The hungry gap comes late

The recent (ongoing) weather has been a disaster for the crops this year - yields are down YOY and the cupboard is bare. There is little hope of anything else coming off the plot in the near future - the beans have not survived brutal slug attack and the Brussel sprout/ curly green kale plug plants were devoured by snails in our garden.

The beetroots are looking ok though so will plant more of them (much to Tom's disgust) and I will try the supermarket salad trick again. Basically buy a tray of supermarket living salad, separate out into plantlets and replant in real soil with a decent spacing.  Surround by copper barbed wire to deter snails (I may be over-reacting here) and wait for your instant salad to grow.

With my brother-in-law over at the weekend I didn't get much allotment time but I did hear tales of prolific tomato and cucumber plants in greenhouses in Germany. No such luck here. Even friends who grew tomatoes under cover have reported that plants didn't really flower enough for a good crop.  I have a measly couple of chili peppers on the grafted pepper plant I bought last year from Hampton Court flower show. Clearly, I will have to find an alternative source for this year's chili jelly.

What I do have in abundance are weeds. They are knee high now and a source for shame when I viewed them on Sunday on a flying visit to pick 1.4kg of raspberries.  Luckily I have the weekend free so I will rip up the worst offenders to compost them and reveal the brave remaining plantlets still in the allotment.  Perhaps I will also have to resort to larger ready to pick (almost) plants to at least give me a reason to visit the plot.

I did harvest a handful of blueberries which was fun but perhaps not the best yield from 2 bushes. No sign of currants (red or black) or gooseberries though being overwhelmed by raspberries may have cramped their style - must move them this Autumn.  The good old Jerusalem artichokes seem to be ok though I will cut back the grapes to allow the torrential rains to get to the roots as it would be ironic if this year of all years they suffered from drought (as my container potatoes seemed to).

According to gardenorganic.co.uk these are things I could be sowing now:

Swiss chard

until mid August, or end of August undercover. To brighten up your winter plot, try Rainbow chard. Stems can be orange, yellow, red, bright pink or even white!

Peas	maincrop, mangetout and sugarsnap until end of July

Pak choi

until end August

Kohl rabi

until August. Try Azure Star, striking blue/purple ‘bulbs’ with white, mild flavoured  flesh

Calabrese

until end July

Beetroot

early and maincrop; until July. Try 'Boltardy', good resistance to bolting, with fine   texture and flavour

So mainly leafy things and brassicas - roll on Autumn and the new crops on the block.

Time to get serious

Written 18 June in a brief dry period.

Up until now I've had the excuse of unrelenting rain to keep me from my allotment duties. Now the deluges have stopped (for now) I need to whip the plot back into shape.

Having been away over the weekend, the best I could do was to dedicate an hour to weeding on my way home from the airport in Monday. The rain has been a blessing before the water ban was lifted but it watered the weeds as much as the vegetable plants. Once the sun cane out there was no stopping the weeds. I still have a way to go until the plot is as tidy as I would like but the worst culprits are out now.

As the garlic seems to have developed rust (at least it looks like it to me) I harvested them and I will use that space for some bought squash and courgette plants (as I am so far behind). A few fancy beetroots won't go amiss either. Maybe a few beans and the 4 tomato plants still languishing in the kitchen. The garlic have been put on the back step to dry and we are well and truly protected from vampire attack - at least from the back garden. I do hope foxes and/ or cats don't feel the need to mark the bulbs. The garlic are a striking purple - really appealing. Not bad for a crop that more or less looked after themselves over the winter.

The broad beans are romping away and I harvested 600g of beans worth which, according to Sarah Raven you should be able to get from 2kg of pods. Delicious boiled and mixed with fried bacon bits, avocado and a citrussy dressing.

Even though they say you shouldn't harvest from rhubarb in June I got an extra harvest from the strongest most established plants. The strawberries are under attack by snails which are the bane of my life (clearly it's a relatively untroubled life at the moment!).

A jubilee cake what I made...

And the rains keep coming

Well where did June go? What a wash out! We have just experienced the wettest June since records began and July hasn't started off much better with warnings of a month's rain falling in a day (which was scheduled for when I went to the open air Hampton Court Flower show but think it's this Sunday judging by what I can see out of the window).

While the water means I save on watering duties (the hosepipe ban was lifted as it seems to be the successful British equivalent of a rain dance) it also is bad news for the allotment. My main two crops seem to be weeds and snails. Not being French or having the inclination to do odd things to clean the snails enough for eating the snails are an unwelcome addition to the plot - eating my strawberries, baby squash and bean plants. Which weren't growing well anyway to be honest even before they were beheaded.

The tomato seedlings are still tiny and the ones I bought in are developing yellow leaves (I assume the nutrients are being washed away). To tackle the snail invasion my colleague has been experimenting with a number of methods - beer (diluted by rain), nematodes (expensive for large area), salt baths (unpleasant in the morning and involves a regular gathering process) and pellets. The jury is still out if there is anything you can really do against this plague of pests.

The weeds, on the other hand, I could have tackled. And I will. As soon as the weather dries out a little (please, please, please). It's important to clear weeds as they are competition for the few plants that are growing.

I could claim that in the spirit of enquiry I have been letting things follow their course but actually I'm just lazy and haven't visited the allotment enough to sort things out as I don't fancy gardening in a flood. All this inattention has taken its toll on the usual star performers. The potatoes were indeed useless - yellowing leaves usually means they are ready with their pot of gold waiting underground but this year the yield was pathetic. I must feed the ground more and try a different planting method. One variety (British Queen) was making much larger (but fewer) potatoes than the salad tubers (Swift) that were on border of getting scab. Avoid next year?

By this time last year I had harvested 12.5kg of potatoes - quite a contrast to the 6.7kg I have sitting in the kitchen. I can only hope a second sowing will have better yields. The potatoes include red and blue (a misguided jubilee idea)  and, until I looked at last year I was worried I had harvested too early especially as Bernie's are still in ground and looking healthy.   Next year...

The broad beans weren't bad (the uncovered ones seemed to have yielded a few more pods to the untrained eye but it's not really experiment conditions and I suspect location (slightly less overshadowed by the grape vines) had more to do with it. A stir fry with bacon and a garlicky houmous type crush was very tasty.

Apart from the star performers, rhubarb, another real success were the raspberries. One cursory visit on a rare dry evening yielded 1kg of the berries - they were so eager to be picked that they were falling off the plants. I haven't even ventured into the centre. The fruit seem to be on old wood. Does that mean summer or autumn fruiting? I guess this is some sort of summer. I'll cut the stems down after fruiting and see if newer stems crop in autumn. With the slightly bruised fruit (a carrier bag is not ideal transport) I made microwave jam. The recipe is on allotment.org.uk and is really easy and reliable (so far).

Onions

Just as I was running out of space the onions were ready for harvesting. By far the best and largest were the yellow onions - the white and red were small in comparison. I also lifted the elephant garlic which, while not exhibition size, was big. I have left the garlic and shallots in the ground in the hope they will get better. Who knows?

I have slow cooked the onion in readiness for a caramelised onion tart. Meanwhile the elephant garlic was trimmed, wrapped in foil and roasted in the oven.

The onion, along with some griddled courgettes, made a healthy and delicious topping for a pizza.

The rest of the onions and garlic are drying in the sun but in a sheltered place as there are storms predicted.

Most plants have been coping well in the drought and hot weather we have been having. I gave the seedlings and potatoes a good drenching with a bucket to make sure the establish well. I also sowed two varieties of courgette - yellow and golf ball size. I sowed straight into the ground which is new thing for me so I hope the do well. I also managed to harvest a tiny 200g of potatoes as I was transplanting the Christmas potatoes in the front garden. More than enough for a little potato salad.

I have to cut the raspberry canes down as they are obstructing the path. This is a real shame as they are just starting to fruit. I just didn't expect them to go this wild. Maybe retying some wires will control them long enough to allow me to harvest the fruit?

And it keeps on coming

Finally the rains seem to be on their way out and the weekend was dry enough to visit the allotment and do something useful. I weeded a bit and harvested an elephant garlic early. Not a bad size but very stinky to wander around the supermarket with.

I planted the borlotti beans, butternut squash, White sprouting broccoli and mystery tomatoes. I also bought a black cherry tomato at brockley Market so that is the only named variety I can identify for sure. As the plot seems to be a nursery for snails I hope they all make it.

The rhubarb seems to be calming down a little but I was still able to harvest 880g of rhubarb. I decided to try a new recipe - rhubarb clafoutis from River Cottage Everyday.

Rhubarb Clafoutis
from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Every Day
serves 6 (but that's generous portions each)
550g rhubarb
a pinch of cinnamon
grated zest of 1/2 orange and the juice of the whole fruit
110g sugar
50g plain flour
a pinch of sea salt
3 eggs lightly beaten
1 cup whole milk
Preheat the oven to 200degrees. Cut the rhubarb into 2-inch lengths and put it into a baking pan with the cinnamon, orange juice, and 2 tablespoons sugar. Toss well, and roast for 20 minutes until just starting to caramelize. Let it cool, and drain it in a sieve.

Turn the oven down to 180 degrees. Butter a 25cm round baking dish or springform. Arrange the rhubarb on the bottom of the dish.

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Make a well in the center and add the beaten eggs. Stir the flour into the eggs, and then whisk in the milk a little at a time.
Pour the batter over the rhubarb and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the clafoutis is golden and puffed. Serve warm or cold, with icing sugar to top.

So that's breakfast sorted for Tom all week then.

Bank holiday washout

I would usually would be busy in the garden - maybe tidying it up for a BBQ or planting out the butternut Squash seedlings. However a combination of rain, work and Tom being in Vancouver (marathon #2) meant the bank holiday was a bit of a wash out.

As the rains lashed down, new parents seriously considered renaming their newborn Noah and tools for ship building grew dramatically (I may be lying about some or both of these points).  I did, however, spend my days indoors reading magazines instead of doing anything useful outdoors. 

In these magazines, and the accompanying flyers that drop out of them, I found hopeful adverts for hoses despite a hose pipe ban, offers on BBQ family packs languishing on shelves and I became increasingly aware of a pile, nay box, of seeds lurking with intent in my gardening zone (also know as a dump) in the kitchen but not put to use.

It wasn't all inaction though. I repotted the tomato seedlings - burying stems further down so they grow roots from a greater surface and are more sturdy. Doing it in a hurry meant that some were damaged but that was an easy way to reduce the number of plants (I must remember I don't have a farm). The stowaway snails that must have hitched a ride indoors also helped keep the seedling numbers down. I also repotted the chilies and put the grafted chilli outside in the hope of it finding a passing pollinator in all the rain. Unlikely. But I remain hopeful.

Fruits of the freezer

If, like me, you are facing a new growing season with a freezer full of vegetables you never got round to eating in the last one, you may well appreciate recipes that help you use up the last of them. Especially if they are a little past their prime.

I love runner beans for their scarlet flowers, the traditional feel they give to an allotment and for their prolific cropping. However they are not the most versatile of vegetables. Basically it pretty much seems to be a case of with or without bacon. I did dabble in chutney but there is a limit. Therefore I had a lot of blanched beans in the freezer along with some mushy courgettes (which, I have discovered, don't freeze well).

This is where the secret veg mush comes in. Admittedly I may have to refine the name a little. But basically you chuck unloved veg in with tomato, onion and garlic and reduce. Blend and serve with pasta. Maybe not the most complex or thought through meal but bloody useful. And pretty healthy.

With a simple name change and the subtraction of pasta and addition of butter nut squash you can call it 'BNS ratatouille'. Or not. The choice is yours.