Allotment crops in February

There’s not an awful lot going on around the allotments right now. Some people still have Brussels sprouts and kale, on 201 we have a tiny amount of kale but all our Brussels have been harvested. We have also just finished up our parsnips although there are a couple of celeriac still in the ground, I don’t know if they will be any good or not.

We’ve started off our tomatoes too, or at least our beef tomatoes, in a heated propagator at home. We didn’t grow beef tomatoes last year, and I missed them. Now we have a greenhouse I can feel a bit more confident about getting really big tomatoes to ripen, which they just haven’t the past three years, in the open.

The bad news is, it’s snowed again. Nothing has actually settled, but the ground is frozen, which is rather depressing. However, poking through the solid earth I found that the rhubarb, which is indestructible, is on its way. So we’ll at least have broad beans and rhubarb this year …

Labels: allotment-kale, allotment-rhubarb, allotment-tomatoes

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: Hungry Gap

Apparently, according to some folk, we are now in the hungry gap. And for us, the hungry gap has been big indeed! Because we only got ‘our’ allotment (which isn’t, strictly speaking even ours) in October, we had no winter crops at all. There was a row of spinach and a couple of purple sprouting broccoli on 235, where we’re co-workers, but not enough to keep two vegetable hungry couples going for very long. Anyway, although I shouldn’t say it, I’m not a great spinach fan.

So this year, while we’re merrily greenhouse planting, transplanting, hardening off and outdoor planting all kinds of summer crops, I am intoning, at every opportunity, ‘Don’t forget the hungry gap’. At which himself gives me a funny look and goes and gets a sandwich. Not quite what I had in mind.

Anyway, for the bit between late February and Mid April which is what many people consider to be the hungry gap, the crops that you can overwinter and hope to have ready are the purple-sprouting broccoli (Rudolph appears to be the favourite), the kales, elderly (and whiskery) swedes, carrots and parsnips and onions and leeks.

We’ve got 74 leeks in degradable pots – as I’ve never grown leeks before I can’t tell if this is too many or not enough. Why did it never occur to me to keep a list of all my weekly shopping so that I could work out how many leeks or whatever I use in a year? Well, quite possibly because that would have been a bonkers thing to do! But it’s very annoying not to have some idea if I’m planting enough and to spare, or whether our hungry gap next year will have to be filled with expensive trips to the supermarket.

Smart folk will also have had all-year-round lettuce growing in greenhouses or cold-frames. No, we’re not that smart, but we will be next year, and if we’d thought ahead enough, we’d have done the same with deep trays of radishes, because they grow so fast that I reckon you could sow them in February and have a harvest easily by now, if you can control light and heat a bit, and there’s nothing like a peppery radish to make you feel that spring is on its way.

Other people, by the way, say the hungry gap is in late May and early June, when the broad beans are ready but nothing else is. Given the way we get through all forms of fresh fruit and vegetables, I would happily say that the hungry gap could be almost any time of year, for us.

I said I would mention himself's runner bean frame. Isn't it a thing of beauty and a joy forever? Well, not a joy forever in the same place, as it's sort of portable, having two long stakes that anchor it to the ground so we can rotate the beans around the plot. It was also the cause of much swearing in the allotment blogger household. Swearing is the natural accompaniment of woodwork, I gather, as green fingernails are the natural accompaniment of harvesting pea pods. The clever among you will have noted that the poles lean outwards - according to Andi Clevely, this makes it easier to harvest the beans. We'll see ...

Labels: allotment-brocolli, allotment-hungry-gap, allotment-kale, allotment-leeks, allotment-root-crops, allotment-runner-beans

National Trust Allotment anyone?

Well the news this weekend is that the great and the good are being asked to turn over some ‘spare’ land to help families grow fruit and veg. Tim Smit, founder of the Eden project, has thrown his support behind the scheme which has a twofold focus of improving health and cutting carbon emissions from food imports.

Forgive me if I sound just a bit jaundiced about this. The National Trust is ‘donating’ 1,000 plots of its own land. 1,000 plots. Right.

We’ve got over 300 plots on our allotment site alone. Our waiting list is about four years long, even with us dividing standard plots in two. 1,000 plots. That’s not even a drop in the ocean – it’s paltry. Nice word, paltry. I should use it more often.

Those nice folks at British Waterways, who manage the UK canal network, are also giving some land (funnily enough they are also giving allotment land to the 2012 allotment creation initiative being run by London Mayor, Boris Johnson, hope it’s not the same plots being counted twice) and even turning some barges into floating gardens apparently, and Tesco, B&Q and Suttons are giving free plants and seeds.

But back to the National Trust – it’s created plots at 40 of its sites, which will become available over the next three years via the campaign’s website, Eat Seasonably

Now I've got the hang of this - 40 plots over three years is 13 plots a year, so we should have all 1,000 by ...2085. Hurrah!

The website will also have “veg doctors” drawn from the 390,000 members of the Royal Horticultural Society and Garden Organic who will give advice to the plot holders: that should be fun, giving 39 experts per NT plot – nobody should be short of advice then, even if they’re a bit short of places to put it into action. And for folk unable to obtain proper allotments (ie most of the population) those experts will be able to help you turn window sills, terraces or urns into vegetable patches. Urns. Sounds like we’re expected to invade the local funeral director’s office and fill his memorial pots with sunflower seeds.

In other news, our kale is off to a roaring start and it is just possible I got out of bed in a bad mood this morning – normal sunny service will be resumed as soon as I’ve had some toast and honey.

Labels: allotment-kale, allotment-waiting-list, garden organic, national-trust-allotment, royal horticultural society

Growing brassicas from seed

It seems utterly ridiculous to be sowing brassicas now, but they are crops that need a very long growing season so getting them off to a start now is important. We’ve got seeds of red Brussels sprouts, green Brussels sprouts, Ragged Jack kale, standard kale and winter cabbage so we hope that next winter we'll have a harvest like this one…

All brassicas give of their best in a partially-shaded spot with fertile, free-draining soil – but we also find they need extremely firm roots – especially Brussels sprouts, because if they start to rock in the winter winds, they don’t do at all well!

1. Brassica seedlings germinate in eight to ten days but won’t be ready for transplanting for six to eight weeks so there’s still time to get the ground ready by raking over the surface and adding a general-purpose fertiliser. We then walk all over the soil to trample out air pockets and really firm the surface. For the last seven to ten days you need to harden off greenhouse raised seedlings and get them used to the ‘real’ weather conditions.
2. Transplanting is a bit of a bugger because you need to water the seedlings and then lift them very carefully, keeping as much soil as possible around the roots – that’s why a lot of people try to sow single seeds in modules so they can be removed easily.
3. All brassicas need to be water again after planting and kept well watered while they get established. Hand weeding is best as hoeing can disturb the roots and lead to the wind rock that makes the plants less productive.

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

Seedy Sunday - allotment bargains!

Well, Seedy Sunday was a surprise – I don’t know how many people turned up, several hundred for sure, and a big increase on the previous year that we went, when there were perhaps fifty or so people in the hall – is this a sign of the recession in action, I wonder?

Anyway, we did extremely well, managing to swap for a lot of seeds and only actually buying a packet of Scarlet Emperor runner beans. We swapped to get:

• Ukranian beetroot (used to be available through Suttons Seeds, but now a heritage seed only – produces very good big roots, excellent for grating)
• Waverex peas – very sweet and very productive, as long as we don’t get too hot a spring
• Ragged Jack (also called Russian Red) kale – which is an oak leaf type kale where the leaves have a red tinge and the stems are quite purple – said to be very mild in taste
• Dwarf Green Curled kale – which is the one with the furled dark green leaves which loves difficult or windswept gardens and poor wet soils
• Palla Rossa chicory – that’s the deep red to purple, cricket ball shaped one that you see in shops – apparently it’s very winter hardy and we love it baked with parma ham and strong cheese!

So in other words, we got five packets of seeds for £1.50 which was the cost of entry, and I think that’s a bargain! We also went mad though, and bought slices of cake and cups of tea, which we enjoyed while listening to a female choir, so it wasn’t such a frugal trip as it might have been. But next year I shall take dozens of swaps; I noted what people were looking for this year and reckon I can save lots of popular seed, so I shall really splurge in 2010!

Labels: allotment-beans, allotment-chicory, allotment-kale, allotment-peas, allotment-seed-swaps, allotment-seedy-sunday

Allotment Crops in Season: Kale

This is a wonderful plant, it’s as tough as old boots when growing, and as tender as spinach when harvested! It can withstand the kind of temperatures we’ve got right now, ie freezing and then some, and it doesn’t have the pest problems that other brassicas do.

Sow kale seed in April to June in modules. Once the seedlings are established (say six to eight weeks, it’s a long process) you can move them to their final position, spacing them in rows about 45cm apart. The good news is that kale is much more forgiving than other brassicas and puts up with almost any soil that has reasonable drainage although it does best in a relatively sunny spot – this means you can stick it in where peas, early potatoes or other early summer crops have finished their work. Just remove any weeds and rake a small amount of fertiliser over the top. Not digging allows the roots to get nice and firm, which is what all brassicas like. Water during dry patches and keep weeded. It’s a good idea to walk heavily around the base of the stem every week to firm it, which stops larger varieties swaying and breaking their tiny roots. Most kale won’t need staking.

You can harvest from September for early varieties to May for late ones. The trick is, with curly kale, to start at the crown, cutting a few young leaves each time with sharp knife or a sharp downwards tug. This encourages the production of side shoots which can be harvested between February and May when they are 10 to 12cm long.

Labels: allotment-brassicas, allotment-kale

Curry, National Allotment Week, August sowings

Well the curry was good – not superb but definitely good. Since then I’ve tried the Green & Black’s courgette cake, which IS superb and been introduced to the sneaky world of ‘extending’ meat.

Sounds very dubious doesn’t it? But our grandmothers knew that meat was the most expensive part of any meal, so they worked out many sneaky ways of stretching the meat to make it seem like more to the hungry mouths around their tables. One way was to grate vegetables and mix them with minced meat … and I have discovered that if you grate some peeled overgrown courgette into beef mince, it makes a very nice moist cottage pie and nobody is any the wiser!

But back to allotmenteering – did you notice National Allotment Week? No, nor did I. It’s a shame not more is done to celebrate allotments on a national scale, I think. Perhaps next year we could have a blogfest for National Allotment Week, with each of us showcasing our allotment site – what do you think? We celebrated in style, if very locally, because Duncan’s shed arrived! It’s got to be wood-preserved before it goes up to the allotment (my job, as I love painting wood) and we’ve also got to clear the ground and put down some kind of hardstanding but it feels great to know that we’re about to set up our very own (well, Duncan’s very own) shed.

Seeds I’m planning to plant this month:

• Mustard greens – because they are hardy and keep producing new leaves, assuming you harvest them regularly, even in terrible weather
• Kale - to overwinter in a polytunnel because that way we’ll get for delicious green stuff through until next spring
• Winter radish - for soups, stews and stir-fries

Labels: allotment-august-sowings, allotment-autumn, allotment-courgettes, allotment-kale, allotment-mustard-greens, allotment-shed, allotment-winter-radish, national-allotment-week

Winter Wonderlands

It’s such a shame when people don’t keep their allotments going through the winter, for two reasons:

1 - it makes it much more difficult for them to come back in spring and turn the ground etc because a whole winter’s worth of weeds and pests have taken over the ground

2 – they miss out on all the wonderful winter vegetables that they could be enjoying in the months when, in fact, vegetable costs rise and there is less variety in the shops anyway.

Our allotments are full of winter cabbages and kale, Brussels sprouts and, of course, the wonderful winter beets and chards. These have been a real development in recent years. Until quite recently, such crops were only grown to be fed to cattle, which is a complete waste as they are both tasty and nutritious and amazingly easy to grow. And a benefit in my eyes is their beauty – they gleam through the winter months like some kind of exotic growth transplanted from a warmer climate.

Most winter crops have definite advantages: there are far fewer slugs and snails around to attack them, and they are necessarily robust plants, needing very little care once they have established themselves past the seedling stage.

Labels: allotment-beets, allotment-brussels sprouts, allotment-cabbage, allotment-kale, allotment-winter-crops