Allotment winter crops and summer preparation

So the cage is ready and the kale is in it and the purple sprouting broccoli will go in too, this weekend. The Brussels sprouts are outside it though. Why? Because even Cabbage Whites don’t seem at all attracted to Brussels sprouts. We have both red Brussels and green ones, as you can see.

Sometimes aphids will land on Brussels, but if you wash them off with the hose they never seem to come back, unlike on other plants where the infestations are almost unending. Add to the pest-free element the fact that Brussels sprouts don’t need a lot of care, just regular watering and hand-weeding because they have shallow roots. You don’t even have to feed them, because if you do give them too rich a soil the sprouts simply ‘blow’ and become leafy. You may need to stake them (note in the photo that we staked ours from planting out, because Sussex by the Sea is noted for its winter gales and damned if I’m going to try and get stakes in the ground in October and risk damaging the roots on my lovely brassicas, when advance planning allowed me to get the stakes sorted out in May!) if you live in a windy area.

You can pinch out the top of the Brussels in September, which is what those growers do who have started producing Brussels ‘canes’ that turn up in supermarkets with all the little sprouts still on the stem. If you don’t pinch out the top, the sprouts will mature at different times, if you do pinch out, then all the sprouts tend to be ready at once. If you have a big family and want sprouts for Christmas, pinch out some tops in September to guarantee a full stem of sprouts for dinner in December. If you don’t have a big family, leave the tops in and you can harvest over a much longer period. Or, if you’re like me, and adore Brussels Sprouts, do some of both.

Labels: allotment-brassicas, allotment-brussels-sprouts, allotment-kale

Allotment gluts and failed experiments

We had high hopes of our early potatoes grown in tyres, but the piles of tyres rose much higher than the results! To be blunt, the potatoes planted in tyres were a waste of time. They produced only three or four medium-sized potatoes each and in one tyre those potatoes that were produced were warty: I don’t know whether this was the effect of some chemical from the tyres or just coincidental, but we threw them away.

The same variety of seed potato grown in the open ground and harvested two weeks later had between seven and 12 potatoes each, and the same potatoes left a full month after we harvested the tyre-grown ones were producing around a dozen large tubers each. So the idea that we might get a smaller but earlier harvest in tyres didn’t work for us, although I know it has worked for others. Anyway, we are now swimming in potatoes although that’s not exactly a hardship – we have plenty of friends willing to take delicious new potatoes off our hands if we get fed up with them!
We also have a cucumber glut, and having tried six different salads, two soups and using them as a face pack, I’m running out of ideas what to try next.

We had a bit of a disaster last weekend too. The high winds on Friday caught us out entirely – we’d opened the cold frame to water the said cucumbers, but because it was so very hot, we neglected to apply common sense to the situation and left the frame propped fully open to allow the air to circulate. About ten minutes later, as I was watering the nearby raspberries, the wind lifted both lids off their supports and sent them crashing down. Net result: five of the eight glass panes broken and one wooden supporting bar actually fractured by the effect of the fall.

Our cold frame is big and heavy and isn’t what we would have built for ourselves, but it was on the plot when we arrived. So we work with it. Himself cut glass for one side of the frame during the week and reglazed one lid. The other is still covered by a sheet of corrugated plastic held down with bricks. The cucumbers don’t seem to mind at all, but next year I’m rather hoping we can use plastic rather than glass, as if I’d been stood two foot closer, I’d have been showered with dangerous fragments – and you do have to open and close cold frames regularly if you’re going to actually grow things in them, so we’re always at risk of the lids slipping out of our hands.

Labels: allotment-cold-frame, allotment-cucumber, allotment-new-potatoes

Tomatoes and tomato blight

The current hot weather and last night’s storm have left us expecting to see Phytophthora infestans when we get up to the allotment. It’s the fungus which causes both tomato and potato blight and in both cases the warning signs are the same, brown marks on the leaves which spread quickly and then the tomato fruit will begin to brown and rot away. Underground, if it attacks the potatoes, they too will begin to rot and the blight can spread from one plant to another with astonishing speed.

The fungus is carried by wind and rain and takes a real hold during Mill’s periods which are times of warmth and dampness. It takes around three or sometimes four days of warm and wettish weather to allow the fungus to proliferate, so the first rule to obey during warm times is to water when necessary only and not to spray water on the leaves of tomato or potato plants – water the roots only.

There’s no organic treatment for this kind of blight, so we’ve been having a low level debate about whether to try to prevent/control it or not. We lost all our tomatoes on 235 last year to tomato blight.

To try and treat it, you have to destroy infected plants in their entirety – ripping them out and removing them from the site, preferably burning them to destroy the fungal spores which will otherwise lurk in the soil for years. You can also try to preserve your tomatoes by spraying them with a copper treatment (which is not organic) BEFORE the blight appears. This means that 24 hours into what might become a Mills Period you have to spray … and that’s what we’re debating, because you can always hope that dry weather will slow the progress of the fungus and that by planting with good spacings and removing and destroying any parts of the plant that have blight, you can save your crop – but only if the weather cooperates!

We haven’t reached a decision yet – remain organic and possibly lose our tomatoes or spray with copper and lose my organic principles? Watch this space!

Labels: allotment-potato-blight, allotment-potatoes, allotment-tomato-blight, allotment-tomatoes

Allotment improvements and longest days

On 21 June, being the longest day, I thought it was a good idea to take some pictures, especially as we put in a mammoth day on the allotment, although I spent a fair bit of it sitting in chair doing nothing, as I’m having to pace myself.

The plot is looking more organised, apart from the top right corner, which I’ve conveniently not included in this picture and which needs strimming and then will be rotavated – no double digging for that bit of plot, as I’m not allowed to dig for quite a while yet!

The celeriac are doing marvellously.
They did look like this when planted out in early May, but the plastic mulch and copious watering now mean that they gladden the heart of anybody (like me) who enjoys summer crops but is totally fixated on winter ones and on getting enough cold weather veggies established to ensure that she never has to run to the supermarket to buy some hideously overpriced and tasteless rubbish just to have food to put on the table.

And so now they look like this ...

We also planted out our Brussels sprouts, which had a bit of a late start this year. We have five red and the rest are ordinary green (don’t ask what happened to the other red ones, Himself will get upset if you do) and I think we have a row to plant up on 235 too, although I’m not sure if they like Brussels sprouts or if they are the ‘ugh, how disgusting’ type of people. Did you know that it’s genetic? Around a third of the population have a gene that makes cruciferous vegetables taste more bitter than to the rest of us, so if your little darling won’t eat Brussels, it’s probably not his or her fault. Anyway, I don’t want to impose a row of Brussels on them if they don’t like them so I shall wait to find out.

Labels: allotment-brussels sprouts, allotment-celeriac

Mid-June Allotment Harvest

Okay, I’m bragging, but we’re thrilled with the haul we’re getting from 201, given that we only took it over in October 2008.

We can’t take credit for the strawberries, because they were in place before we got our plot, but the broad beans, peas, sweet peas, radishes and rhubarb are all products of our labour since last autumn!

The broad beans have been a bit of a disappointment – they aren’t cropping nearly as heavily as the overwintered beans that we planted on 235 because the spring-planted seedlings have been hideously attacked by blackfly. So we’ve learnt our lesson for next year: even if the mice do take a few seeds over the winter, it’s much better to plant them in situ because they don’t get the problem with blackfly that the spring planted ones do.

The peas are delicious though, and so far only one batch has made it to the saucepan, all the others have been eaten straight out of the pod. We are pea gluttons and no mistake.

The rhubarb hasn’t produced heavily this year, which is not surprising given that we only transplanted it in November, but it’s very tasty and didn’t bolt in May like the more established rhubarb on other people’s plots did.

So, time for a recipe?

Rhubarb and Strawberry Pudding

6 sticks rhubarb, cut into chunks
250 grams strawberries, hulled and halved
250 grams caster sugar in two 125 gram amounts
75 grams butter or margarine
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150 grams plain flour mixed with 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
150 ml milk

While the oven is getting to 180 C or gas 4, grease a large square baking dish, wash fruit if necessary, and put in a bowl with 125 grams of sugar, stirring until fruit and sugar are well mixed. I like to use lemon verbena sugar for this recipe (just put some lemon verbena leaves in a jar with white caster sugar and store for around a month, shaking every couple of days to get a lovely lemony scent and savour).

Then pour them into the baking dish and spread them out evenly. Beat the rest of the sugar with the fat and add the egg and vanilla before alternating additions of milk and big spoonfuls of flour. Beat until smooth and pour the batter over the fruit. Should cook in around an hour, or when a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. Lovely with cream or thick yoghurt and equally good hot or cold. This is not a neat and tidy pudding though, so don’t expect it to look posh, even if it tastes scrummy.

Labels: allotment harvest, allotment-broad-beans, allotment-recipes, allotment-rhubarb, allotment-strawberries

Allotment structures: the brassica cage

Now a lot of people will tell you that brassicas are more trouble than they’re worth, but don’t you believe them! It’s glorious to have fresh, tasty winter vegetables when the weather is harsh and the shops are full of overpriced, tasteless, boring veggies.

There are a few problems – getting the soil right and the long growing season to name but two, but the worst, for us, is pests. The Cabbage White butterfly is called that because it loves cabbages, although it has no objection to other brassicas as far as I can see. And it’s not the butterfly that’s the issue, but the caterpillars, which hatch from small eggs laid on the undersides of leaves and which hatch with a ravenous desire to eat your brassicas down to the stump.

You can check the leaves and pick off the eggs, but we’ve never found this effective, and this year, due to me suddenly having major surgery, I’m really glad that we put in the effort (okay, Himself put in the effort) to build a brassica cage. The cage will keep off the pigeons as well as the butterflies, so it’s an all year round device. And it means that we don't have to do the time-consuming 'inspect and remove' thing with the eggs.

And here it is, in its first phase. Himself made the panels at home and lined them with 7 millimetre netting before taking them down to the allotment and assembling it there.













Second phase is a bit like putting together a three dimensional jigsaw that weighs a lot more than we’d expected. There was some cursing and counter-cursing at this point.












Finished article: which is substantial and easy to get around in. We could have got one of those cages made of aluminium poles and netting, but it’s a windy site and over the past year we saw quite a few of those lying on their sides after some of Sussex’s more demanding gales, so we went for something a bit more castle-like! It is portable, to avoid the risks inherent in not rotating crops, but strong enough to withstand weather.














And here it is with Ragged Jack kale in it. On the other side of the plank path we've put dwarf green kale and the other winter crop we’ll put in it will be purple-sprouting broccoli, which has been prone to butterfly infestation on our site, and next year we hope to be organised enough to put cabbages and cauliflowers inside too.

Labels: allotment-brassica-cage, allotment-brassicas, allotment-butterflies

Allotment diversity and evictions and rock gardens

We’re all in favour of allotment diversity on our site, and in a week were an allotment holder was removed from a Cheltenham site for ‘not growing enough vegetables’ on his ‘rural retreat’ (quotes courtesy of the Daily Mail, a paper I wouldn’t usually even let near my runner bean trench!) we are applauding the diverse ways that people use their green spaces.

I’m going to tell you about the building of our brassica cage in a few days, because it was exciting in a rather sheddish way, but in our wanders this week we came across this. Isn’t it gorgeous?

And not only gorgeous but practical. This lovely mini rock garden, complete with exotic proteas, is actually the top of a hold-all building that one allotmenteer uses to hold watering cans and to make compost. Isn’t that amazing – full marks for versatility and originality.

Labels: allotment-eviction