Catching up

Well, we're back from two weeks in the Indian sun. Now surrounded at home by a few heaps of washing, half-empty suitcases and a selection of hastily-organised Christmas gifts. (Note to self - if returning from holiday on a Sunday evening, consider booking the Monday off work too. Otherwise a week of exhaustion follows.)

Popped down to the allotment this afternoon, the first chance we've had since getting back from Goa. And everything seemed fine! The chilly weather has meant that the weeds haven't taken over as feared, though some of the grass is sneakily encroaching on the edges of the beds.

Last week my Garlic Lovers' Pack arrived (yey!)


So today we planted out about 100 individual cloves - nine different garlic varieties. Actually, ten, if you also count the garden-centre-bought garlic which Adam planted before we went away.

So we have ...

• Elephant Garlic - two MASSIVE cloves!
• Solent Wight
• Aquila Wight
• Early Large Purple Wight
• Lautrec Wight
• Iberian Wight
• Provence Wight
• Chesnok Wight
• Albigensian Wight
• and a random white variety from the garden centre. Can't find the label...

Here's Adam preparing four beds down at the bottom of the plot. And all four now have garlic in... That's going to be a lot of garlic!







And in other non-garlic-related news, the brassicas are doing well - the red cabbage especially is looking great. The brussels sprouts, however, are tiny! I'm not sure what's gone wrong this year but I doubt we'll have any to eat for Christmas. The plants are about 6 inches high and - although they're healthy-looking, the sprouts are about the size of a pea!

Mud, mud, glorious mud

We popped to the allotment last weekend, only for it to start raining and the ground slowly turn to mud under our boots. I guess everything was still waterlogged from the rain, sleet and snow the previous week. We picked some brussels sprouts and Adam put some manure on a few more of the beds, but really it wasn't the weather to be outside. There's nothing worse than tramping around a muddy allotment, your feet twice their usual size because of the clogging, oozing, sticky, gloopy, murky, mucky mud, and three times as heavy, and the rain somehow seeping down the back of your trousers when you bend over to dig. Yuck! So we went home.



But today we've spent a couple of hours catching up. Adam carried the compost bin from home to be added to the big heap - all that chicken poo (chickens poo a lot!) is going to do some good - and I carried the last of three big ex-olive-importing drums to use as a water butts. After getting the cricks out of our backs we sowed the first double row of broad beans, and also planted about 100 Centurion onions and sixty-something shallots too. In the picture above, the first three beds on the right are now full of onions, shallots and garlic... plus a patch of chard which went in before the winter.

The rhubarb is starting to make an appearance, breaking through the earth like some kind of weird creature. We'll have to find a big bucket and force it again as it was really tasty last year.

It's a good feeling to have got some things in the ground, especially as it's Six Nations season now, so we keep getting distracted at the weekends. Ah well, as long as we get the parsnips sown in time, I'm sure everything else can manage without us for a little bit.

In the bleak mid-winter...

...frosty winds, earth hard as iron, water like a stone? I wonder if whoever wrote that carol was a gardener?

Anyway, I'd better bring you up to date on the plot, hadn't I? Obviously the chooks have been the most exciting thing of the past few weeks in terms of producing our own food, but the allotment is still chuntering away in the background.

Looks a bit bleak though, doesn't it? And that front left bed definitely needs weeding before the grass takes over completely... (add to To Do list...)

At home, we're still eating our own potatoes, onions and shallots, although supplies of each are starting to get a bit low. We've got two small pumpkins left, and Adam is working through a batch of courgette chutney in his cheese sandwiches for lunch. In the freezer we've still got frozen broad beans and runner beans too. All in all, most pleasing. The damsons were the main disappointment - a distinct lack of them anywhere in the world (it seems) means we'll have no damson gin this Christmas. Apparently it was A Bad Year for damsons...

We went to the plot last weekend and did a bit of tidying. And pillaging, if I'm to be truthful. The plot next door had been paid for but (as you can just about see on the picture above - to the left of out plot) nothing's been done. Now their rent has expired the secretary can re-let the plot, which shouldn't be too hard - it's got a shed and everything! - but also said people could take any of the 'stuff' the previous occupants had left behind. There was some wood and some corrugated metal sheets which went to be recycled into someone's new shed, and we nabbed a gargantuan water tank (with a hole in, as it happens, but we'll patch it, oh yes). Plus there is a compost bin half full of luscious, crumbly goodness which *might* work its way over to our patch. I feel slightly guilty about taking things, but maybe that's part of what allotmenteering is all about - making use of other people's unwanted 'junk'. You should see some of the sheds going up on the plot- one of them is - so far - tied together with old rags (I kid you not!).

My dad brought us three large drums to use as water butts (Dad - we still owe you a beer) so now we can set up a nice system round the back of the shed and we'll have no problems with water storage. It's not really something we've had to worry about so far. Since we've had the plot we haven't even really had to think about watering in the summer, as the summers have been, well, wet, to say the least. But it's always been on our minds that we don't have quite enough water butts about.

Our garlic and onions are doing ok, all poking their little pointy shoots through the soil. Our different types of garlic have shown an obvious difference. The garden centre bought bulbs emerged first, with bright green shoots, but only now have the bulbs we bought from Pat's deli on the corner put in an appearance. The garden centre bulbs were white, so we tried to buy pinker bulbs from Pat's and, indeed, the shoots do have a pink tinge.

And here's the cauli. Beautiful curly whirly shapes. Some of the others - the yellowish varieties - are looking a bit sick, and slightly browned. Maybe they got frosted a couple of weeks ago? I'm not sure what's up, never having grown cauliflowers. But we've tied up the leaves which is supposed to protect them so hopefully they'll be decent enough for us to eat. The purple ones are still looking good. Oh, and we should have just enough brussels sprouts for Christmas. After trying to be so careful and grow more plants this year, we've actually ended up with less than last year! Damn slugs... Watch out, or we'll set the chickens on you!

Spring greens and a tiny invasion

Finally, I've got around to updating what we did last week...

Here (as promised) is a pic of some of our tomato seedlings as they were last week. They've grown a lot more already! I'm amazed that so many have germinated, so it looks like there'll be a lot of thinning to do. (Is it just me, or does the one in the middle looks like it's going 'taa- daa!' ?)

At the allotment last Sunday Adam finished digging the far end of the plot - the section that's been covered over for the past year. Apparently he still hates bindweed... There were so many roots in the soil it was impossible to get it all. I think we're going to have a problem for a few years to come!

I sowed some more spinach for some greens in the summer. We also sowed a double row of mange tout and a double row of sugar snap peas. I'll need to get some twiggy sticks to protect and support them and keep the birds off.

The radishes are coming on nicely. Speaking of which, Phil came over to show us his first 'crop' - a small but perfectly formed radish. Can't wait 'till ours are ready.

We've decided to make one of the cabbage beds into a salad bed. It's already got the radish growing in one corner, and the lettuce along one side, so as we pick the cabbages from now on we'll sow beetroot, more lettuce and radish, and maybe some basil and salad leaves and see how things go.

No sign of the carrots or parsnip germinating. How long do you give things before you give up and sow some more???

We picked a couple of cabbages for dinner - and on one of the smaller ones I discovered an aphid invasion...

Aaah! Gerroff!!!



I also cleaned out my shed and had a bit of a sort out. I used a couple of bits of carpet and some water containers to make a bench seat at the back of the shed. So now visitors have somewhere to sit and we can hide from the rain in comfort!

I hope to get lots done this week - I've got a week off work and a friend coming to stay who's really keen to help out. And that's great because I was looking at the packets of seed last weekend and we have LOADS to do! All of a sudden it's 'all systems go'! It only seems like a few weeks ago it was the middle of winter and I was longing for spring - and now it's here I wish I had a bit more time for planning things!

Someone has also started working on the plot behind ours - one which had a massive blackberry bush on. Somehow they managed to clear it in one day! That's what I call hard work! It's nice to have more people around us - last year we felt we were slightly on the edge of the 'good' plots, but now we have neighbours all around which is great for sharing tips and seeds. Plus, the more plots that are cultivated the fewer weeds go to seed and blow onto our nicely tilled earth.

Here's a bit of an update...


The front left bed has cabbage, lettuce, a few radish on the far left and some spinach just sowed (This'll be the salad bed). Behind that is the carrots and parsnip (supposedly, no sign yet), then there's the broad beans with 2 artichoke plants on the left. Past that is the onion-y bed (onions, garlic and shallots), and then in front of the compost heap there's the seed bed with kohl rabi, leeks and brussels sprouts which will germinate any time soon, I'm sure...

Then, front right - well, there's nothing in the first bed yet (!), then there's some peas sown under netting, with more cabbages behind. The next one has the first rows of mange tout and sugar snap peas, then there are 2 beds of potatoes (picasso, then home guard), and that's as far as we've got!

Spring-like sunshine

Wow, busy weekend. Kate and Tim came to stay on Saturday and (yet again) watching the rugby in a nice pub with beer and tasty treats took priority. We managed to squeeze in a visit to the plot on Sunday, but spent the best part of an hour just enjoying the glorious sunshine with a cup of shed-brewed tea and reminding ourselves that it's actually February.

(This tulip was in a vase, by the way, I don't have obscenely early tulips in the garden or anything.)

I'm having to control myself, and not forget that IT'S NOT SPRING YET. Even though it's been nice and warm during the day there's been frost the last couple of mornings which new tender little seedlings really won't like. So I mustn't get carried away and plant anything yet, give it another month at least. It could yet snow...

No sign yet of any growth on the onions, shallots or broad beans. But the garlic is going great guns (strange phrase)... Our local market has a stall, which sells everything from chilli sauce to chutneys, and they did a fantastic sweet garlic chutney which was just gorgeous when swirled through mashed potato. But they don't do it any more, which makes me sad. So I'm going to attempt to make my own in the autumn.

I made lamb meatballs today, and, as an aside, will share my made-up recipe with you, loyal blog readers...

Minty-lamb meatballs with parsley and coriander

• 500g fresh lamb mince
• 2 onions, very finely chopped
• 2 slices brown bread (stale-ish) made into breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs
• handful of fresh coriander, chopped
• handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 tablespoons mint sauce
• Generous sprinkling of salt and pepper

(this will serve 4 people, about 6 meatballs each). Simply bung everything in a bowl and mix it together (use your hands, don't be squeamish). Then shape the mix into balls, golf-ball sized or smaller. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour to chill and firm up. Roll in flour and fry in a little oil 'til brown and crispy on the outside. Serve in a tomato sauce. Yum.

"Oh, to be young and in shorts"

After hearing the above said on Scrubs on TV, Adam seems to have adopted it as his motto - to be quoted when the sun is shining and he wishes his legs were on show. Today was a gorgeous day - felt more like April than January - and so the shorts were most definitely on.

It hasn't rained for a couple of days so the ground was dry enough to plant our onion and shallot sets. We've created a big bed specifically for oniony things, except leeks, which'll go somewhere else where they can stay put over the winter. We've now got a few rows of garlic, the earliest of which were planted about a month ago, and are already growing, plus about 45 shallots, which will multiply, and at least a million onions. (More like a hundred, actually, but still - I think we may have overestimated our onion consumption.) Here's me (or at least my legs) watering the onion bed.

Also made a start on The Biggest Strawberry Patch In The World, which may have developed its own currency and capital city, it has got that huge. Seriously, the little blighters have sent runners off everywhere. The patch came as part and parcel of the plot, and last summer produced tonnes and tonnes of strawberries. I'd made a feeble effort to weed the patch when we first got the plot in late April 07, but the ground was baking hard and I only got about a third of the way through before deciding that in fact it would probably be ok, seeing as how it'd survived at least one year of total neglect. But, this is the season of Getting The Allotment Organised, so the dreaded task could be put off no longer. It had to be tackled head-on. After attempting to weed between each individual strawberry plant, I decided that was a silly idea and would take the best part of a year. The thing to do was to dig the whole patch, pull out weeds and strawberry plants alike, and then re-plant the best strawberries in sensible rows - all the easier to put straw down between them and to pick the tasty fruit in the summer.

Didn't get very far. There are so many weeds - including bindweed roots - that I only dug about a quarter of the total amount in 2 hours! But we do now have one nice strawberry patch - one of an intended four - looking all neat and tidy.

We also met some new allotmenteers, Peter and Jenny, who have taken on a plot near to ours. They're friends of Phil, who's got a plot next-door-but-one from us, the other side of the giant blackberry bush. It's nice to see some more people in the area around us, not only for the purposes of having a chat, sharing tips and getting to know everyone, but also because the more plots near us that are tended, the fewer the number of weeds that'll set seed and blow onto our freshly turned earth, where they'll decide it's nice and put down endless roots.

And it's nearly February already! Time to plant broad beans methinks...