Lest we forget

The yearly allotment meeting is coming up and we are being encouraged to grow more winter crops. In theory this is a good idea except that the plants take up a lot of space for a very long time and aren't that exciting in terms of flavour or money saving.  Honourable exceptions, in my opinion, are cavollo nero and psb. I say that however last year my cavollo nero failed and only 2 psb plants made it through the dreadful winter/ summer. And those two plants, so full of promise a few weeks ago, seem to have been pigeoned. Damn.
We even had a slight snow shower on Easter Saturday. The plug plants remain indoors....
Just so that I remember, the seeds that I sowed on the 18th March were:
Tomato - Gardener's delight, Black Cherry
Early psb
Lemon basil
Pea Carouby de maussanne (purple mangetout)
Cosmos mixed
Verbascum
26th March and the mangetout and the psb are starting to emerge. March declared joint 5th coldest March since records began. As is traditional, I sowed some of my chitted potatoes on the plot (Maris Peer, a first early variety) and Charlotte potatoes in a bag at home. I also sowed 3 types of chilli and some cutting flowers.

Back to winter

After a single glorious spring day which sent me scurrying for the seed packets and planning outdoor activities the temperatures are due to drop from a positively balmy 13 degrees back to 0-3 degrees at the weekend. And snow. Oh good. So no burning of garden debris then.
Other tasks I'm supposed to do now according to the RHS app and weekly garden magazines (with a new magazine format for Garden News):

Weatherproof:
Penstemon cuttings
Sow broad beans
Sow peas inside
Sow tomatoes
Sow sweet peas

Big jobs that I'd prefer to have help on or at least do in the dry and warmer weather:
Fix Raspberry wires (again)
Spread manure (needs to be warm so don't trap cold in)
Cover with cardboard
Burn rubbish (unlikely to happen if the clouds open)

More urgent and secretly satisfying:
Dig behind water butt
Hand weed self seeders
Dig potato trenches
Prune red currants and gooseberries

It's not just in the allotment though. I've decided the garden deserves some love too:
Tie up rose at back
Tidy in general
Cut back jasmine
Burn rubbish
Repot blueberries
Plant fruit bushes in garden
Spray and clean patio (again need a dry day for this)

Indoors the potatoes are chitting well. Once again I have too many to plant on the plot but I will grow the surplus in sacks again this year. I just need to buy vast amounts of compost (or use the stuff in the garden come to think of it). Varieties I have are mainly early as that means they can be out early freeing up space for other crops or a second sowing (I never know whether to move this within a growing year).

The varieties are:
Maris piper - main crop
Sharps express - 1st earlies
Duke of York - 1st earlies
Golden wonder x3 which are looking very manky
Pentland javelin - 1st early
Charlotte - salad
Maris peer - early

Mother's Day and a cracking hangover limited my activities over the weekend of the 10th but I did tie up the rose and cut back the jasmine and bamboo in the garden. A distinct lack of compost put an end to seed sowing plans. Next weekend.....

2 weeks later.... Well it got even colder and on the 24th March we are experiencing the coldest March since records began. It is snowing in zone 2 in London and it's even settling.

Stuck indoors, potting compost was bought and mangetout peas, cosmos, verbascum, lemon basil, tomatoes (gardeners delight and black cherry) and purple sprouting broccoli were sown. I have also bought plug plants for 3 varieties of tomato (baby plum, cherry and money maker), chilli pepper, bell pepper, cauliflower. Now I just need the snow to stop so I can start planting things out.

Checking in with the changes

B.W. Before Weeding

After heat and drought, temperatures are back to seasonal norm and Easter onwards gave us rain. However now half the country is in drought (predicted to be the worst since 1976) and we are unlikely to have hosepipe bans lifted until December.

Temperatures at night dropped so much that the emerging potato tops have browned a little in the frost. This weekend it was time to plant last Shetland black potatoes and earth up others. This is done easily by using a rake to drag the soil from the mounds to cover the green (and brown) leaves. Damage to the leaves is noticeably worse on the plot than near house where there are no signs of frost damage.  The house itself must give them a little protection.

I finally got around to weeding the onions and garlic which are shallow rooted and hate competition. This should be a lesson to me to regularly weed rather than do a marathon job - two wheelbarrows later and I was exhausted.  But as you can see, it made a huge difference. Now I just need to fertilise them and water the Jerusalem artichokes which are in the shadow of the grape vines so don't get rained on even if it does rain.

A.W. After Weeding

Great excitment was felt (well, by me anyway) after the weeding revealed our very first stems of asparagus. 2 weedy little specimens but mine own no less.
Window box salad is through as are some spring onion shoots (I think).
We had a mini disaster with the chili seedlings. Tom knocked them off the window sill and all but 3 seedlings are no more. I suppose it's a crude form of survival of fittest. Mind you I don't need many just enough to make chili jelly. Plus  the overwintering grafted one we bought from the RHS Hampton Court flower show is coming back to life. Both tomatoes and chili are actually perennials but our winters usually kill them off and they grow so easily from seed that they are usually treated as annuals.
Other seedlings that are doing well are the butter nut squash - I need to pot them on as can't plant out yet but I want to make room for sowing giant pumpkin seeds. My beetroot and PSB (purple sprouting broccoli) probably need repotting too as they are too fiddly and tiny to plant out but I will also try to direct sow as they look unhappy in their seed trays.

Some tomato seedlings are out but I have let them get leggy and should really pot them on deeper (ie plant them with half the stem submerged) to allow for roots to form further up the stem and make sure they are sturdy.  I also want to sow the black tomatoes to test them out.  Where will I find all the place?

And they're off!

St Patrick's day saw me down at the plot harvesting the last of the Jerusalem artichokes - 4.88kg of them to be precise. This is where all my recipe books will come in handy I hope.

To start within made a Jerusalem gratin from Sarah Raven's book 'Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook'. I used what looked like a sweet potato but it was white in the middle so have assumed it was a yam. We have a kilo of prosciutto we brought back from Sicily so I was a little more generous with that. It tasted nicer than it looks here, I promise (we started eating before preserving it for posterity!)

I have also been busy on the seed sowing side.
3 types of tomato - black, moneymaker, mixed cherry
Purple sprouting broccoli
Chili

There are also now four large potato tubs on the patio with Charlotte x 2, British Queen x 1 and Ratte in. Plus a mixed lot in the old bean planter.

Last year, the planters were an unexpected success so fingers crossed for this year. The dry weather won't have helped the potatoes and garlic that need lots of water in the early growing stages. Annoyingly, having ignored potatoes most of the year they are the one thing I really want to eat but have no more in store.

The broad beans sowed on 20 February have come through. The experiment is inconclusive. I can see no difference between those exposed to the mild weather and those protected by a cloche.