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.

Frost and physalis

Top tip: Keep trying exotics - they might surprise you

Well not only have we had amazing frosts but we have also had snow showers that disabled the Southeast and threatened Brussel sprout farmers. Apparently despite frosts making sprouts sweeter, the snow and prolonged bad weather has meant that farmers can't harvest during their usual hours (the sprouts go black if picked when frozen) so hopefully my few on the allotment will be worth a million pounds. Well, a girl can hope.  Mind you, as we are not allowed to profit from the plot I will just have to enjoy the kudos of serving our own sprouts on Christmas day.

In the mean time I have been enjoying using kale which I can sometimes find a bit tough in an Asian inspired dish. Boil up the leaves in chicken stock and add noodles and sprinkle with dried shallots - a perfect and nourishing lunchtime snack.

Just before the frosts hit I had the excitement of harvesting the first and last of the physalis or cape gooseberries as they are known. I thought they would never ripen and thought the seedling I bought at the Hilly Fields Country Fayre would be a complete dud. It grew but stayed a resolute green. And then by magic, fruits appeared. Not many but they were lovely.

Tangy and sweet, they are great dipped in melted chocolate but they are great on their own too.  It just goes to show don't give up on a plant too soon (unless it's carrots, peppers or aubergine where it really isn't worth it).

When is late too late? What did well and what suffered from a late planting

Well the ground has been cleared for the shed and many plants have been cleared away. All but a few beans have been cleared, I just left a few for seeds for next year. The cauliflower  I was so proud of was a victim to the shed clearance.

While the cabbages are bulking up nicely they have been in the ground all year and take up a lot of space so may not feature so heavily next year. Cavolo nero, which is expensive and hard to find, and pak choi (pictured), which are quick growing, can be sown late in the season and is good in stir fries may be the only representatives of the brassica family next year.

Chilli peppers and aubergine took too long to mature and the physalis (cape gooseberry to me and you) is prolific but green so unlikely to be on the menu again.  The asparagus pea that  planted had one lonely scarlet flower but I will try again next year and sow it earlier.

Having left a few tomatoes on the plants, disaster struck and we suffered full blown blight in the damp late season.  A lesson to us all to clear away and create chutney!

The Jerusalem artichokes are flowering (like tiny sunflowers) and apparently can be harvested from Autumn through to Spring.

Other successes are the giant radishes. The curse of the radish seems to have well and truly lifted and I am producing monster plants. They will be grated and added to salads in the future.

Previously,  mentioned the late sowings of the poundland potatoes has produced a decent crop. Of course now the potatoes have gone the cats have moved in. Grrr.  Any ideas on how to stop them?



Keep going - or else stop when it gets too tough...

I have an admission to make. I can't grow radishes. Yes, the seeds that are supposedly so easy to grow they are given to impatient children to grow and I can't grow them. Well, that's not strictly true. The first two times I tried nothing happened other than a couple of woody narrow stems.

Sometimes though it is worth persisting. I've got the hang of it now. I have no idea why better but I have planted in looser ground and that seems to work. As a result for my persistence I was rewarded with bumper crop of over 700g. Unfortunately I now have no idea how to use them all up. So far all I have done is to grate and freeze them.

Other problem plants I have had have been: carrots, peppers and aubergines.

I fail to see the benefit of growing carrots. They are slow to germinate, cost a pittance to buy in shops and when home grown, are a nightmare to prepare.

Equally I won't bother with peppers or aubergines in the future. They take up precious propagating space in the spring and, without a greenhouse, they are slow growing and unproductive. I don't even have a hint of an aubergine and my peppers are green and unprolific at best. They might be better in a greenhouse however as I am about to devote precious space to an overgrown shed (a result of a planning permission cock up). The only ones that might see a decent crop that isn't green and bitter are the long thin ones given to me by a neighbour.  They have three more weeks to turn red otherwise it's curtains for them.

Dealing with a deluge of tomatoes

With over 6 kilos of tomatoes that have come off the plot in the last fortnight I have been investigating new ways of dealing with them.

As the majority of them are the 'Garden Pearl' variety that I have found a little watery and flavourless I was particularly keen to try out recipes that enhance the flavour.

A great one was to create 'sun-dried' tomatoes. Given there isn't an Italian level of sun around I used the oven instead.

Slice tomatoes into thirds (depending on size), scatter a little salt over them and place into an oven preheated to around 100 degrees C.  Keep an eye on them if your oven, like mine, has hotter patches than others. It's wise to use a silicone baking sheet to save on washing up as the juices caramelise and make it a pain to clean. When they look dried (but not burnt) then pop them in a jar and cover with oil. Scatter them in salads or in pasta and enjoy the taste of summer tomatoes well into the Autumn.

The tomatoes when ready for potting up.

I also slow cooked some cherry tomatoes, garlic, red onions and red peppers and blended it together for a healthy chilled soup.

When I get more flavoursome tomatoes off the plot then I might create great vats of pasta sauce but it's not worth it when the tomatoes aren't already bursting with flavour.