Looking to the future with an eye on the past

Which sounds like a physical impossibility but I've been in training for my half marathon so am in peak condition...

Looking around the half (well, quarter) dug plot I see signs of emerging shoots everywhere despite the recent cold snap.  Pink noses of rhubarb are poking through the earth and there are signs that the Purple Sprouting Broccoli did not fail completely - the plants that managed to survive the winter and being eaten by birds and other beasts are bravely hinting at the purple joy to come.  The Autumn sown broad beans also seem to be boldly announcing the fact that spring is on its way.

Looking back over last year's entries I see that this time last year we were suffering from overly warm weather whereas now we are at the mercy of the Beast from the East (cold weather that is coming from Siberia) and snow is predicted for tonight and temperatures of around 0 degrees are predicted to last until Wednesday.

As I hunker down under the duvet and avoid the prospect of a long run, it seems the perfect time to review my best intentions and learnings from last year so I can try to avoid the pitfalls this year.

Starting with the old faithfuls, potatoes.  Last year my potatoes were planted on St Patrick's day (20th March). This year St Patrick's day is 10 days early so I might wait to plant them until Easter which is also early this year (30th March).  I still need to dig trenches (which were dug on 27/2 last year) and LABEL the varieties.

Overall jobs I need to do when I venture into the cold:
Mulch and manure
Plant garlic and onions (February is the last month to do this)
Clear up accumulated rubbish
Tie in raspberries
Weeding of perennials weeds

I have also reworked my planting plan to rotate the potatoes, onions and brassicas into new areas. This is tough when space is limited and some crops (eg onions and potatoes take up a pretty big amount of space)

As part of Lent I have toyed with giving up booze (fail fairly spectacularly at least once a week).  An alternative resolution is to use up all the frozen vegetables in the chest freezer by the time Easter comes. This means various bowls of green mush squatting in the fridge inducing guilt in me.  The trusty layers terrrine of vegetables bound together by egg in a loaf tin has been very useful in using up the old vegetables. 

The cauliflower was used up in the form of a cauliflower cheese (weightwatchers recipe but pimped up a bit with extra cheese - oops).

March is around the corner and then things will start really speeding up - with seed sowing and preparations.

Tasks to to in early March:
Sow broad beans - a little deeper than last year
Remember I had some good Jerusalem Artichoke recipes in March last year
Also try out a salsa verde with J Artichokes which tasted amazing at a restaurant we went to in north London - the sharp zing contrasted well with the earthy sweetness of the artichokes.

Deep breaths....

Weighing up 2010

Despite the snow and ice thawing and in theory I could revisit the allotment and start digging. But as the rain falls I still don't feel like it.

Instead I am enjoying staying on my sofa and dreaming of the crops to come in 2011. Surrounded by seed catalogues and an insatiable urge to buy more seeds and plants I find it useful to look in my seed store to see what I already have, look over past posts to remember what was problematic and, in a nerdy way, look at my crop spreadsheet.

Not only did I weigh every harvest (apart from a few of the later ones) and chronicle when they were harvested but I also went round a local supermarket getting a guide price per kilo so I can now work out which crop was worth the effort and if the plot itself broke even.

As we were starting from scratch there was some spending (£253) on tools and plants and scaffolding for raised beds (still not built!) which will be spread over the years but on the whole it seems to have worked out well. I slipped up a little in record keeping in the party season and didn't measure everything (including the Brussels sprouts on Christmas day) and don't have prices for all the vegetables I grew but even taking that into account, the value of what was grown was £800 (and 187kg of produce). Of course we had to buy a new freezer to keep them all in!

By far the most productive vegetable was the tomato - 67kg and worth £374 alone. 23kilos of Runner beans while worth a decent amount, £152, was excessive as they are not as versatile as tomatoes and courgettes. I also got 23kg of courgettes (worth £79) however they proved to be great for cakes and stews though not so good at freezing as they get water-logged.   26 kilos of potatoes were very welcome and we are still eating them now. Definitely worth repeating again though I will have to switch our carb habits from pasta and rice to potatoes so we use them up quicker.  Jerusalem artichokes are promising to be very productive too - 3.6kg from just one plant already. Delicious and difficult to find in shops - definitely on the list for the coming growing year. Salad is not only easy and fast to grow but also expensive to buy in shops - another winner.

The Patty Pans were cute but I wasn't fast enough in using them all, equally the excitement of finally managing to grow radishes doesn't overcome the fact I'm not too keen on them.

What else is on the plans for this year? More soft fruit like currants (red and black), gooseberries and raspberries.  I can't wait.

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.