Allotment pests

I was reading The Cottage Smallholder yesterday and noted that Fiona has to net her fruit not just to keep the birds (and her dogs) from eating the ripe fruit, but because the birds (but not the dogs) eat the unripe fruit too!

We certainly have problems at our allotments, but this isn’t one of them and I’ve devoted most of today, while I’ve been pottering around, to working out why. And I think I’ve found the answer. It’s seagulls!

Yes, while they can be a real pest, I suspect that the seagull behaviour over our allotments keeps the fruit-hunting birds away; they certainly like to land in the mornings and poke around in turned soil, but if they see smaller birds congregating on the site they tend to fly down and scare them off so that they can try and grab whatever the little birds were finding. Of course they aren’t equipped to peck fruit from bushes though. Finally, a use for the pestilential things! One person on our allotments actually has a pet seagull that he feeds with cat food on a fork – rather him than me: they have vicious beaks and always look to me like homicidal maniacs who are trying to remember where they left their axes.

We also have a rat problem, and I’m not sure what to do about it. Rats will, I’m told, dig up my root crops and eat my peas and beans, but putting down poison is a no-brainer (a) because I know it builds resistance in the intended victims and (b) there are too many dogs, cats and children on the site for bait to be safe. So, short of taking the dog up with me whenever possible, I’m not sure what to do. So far the only thing the rat has done is tunnel under the compost bin and eat some of the scraps we put in there, but I wonder what it will do next …

Labels: allotment-birds, allotment-fruit, allotment-pests

Allotment herbs and fruits in February

This is the time of year when we sow parsley. At home we put the seeds in those long biodegradable tubes and grow them in a bottom-heated propagator, but on the allotment, we put them in the greenhouse. They hate being transplanted, so they also go in biodegradable tubes up there, but instead of having bottom heat, the parsley gets sown with boiling water, which encourages it to germinate. Parsley’s said to go to the devil nine times before it comes up, which gives you some idea how slow it is to get going! There are strange compounds called furanocoumarins on the surface of parsley seeds, which actually get into the soil and stop the seeds of other plants germinating – this is a sensible evolutionary approach on the part of the parsley because it means it has a more than usually good chance of outdoing the competition, but these compounds, once they disperse in the soil, actually have an odd habit of affecting the parsley itself – which is why soaking the seeds or watering them with really hot water that destroys the effect of the compounds, can speed the process up.

It’s also the time of year to divide mint. We don’t grow mint at home, but keep it in a trough at the allotment because it’s such an invasive plant. Even a small piece of root is very likely to grow, and once it grows, it will take over a vegetable plot or border, smothering and strangling everything in its path, even bindweed. The allotment trough is lined with zinc, and there’s not much chance even of mint punching its way through that!

Chives can be split and replanted too, at this time in the year, as long as the soil isn’t actually frozen when you lift them.

One of the gardens that backs onto our site has big bud mite on its redcurrants. It’s one of those things that you can’t really describe but recognise as soon as you see it. It simply shows up as weirdly large buds which then don’t produce any fruit in summer. There’s no treatment, either preventative or curative, for the infestation, so we can only hope that it doesn’t spread and that somebody on the allotments knows the people in that house and can suggest they pick off the infested buds.

Labels: allotment-fruit, allotment-herbs, big bud mite

Allotment skills - using stuff up

This is one of the rare bones of contention in our allotment life. I mentioned it in my last post, and it’s the horrible fact of the glut. There’s nothing you can do about a glut – try as you might to avoid one, if you have seven kilos of courgettes to use up, you can bet that there are another seven waiting in the wings, and that your neighbours will be moaning about the tendency of the average courgette to hide under the leaves and turn itself into a thin-skinned marrow, regardless of your desire to never see another marrow or courgette again.

Marrow jam, courgette bake, marrow rum, courgette chutney, stuffed marrow, stuffed courgette, marrow bread, courgette flower fritters (a brilliant idea, stops the plants growing any more courgettes, for one thing!), marrow stew … it just goes on and on and life can become insufferable when tomatoes, or strawberries, or rhubarb or whatever suddenly go into glut production. And that’s why I rely on Grow Organic, Cook Organic to kick-start my kitchen creativity. I found it useful when last year’s rhubarb glut overwhelmed me – the recipe for Rhubarb and Ginger Ice-cream was a revelation because ‘the boy’ who has never knowingly eaten rhubarb, actually consumed gallons of the stuff and brought home his teenage friends to consume it too! Some of the recipes might seem a bit high-falutin’ such as Red Onion and Mushroom Tartlets with Goat’s Cheese, but it’s worth giving them a try because they really are designed to work with home grown fruit and veg.

Labels: allotment-cooking, allotment-fruit, allotment-glut

Allotment in winter - bleak midwinter

And it certainly is! We had frost like snow this morning on our site, stuff you could crunch underfoot, frozen locks and general dismay, and still no office to lurk in …

Still there are (or were) signs of new life. For those lucky enough to have fruit trees on their plots the buds are (or were) fattening. The brackets, of course, relate to the sad fact that anything that was burgeoning before this cold snap is likely to be blighted by it. Have you ever noticed, by the way, how poetic the language of gardening is? Buds burgeon and blossoms are blighted or nipped by frost – it’s all very lyrical. Anyway, as of this morning, looking at the more protected southern aspect plots, I think the buds in some places, like on this fig, have survived.

The unpredictable weather is annoying everyone – there are broad beans sprouting under glass and sweet peas springing into life under newspaper (as Ron advised last year) and yet the changeability of our weather conditions is making it impossible to plan more than a couple of days ahead – will it be okay to put plants outdoors in the cold frame in late February, as people did last year? Who knows?

What is clear is that at least the chilly snap has done its job in breaking up the soil and if the rain (which fell in buckets earlier in the week) can just hold off for a few days more, folk might actually be able to get out there and dig over the soil for the spring – if it ever comes.

Labels: allotment-digging, allotment-fruit, allotment-trees

December allotment tasks

If like us, you’re struggling with allotment motivation in this bad weather, it’s worth thinking about all the good things that next year will bring you if you put in the effort now. This is what our neighbours have on their allotment ‘to do’ lists:

Winter pruning apple and pear trees to remove diseased wood and improve the shape – especially to try and get trees down to a reasonable height, because one of the major problems with allotment trees is that if the previous plot holder didn’t stay on top of pruning, you inherit something you can only harvest with a thirty foot ladder! It really should be a sacred trust to keep trees in trim, because it’s so hard to get them back down to picking size once they get out of hand.

Digging in manure where the brassica bed will be next year, and turning the compost in bins or heaps, to let in a bit of air which will speed up the decomposition process through the winter months when the normally active bacteria become dormant in the cold.

General weeding – especially along paths and around fruit bushes and trees, and general maintenance like checking roofs for leaks, gutters for blockages and compost bins for seeping or rotten areas if they are wooden.

Lots of plot holders are using this damp and miserable weather to highlight the areas of their plot that are holding water, and as soon as the rain stops and the frosts begin they will dig in sand and compost to help with drainage – the frosts will help break up the soil and add air to it, which encourages water to drain and gives added fertility.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-crops, allotment-december, allotment-fruit, allotment-tasks