the ground.

This year I have grown:

Crown Prince

Buttercup

Uchiki Kuri

Marina Di Chioggia

No sign of the last one yet - although it was grown later than the other three. I have started harvesting at risk fruit to season at home in the dry. The Crown Prince is 4.5k so harvesting and transportation from the allotment has to be done a bit at a time.

Crown Prince and Uchiki Kuri

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) 

New Arrivals at Craiglockhart Pond

 

That is definitely five cygnets. One week old. Mum and Dad very attentive.  

Hot X Buntime

 

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.  

Something Spotted

 This is the earliest I can recall seeing one of these on the loose! (20/02/24)  Given that we had a frost last night it may be regretting it's early emergence.

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.

All Time Low

This is definitely one for the record. 

 Whether you take the view from one end ...

...or the other

The plot is looking very barren just now.  But I need this for comparison purposes later in the year.

The fruit cage has the nets removed to guard against snow damage

and last year's pumpkin and bean patch is looking particularly sad.

On the plus side there is not much weed growth yet!  Time for a mulch and a fabric mulch!

Also there are some brassicas still hanging on.  The Purple sprouting broccoli will be another month until it gets into production mode!

Back home the marmalade making has been completed for another year!

Watch The Birdie

 

We love our birds and keep them in food all the year around.  Right now the goldfinches are away, but the blackbirds have returned to their winter quarters.  Because the normally reliable crab apple crop was so poor this year we have supplemented their supply with apples and more recently pears (which they love!).  The sparrows have been muted in the cold snap but there are always pigeons, jackdaws and magpies who swing by to mop up the day's supply.  Another bird that has got wise to the congregation js this sparrowhawk.  Just the other day a pigeon was taken and dismembered in our garden leaving feathers al over the place.  Nature in claw and beak!

Edinburgh Topography

 

A New Years walk along the Fife Coastal Path offered this perspective on our home town of Edinburgh across the Firth of Forth.

To the left is Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano that looks like a recumbent lion. Next to that are "The Salisbury Crags"  This escarpment was quarried for building material for neighbouring  Holyrood Palace in the 1300s. Quarrying continued until .banned by Act of Parliament 1831..

The next feature is Edinburgh Castle, only visible because of the weather conditions, highlighting it in front of the Pentland Hill massing to the right of the picture. The Castle sits atop a volcanic plug.  When the ice sheet moved across this landscape from right to left the volcanic plug persisted and left a ridge a mile long tailing off behind it: the High  Street or Royal Mile, as can be seen from this vantage point.

I have since come across a reverse view I took recently.  In this case Fife is across the water in the distance.  The Royal Mile from Castle to Holyrood is the backbone of Edinburgh Old Town.

Green Sunset?

 A whole patch of the sky went green at sunset this afternoon. By the time I stopped driving and found a vantage point it had diminished somewhat  but was still visible at the centre of the shot above.  

The phenomenon of the green flash refers to the sun going momentarily green at sunset and I guess this related as the sun's refracted light is being projected onto some clouds in addition to the red, orange and yellow light frequencies that are more usual.

 In a less analytic sense - it was pretty weird!

Festive Baking

 

Lebkuchen

Candied Peel

Chelsea Buns

What to do when the weather turns and allotment visits are off. Do keep well fuelled this Christmas!

Brassicas - Not Pretty But Productive

 

It's that time of year when the gardener gets respite from the frantic summer months.  Nothing is growing anymore - weeds included.  But beside uniformly earthy former potato patch and the skeletonised pumpkin patch there are green patches still.  This is when the brassicas come into their own!  Late cabbages, Brussel sprouts, kale and sprouting broccoli are approaching their prime.  The purple sprouting broccoli will not start producing until next March, but has plenty of leaf already.

The other green area is more of a remnant offering leaf beat, beetroot and leeks.

(Under the net is more kale and some Chinese cabbage.  Despite the net the leaves have been pockmarked by some pest).  So end of season is here but there are still harvests to look forward to.

Fffrost

 Looks like I harvested the winter squash in the nick of time as the first frost struck last night.