Now we are nearly through June & harvesting has begun!

Now we are nearly through June & harvesting has begun!

I’ve already harvested the first Potatoes & Strawberries of the year this month, as well as Lettuces & Broadbeans!

I’ve been able to finish off the Lettuces ‘Little Gem’ planted in the greenhouse border as well as those that were left over from that planting at the end of February & were planted outside under a dwarf apple tree in front of the GH.

There are more to be harvested from my allotment, Plot 12A, I planted them between the two rows of bamboo canes that make up my bean frame. They will have been harvested long before the runner/green beans block out much of the light.

Lettuce ‘Little Gem’ inside bean frame:

Lettuce ‘Little Gem’ just harvested & cleaned up at home:

I also sowed some more seed of the same Lettuce, (May). I accidently had 2 packets of seeds as I thought the 1st had been lost & bought a 2nd. The 1st turned up on the GH bench, under a tray of seedlings! As each packet has 1,000s of seeds I won’t need to buy any more this summer!

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Talking about sowing seeds, I sowed some Beetroot ‘Detroit 2’, in the GH, in March, which I planted out on my plot in early May – at the same time as the Lettuces. I also sowed some Beetroot ‘Cylindra’, a few days ago, (June) in the narrow bed alongside the bean frame.

Beetroot ‘Cylindra’ just sown in bed No.3:

Never grown this type before, only the round ones. I’d added spent compost from my balcony in this bed to lighten up the soil while making it more water retaining. I’d sowed the seeds of Lettuce ‘Little Gem’ here a week or so earlier but there was still space to spare for some more seeds. This will be the first time I’ve grown cylindrical Beetroots as till now they have always been the round ones. I’ll report back on the results in a few month’s time.

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In the middle of March I planted out my early Potatoes ‘Rocket’ & ‘Pentland Javelin’ & repeated the same mistake as other years of planting them too close together!

1st Early Potatoes ‘Rocket‘ being sown:

The spacing between plants in the same row isn’t too bad but I plant the rows too close together resulting in a mess once the plants really get going as I can’t get to them properly to earth/hill them up! I put in 3 rows where I now realize I should have only put in two! A mistake I’ve made previous years! Perhaps I ought to put up a sign to remind me next year to only plant two rows of seed potatoes in each bed!

I’d “chitted” (sprouted) a bag of seed potatoes ‘Rocket’ which were planted out at the same time as ‘Pentland Javelin’ which were not “chitted”. In fact I bought them only the day before planting them out!

All the potatoes were sown in the same bed which I’d dug horse manure into a few days earlier. Potatoes being the only rootcrop that doesn’t mind growing in freshly manured ground.

Just 2 weeks ago (10th June) I dug up all the ‘Rocket’ potatoes, there was only one row of them almost the width of the allotment. I ended up with quite a decent crop as well.

Potatoes ‘Rocket’ after harvesting:

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I also sowed some Leeks ‘Musselbourgh’ & ‘Red’ Onion seeds (from my daughter) in Gerry’s GH, to go in my plot, during March. These germinated very well & have since been planted out on my allotment.

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During March I also lifted the Parsnips that had been in the ground all winter as well as lots of Leeks.

Parsnips just harvested, now in greenhouse:

I put them in the GH to dry off a little for a couple of days. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Leeks Musselbourgh just lifted:

I was very pleased with the amount of Leeks I got this winter. I harvested them every couple of weeks.
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Near the end of March I planted up a bed of Onion sets ‘Stuttgarter’ as well as a row of Garlic cloves.

Onion sets ‘Stuttgarter’ just sown:

A month before I’d planted out some Onion sets ‘Setton’:

Garlic cloves just sown:

I planted out a bed of these same Onion sets in Gerry’s 1/2 allotment.
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In early May I sowed a 2nd packet of Broadbeans as the 1st packet sown in February gave me only 3 plants – one of which I hoed away! They are called ‘Sutton’ & are a dwarf variety. Most of these seem to have germinated & are now making nice plants.

Broad beans ‘Sutton’ just germinating:

The 2 plants from the earlier sowing are flowering. This week I’ve picked some of the pods.
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May was a very busy month for me because I also planted out lots of Runner bean seeds on the bean frame, most of these were mixed seeds from last year. Some were black seeds, some speckled, some white & also a packet of ‘Scarlet Emperor’ I’d bought.

Runner bean seeds saved from 2013:

Runner beans germinating:

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Beetroot ‘Detroit 2’ seedlings inside bean frame:

Beetroot ‘Detroit 2’ in Bed No.4 (bean frame):

What a difference 14 days make!

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During May I also planted out 2 beds of Tomato plants; one, ‘Gardener’s Delight’ (a particular favourite of mine!), the other, ‘Sunstream’, a small, plum shaped fruit whose seeds I’d saved from some tomatoes my wife bought during the winter. I liked the taste of them & saved some seeds. These germinated very well in the GH, as did the others.

Tomatoes ‘Gardener’s Delight’ just planted out:

Tomato ‘Sunstream’ just planted out:

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On my plot I also sowed some Carrot ‘Purple Haze’ seed from my daughter. Never grown purple carrots before!:

I also sowed a few Sunflower seeds she gave me as well. These are in the middle of the narrow bed alongside the beanframe.

I didn’t know when I sowed the Sunflowers that they were a dwarf type! Now they are shading out the Purple Haze Carrot seedlings!

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At the far end of this bed I planted out the pots of Pansies, Daffs & Crocuses that had been growing on our balcony railings. The Pansies are doing very well & have flowered a lot. They add a welcome note of colour!

Just this week a light pink Hyacinth has begun to flower!!! I’ve never, ever heard of a Hyacinth flowering in the middle of June before!!!

Well that just about resumes what I’ve done on my allotment, Plot 12A, over the last few months!

Be back next month with more news on Gerry’s plots!

The new season on the plots 2014

The new season on the plots 2014

We are now well under way into a new season of veg growing on our plots so I thought I’d start a new blog here & at the same time record some of the things I’m doing on my own allotment, ‘Plot 12A’, as well as on my friend Gerry’s plots. I’ve mentioned before that I help him on his 1 & 1/2 allotment plots. I’ll recount some of our activity here as well.

View up Plot 58 from our shed:

I don’t seem to have taken a photo of Plot 58 from the top so I’ll use this photo of “View up Plot 58 from our shed” to give a little impression of what the plot looks like. Although the photo was taken two weeks ago little has changed in that time as we have concentrated our attention on the smaller half plot 59B.

The autumn/fall of 2013 & the winter of 2014 broke records all over the UK for the wettest since records began! It has also been a exceptionally mild winter & there have hardly been any frosts – especially in this part of the UK. The allotments field is a fair bit lower than the surrounding houses, up to almost a metre in parts. This is especially relevant in October & May when we tend to get frost earlier & later, respectively, than the gardens of the houses above us. We therefore have to contend with a frost trap which, in essence – puts an end to our frost tender plantings about the middle of October & also stops us from planting out frost susceptible plants, like beans & Sweet Corn, till the middle of May most years. We therefore only have a window of 6 months max in which to sow, plant, grow & harvest our crops, the other 6 months it is difficult to grow many things.

Due to the very wet winter we haven’t been able to anything on our plots which has put us well behind compared with other years. Nevertheless during this month of March as the weather has improved, & the plots have very good drainage, we have been able to make a start on clearing the weeds that grew during the mild winter & sowing our first few crops. Like most years it has been the first early potatoes we have planted first of all.

About the middle of March Gerry planted a bed full of seed potatoes that he had been adding horse manure to. These were First Early ‘Pentland Javelin’. These he sowed in the first bed, near the plot division.

Potatoes 1st Early ‘Pentland Javelin’ just planted out:

Since then he has worked on improving a couple of more beds with horse manure where he intends to plant more seed potatoes but this time maincrop potatoes ‘Picassa’. As these potatoes generally go in later than the earlies, he wants to get the beds ready before the weather turns wet once again & so that he can also concentrate on some other beds for future crops.

Lettuce ‘Little Gem’ seedlings & Crocuses under the small apple tree in front of the greenhouse:

The Lettuce seedlings were planted out at the same time in the greenhouse & under the apple tree. See the difference between these growing outside & these others growing in the greenhouse (photos taken same day!):

A few days ago I put up a heavy net that has been laying around in the shed for a year at least. As the winds & rains had broken down the finer mesh net I put up last year, to first protect Pea seeds from the pigeons & then to give support to the plants, I removed the rests of the netting & canes & put up this new net in its place. There are Sweetpea seedlings growing from the last year’s plants growing there & I’ve lifted them up from the ground & placed them on the netting in the hope they will continue to grow & later flower.

New net on plot division 58B:

Like Gerry I’ve been working on my own plot as well as helping him. About the same time as Gerry I also planted out a bed of first earlies, in my case some ‘Rocket’ & ‘Pentland Javelin’.

Potatoes 1st Early ‘Rocket’ being sown at far end of plot 12A:

Potatoes 1st Early ‘Pentland Javelin’ being sown at far end of plot 12A:

But I also planted some onion sets at the end of February:

Onion sets ‘Setton’ just sown:

I noticed a week ago that these have now sprouted:

At the time I planted the onion sets I also planted out seeds of Broadbeans ‘Aquadulce Claudia’:

When I last looked, last week about Tuesday, there were no signs of them sprouting yet – something that concerns me as after 4 weeks of being in the ground they should have germinated by now.

Last week I also planted some more onion sets, on my allotment & also on Gerry’s. On both allotments I sowed a complete bed the width of the plots & about 4ft wide. The sets were planted approx 6″ apart . I got 4 rows in each bed. These sets are called ‘Stuttgarter’.

Onion sets ‘Stuttgarter’ just sown:

At the same planting distances we got some really big onions last year!

Plum tree ‘Black Czar’ blossoming:

This tree is near the top of Gerry’s main allotment. I expect the yellow Plums will be flowering during the coming week also.