Recovering from hard knocks

I moved the rhubarb and the Swiss chard and they didn't like it. They wilted, withered and sulked.

(The rhubarb had to be moved despite being very happy in the dead zone behind the water butt to make way for a new path - hope it survives).

You should usually cut back large leaves to give plant chance of surviving. This means they can concentrate their efforts on establishing roots not on other matters like photosynthesising through leaves. Unfortunately I was in a hurry and just dumped them in the ground without even a splash of water.

It's easy to forget that plants need care from us if we want the best from them - most often in forms of time, food and water. But also just pay them attention - watch for signs of stress or recovery.

Here's a (rare) philosophical thought - plants are like people. We also can sulk and shrink as we change situations. As we move out of our comfort zone we have to adapt. In that moment of adjustment we can flounder a little and feel pulled in several directions - maintaining showy magnificent leaves while trying to put down roots and find deeper sources of stability and sustenance. Sometimes it's too much to do at once and you flounder.

At times like this, maybe it's a good idea to take a lesson from plants and concentrate your energies into one goal.

Here endeth the lesson.

Seven degrees and sowing

They say that 7 degrees are when things start to germinate (including weeds sadly) but to me it feels colder than last week. Though dry, the winds are bitter.

The period between February/ March when the last of the winter veg are harvested and may when the spring veg start to crop is called the hungry gap. It's clearly a hungry gap for the birds as they've stripped the leaves off some of my brassica seedlings. I hasten to add I won't miss them and they were refugees from other parts of the plot that must have germinated late.

I am preparing a list of what to sow and plant.

In March I want to plant:
Outside - mangetout, potatoes, beetroot, corn salad and winter salad leaves.
Indoors (end of the month) - tomato, courgette. Squash, extra mange tout and broad beans just in case the ones I plant outside don't do well.

The magazines suggest waiting till the end of the month before sowing the tomatoes and squash to avoid them getting leggy.

To come later: French beans

I will also get the salads from supermarkets and plant out as I find lettuce difficult to germinate

PS the purple sprouting brocolli is still not sprouting much more. Lovely leaves though.

A time of contrasts

Yesterday was the 8th March, Pancake Day, and there is blossom on the trees. But there has also been frost overnight. While it looks stunning on the recently emerged wrinkly rhubarb leaves it has softened the new chard leaves which are particularly susceptible as I moved them at the weekend.

It is important when planning, sowing and planting out seedlings not to let optimism carry you away. We had frosts mid May last year and that would easily knock vulnerable tomato seedlings back (or kill them).

Why was I down on the allotment at 8am on a work day (or any day)? I was clearing the kitchen of the last of our potato harvest which had sprouted prolifically. I didn't want to replant them as the varieties were all mixed up but didn't want them to go to waste. I may gave made a mistake by putting them on the compost heap as they may grow again (as my old discarded rhubarb crown has) in the compost. Any other ideas on what to do with them?

Potatoes, shallots and garlic

I planted up garlic in among the rhubarb (including the plants I had to move because they are building a new path). The elephant garlic is also looking good.

I have 2 varieties of shallot I planted - Red Sun and Golden Gourmet (two packs of the latter one of which was from Poundland and in fact had more bulbs than the pack from B&Q). Come end of July/ early August I hope to harvest a bumper crop. I planted them in furrows 10cm deep, 10cm apart and kept rows 20cm apart to allow for hoeing. Golden Gourmet is supposed to be sharp while red sun is supposed to be gentler in flavour.

I also harvested the last of the Jerusalem artichokes and replanted a few of the tubers to grow again this year.

I relocated the Swiss Chard as edging to the plot.

Finally, I planted 4 varieties of potato. Positioning the Maris Piper and Charlotte closest to the rhubarb/ garlic to allow the space freed up by the speedy first earlies Rocket and Pentland Javelin to be planted up with something else. I forked over the soil into the trenches so that it would be easier to create a furrow. The only one where I didn't was the Maris Piper and I'm concerned that the soil is too compacted.

I didn't find time to plant the Autumn Bliss raspberry canes from B&Q nor the asparagus crowns from Aldi.

Know your onions

Apparently this is the time of year to start growing onions. I am already growing chives and garlic chives which are part of onion or allium family. I also have some wild garlic growing in my back garden.

I won't be bothering with real onions which as far as I can see you plant as small onions and, after much weeding and hoeing, grow into big onions. Hardly a spectacular outcome when you consider how cheap they are in shops.

I have decided though to try growing shallots this year. Not only are they pricier to buy in shops but they often seem to be favoured by chefs for having a subtler flavour. Shallots also multiply from one bulb to produce more which seems like a better return on my time and effort.

The sort I particularly covet is the long banana style one. Varieties mentioned are Jermor, Delvad, Hative de niort and Pesandor.

I am hoping they turn up in Poundland or Aldi before I have to make a trip to B&Q. In fact I went to B&Q and they don't have any. The search goes on.

It also turns out that I have some Welsh onions. These are perennial evergreens that can be used like spring onions. They should be divided every 2 years.

Garlic also comes under the onion family name but these would have done better if I had planted the cloves in November. I did for the elephant garlic but we'll just have cross our fingers for the ones I planted at the weekend.

Setting a mad March pace

The passing of a couple of days means that with the arrival of March it is now time to finish digging and start sowing seeds and considering potatoes.

As I live in the south we are lucky enough to have relatively mild weather but still it doesn't do to be too confident. Last year we had frosts as late as mid May. I will carry on regardless full of hope for an early spring.

After a tempting spring morning, last weekend brought more rain and a drop in temperature. This means the soil is too claggy and wet to dig. Trying to turn wet earth makes it not only heavy, back threatening work but also that the soil structure is damaged and it encourages compaction which eliminates nutrients, water and air that plant roots need.

Despite not having finished last year's harvest of potatoes, I have already been sucked into planning for this coming year. Aldi had a special offer on vegetable plants and seeds and I fell for it. Now they are languishing in my kitchen waiting for me to plant them out. I also have last year's potatoes sprouting like mad.

I bought two variety of seed potato - pentland javelin that is supposed to be a good early variety that has a firm, waxy texture that is ideal for salads and Maris piper that is a good floury all rounder that is great for chips, roasts and mash. I'm tempted by a bag of charlotte's, another salad variety and would also love to try an unusual variety like anya or pink fir which are both long in shape and strangely enough pink fit is actually pink (wonder if it loses the colour on cooking like the blue potato does). However I suspect I have already run out if space. I still need to dig over the area I have allocated for the potatoes (clearly - as the picture shows!).

I am planning on following the advice on rotation and will be moving the potato area to where the tomatoes  and squashes last grew. While neither tomatoes nor squash fall into the standard rotation groups and I am reducing the amount of brassicas I'm growing it still makes sense to rotate plants to reduce the build up of diseases and depletion of nutrients.
Also Aldi had asparagus crowns and I intend to devote half of one of the raised beds to them as they are a permanent crop that deserve being well treated. I did also have some last year but I fear they got trampled in the brassica harvesting.

Brassica today

It has been a dreadful winter apparently for British brassica farmers. While Lincolnshire would normally be awash with cauliflowers it has merely produced fields of brown slush. Apparently the harsh winter has stunted growth or stopped it completely.

It seems we will be reduced to buying our Brussels sprouts from johnny foreigner. (perhaps apt as Agatha Christie's archetypal Belgian is named after the French for leek.)

They should have come to new cross where the green stuff is still plentiful. Though now I'm fretting that the winter will have stopped my purple sprouting broccoli from sprouting and I will have hosted and tended them all year for nothing.

PS while looking up statistics from the news for this blog I discovered that someone actually goes to the effort of publishing a fine periodical called Brassicas Today. With a website. And they have events. Oh my.