Squash challenge

It's that time of year again. The time when squash become a staple of our diet and I need to get creative in the kitchen.

Currently we have 4.41kg of yellow patty pan squash which look like mini flying saucers but taste much better.

On top of that a kind allotment neighbour, Adrian, offered me 3 of his courgettes which had overgrown into marrows when he wasn't looking. (Another 3.06kg)
Definitely time to search out the squash recipes.

The weather has been weird - more like April sunshine and showers. (17/8)
Tomatoes are starting to ripen but I should have staked them, fed them and pinched out side shoots. They are now prolific and resting on the ground.

I also cut down the old raspberry canes but didn't have time to take them to the tip. With winter brassicas in under weed suppressing fabric it's starting to look ready for Xmas.As I said I planted winter brassicas through weed fabric but most have been eaten. How can I help them survive?

I also stripped our stairs of carpet so will use that over a mulch of manure to prepare the soil for planting next year.

Assessing the harvest to date

After a fair bit of neglect, a late start because of frosts and a recent heatwave (including a plague of flying ants) it's surprising that there has been anything to harvest. And yet there has been. By far the best performer has been the raspberry patch - 7.2kg by the 26th July. There are more raspberries to pick but it's just too wet to pick them today. That should probably be the last picking then I can dig up plants near the path and cut down the old canes.

The mangetout are still giving a little (660g) though they are best as peas now

I get the occasional red currants from the plants in the garden - they are very tart but have high levels of vitamin C so are best mixed into a smoothie.

I'm so glad that I started growing some cutting flowers - I got this great bunch of statice which will also dry well and give me colour even in the winter. I also saw a brave first gladioli (Gladiolus) flowering in the rain today.

The latest, and more or less final, haul of potatoes was 4.5kg. Not bad but it could be improved with better soil preparation ahead of planting next year.

In a strange turn of weather it is now the 30th July and pouring down.  I got two more little patty pan squashes, taking my total harvest to 1.3kg, so I have to find some great recipes to use them up.

Looking towards future harvests, the tomato plants have developed little fruit and one of them is almost red. I didn't stake or pinch out side shoots so they will be a little floppy and will put too much effort in creating new fruit rather than feeding the existing ones but I'm still looking forward to the next summer harvest.

Finally, with the potato area cleared, I have ordered plug plants of winter/ spring brassicas to use up the space. the debate I'm having is whether to try to plant through a weed suppressing fabric to reduce work as I am starting a new job and want to concentrate my time on the allotment on fun things not weeding.

It might as well rain until September

So we are at mid- late May and the temperature is still in the low teens.  Even though I have done the great winter summer clothes swap over, nobody has told the weather gods and I am hankering after thick jumpers and duvet coats.

The cold weather isn't deterring my greatest garden enemies - the slugs and snails are definitely getting into swing of things. Not known to be nature's acrobats, they are reaching new heights in among my roses and eating the flower buds off my flag irises. Apparently there is a new Spanish slug invading but to be honest I'm equal opportunities in my hatred of all slugs (snails at least give you something to hold without covering your hands in slime.)  Salt is very effective to kill them (they shrivel alarmingly fast) but does leave a CSI-like outline around the desiccated corpse.

I took advantage of brief sunny spell last weekend to weed a bit and plant out (most) of the seedlings.  After planting I watered them with some of Bernie's magic water which apparently is used to help plants establish roots and has worked wonders on his crop so far.

In my rush though I forgot to cover the brassicas. I promise myself that I will do it at same time as I plant out beans and sweet peas that I forgot to plant. If I don't then the brassicas will be ripped to shreds by the pigeons and the snails/ slugs will have eaten all the bean seedlings.

I'm cold and considering yet another jumper. Will we never see the sun again?

Tiny brassica seedlings

The brassica seedlings are up but I have been mistreating them.

They are stressed from the delay in potting on that my laziness has created. Leaving them out int he garden hasn't really helped as there are also thirsty for water.

At least the good weather meant they are acclimatised but I had to quickly find space for them. I didn't want to use up all my allotment space on these slow growing plants but equally I can't bear to let them die and, in the winter, I am grateful for their harvest.  So I have tucked them into my home veg patch which is in shadow and also popped a few among my raised bed.

They like firm roots so make sure the soil around their roots is well tapped down.

The temporary plantings of shallot in peat pots were doing so well that I transferred them onto the plot where the other shallots already seem to be dividing themselves - exciting.

I finally planted up the free potato kit on the royal wedding day - maybe a little late but we will see if this second attempt at growing potatoes in containers will work. They are already putting on good top growth and I have earthed them up a little more.

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.

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.

Creating structure out of chaos

Top tip:
Have a plan but stay flexible. consider the essentials such as access to water and which way the garden is facing. Leave space for courgettes and squashes to grow - more space than you thought was necessary.

24.07.10
“We adore chaos because we love to produce order.” - M. C. Escher
“Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.” - Stephen Sondheim

I have to admit I like creating something out of nothing. I like imposing structure where previously there was disorder. I also love a plan. After reading vast amounts of books and websites, I drew up a plan. To scale.

In my favour, I wasn’t as anal a fellow new allotmenteer who was seeing marking in each individual plant on an incredibly detailed plan of his plot. I just created zones of planting and winged it from there.

I took into account which direction most of the allotment faced (South), where there were hard structures already that would be hard to move (water butt, wall and wooden posts formerly used for runner beans), I also started creating zones. I decided I would turn the former runner bean area into my fruit cage (or actually fruit area until I get around to doing cage things to it) where fruit can grow permanently. I highlighted an area for compost that had access but that wasn’t in a prime area – this will move again a little next year as it takes up too much space.

I made a list of all the fruit and vegetables I like and that I would like to try to grow. I then grouped them by type. Books differ on what is and isn’t in these groups (and how many groups there are) but roughly speaking there are the brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, sprouts and such like), legumes (peas and beans), roots (carrots, swede, beetroot, onions, garlic etc) and everything else (tomatoes, squash, courgette, sweetcorn, potatoes, peppers). In fact there is also a final group of permanent vegetables and fruit such as asparagus, rhubarb, currants, strawberries and raspberries.

Once you have these crops it is advised to rotate them every year to avoid build up of disease and to avoid the same crops over using certain minerals in the soil.
Some of the features I liked about my allotment also meant that I had to sacrifice some growing space - access to compost, the water butt and a path that was installed to reach it. There is also an arcane rule about how far away from the wall I am allowed to plant in case it creates damp. This means that I am in process of finding new ways to fit in more plants. I am reclaiming an area around the corner and starting to use wasted space under climbers and between slow growing plants like cabbages.

Other unspoken rules that I have been made aware of and had to allow for are that you should keep bushy plants away from paths and you shouldn’t grow tall things where they will cast shadow – a neighbour got into big trouble for growing Jerusalem artichokes and letting them get out of control.

Overall I have underestimated the space some crops will need and despite following packet instructions my courgettes are so close together now it is almost impossible to bury among the leaves to reach the little green fingers. The suspected summer squash (Patty Pan) is making a break for Kent through the brassicas (cue much head shaking from a neighbour who holds brassicas very dear to his heart).

The current layout of the allotment (or lottie as some afficianados call theirs) is based on a pre-agricultural revolution style: a patchwork of crops fitted in where the will took me and in-filling when something has been harvested. While this is attractive I do admire the more uniform rows and neat zones of other plots. They also have the advantage of allowing easier hoeing without fear of cutting an emergent plant off in its prime.