Celery – an allotment crop to fear

Hmmmm … Maurice gave us celery seedlings. Now I do love celery, especially fresh with a good slice of a local sheep’s milk cheese or braised with carrots in a chicken stock topped with cheddar. But ...



...it is supposed to be a b***** to grow.

The first thing my reference books tell me is that rotationally it should be included with potatoes, which rather scotches the idea I’d had of digging up our row of first early spuds and putting the celery in there – but as we have nowhere else to put it, it may be the only option. The second thing that I’m told is that at least I might be getting the timing right for once

I learn that it prefers rich soil, stuffed with organic matter, that will hold moisture but offers good drainage – well, well, well, in other words, the best of all possible worlds; and it does well in wet locations – so far we’ve no idea if we have any wet locations because it hasn’t been wet enough to assess the plot.

Onward! Celery is a heavy feeder and needs plenty of fertiliser for quick growth, says the book – well I’m not sure I want quick growth. I want tasty celery and I’m prepared to wait for it.

Celery will be bitter if it isn't blanched. Ah, but since my book was published in 1972 (the old ones are still the best in many ways) new self-blanching varieties have come onto the market. But which do we have? Answer, we don’t know. So I’ve fired off a quick email to Maurice, to ask, and will await his reply. Blanching is achieved by covering the plants to protect them from the sun. Okay, that I understand. As the plants grow, pile soil up around them to blanch the stems. Maybe so, or maybe just tie brown paper around them, particularly if they are self blanching? I saw that done at the BBC garden at Berryfields and it looked both elegant and much less work than damping soil and making cones around plants. Still I shall have to wait for Maurice to reply. Meantime I shall ponder the wisdom of jumping in at the deep end.

Carrots and celery courtesy of Steffenz

Labels: allotment-blanching, allotment-celery, allotment-seedlings

Allotment generosity

Here’s what we’ve been loaned or given so far:

Petrol powered strimmer (loan)
Van (loan)
Celery, tomato, garlic, leek and cabbage seedlings
Echium seedlings
Water butt
Wood and pallets to build fencing
Unlimited amounts of advice!

It’s amazing how nice people can be when they see you up on the plot. We’ve noticed it before of course, but because we’ve always been ‘visitors’ on other people’s plots, we’d sort of assumed it was the plot owner’s sunny personality that caused the generosity.

Now we have a plotshare, we’re finding that the generosity continues (and I don’t have a sunny personality, so it can’t be that!)

We haven’t forgotten our old friends who gave us so many opportunities to work alongside them until we got a plot of our own – on Sunday we’re going up to sink a small pool liner for Beryl, and I’ve potted up a marsh marigold to give it an instant start – a kind of housewarming present for a pond!

Tomorrow’s tasks:

--Plant cabbage seedlings
--Water if necessary
--Weed around beans and beetroot
--Work out where to put celery! It’s self-blanching, but even so, we didn’t think we’d get any in this year, so we’re having to be a bit flexible about our plot plans.

Labels: allotment-june, allotment-seedlings, allotment-tasks

Making an allotment seed bed

So far we haven’t had one of these, because, as you may have realised by now, we are sort of ‘squatters’ helping out on various allotments as we wait and hope for one of our own … which could be a long wait indeed, given that there are twice as many people on the waiting list as there are actual allotment plots on our site. Still, we’re happy being allotment-jobbing-gardeners, and it does mean we learn a huge amount from other people and get to experience many different styles of allotment.

So as well as contributing to Maurice’s pond (only by providing plants, he has a co-worker already who did the heavy digging) and helping Sally with a bit of trellis building, this weekend has been devoted to helping build a seed bed.

Seed beds are small areas of an allotment or garden used to germinate seedlings that can be moved to permanent sites later – the soil has to be very thoroughly dug over, with stones and other debris removed and we’ve been doing that, standing on a nice wide plank so that we don’t compress the soil behind us as we work. Now, with a few days of glorious fine weather, we are going up to rake the top surface to form a fine tilth – a soil top which is fine and crumbly and will allow plants to take root easily.

Then we’ll use the same plank to make a v-shaped drill in which to plant the seeds: the plank means the line of seedlings will be nice and straight without having to fiddle with sticks and strings. And then we wait for them to come up …

Labels: allotment-seed-bed, allotment-seedlings, allotment-seeds

Allotment tasks for April

Assuming that you’ve already shovelled away the snow from your paths, that is! Given the unpredictability of the weather, this is possible the time to focus on the work that can be done indoors by giving the bulk of your attention to plants that can be sown now to germinate either in the greenhouse or on a windowsill at home. For me, this means pots of:

Aubergine
Celery
Outdoor Cucumbers
Tomatoes

And we tend to start off our tomatoes in a little bottom-heated propagator as we grow both the cherry tomatoes and the really big beef tomatoes which are so wonderful as a stuffed vegetable – and those latter get a better start with bottom heat which means we get bigger fruits come harvest time.

Neighbours of ours are daring to sow French beans under cloches outdoors, but I still think they’ve jumped the gun. You can’t sow French beans without some kind of weather protection until all threat of frost is passed, (early or late May, depending on where you live) but they won’t cope well with extremely low temperatures even under a cloche or polytunnel so I think that by waiting a week or two, we’ll get just as good a harvest as they will.


Allotment greenhouse courtesy of Beachcomber1954

Labels: allotment-greenhouse, allotment-seedlings

April allotment tasks

Here’s a general gardening tip that may help if, like us, you’re pondering when – if ever – it may be possible to plant out some of your more tender crops: peg horticultural fleece over the ground a week or so before you intend to plant. Even such a small rise in soil temperature can make a big difference to the success of the seedlings. Usually, in April, there’s a long list of plants to sow or seedlings to plant out, especially if March has been bitter – and now April is shaping up not to showers but snow flurries, covering the soil may even make the difference between plant survival and failure.

If you are planting out carrots, that horticultural fleece can also serve to protect them from carrot fly – if you bury the edges of the fleece after you’ve covered the seeds, the carrot root fly can’t gain access to lay her eggs alongside the seeds. If she does get in, the eggs hatch and then the grubs dig into the carrots and destroy the crop.

What you might be putting in the ground now is:
• Beetroot
• Peas (in mild areas) and broad beans
• Broccoli
• Cruciferous plants like Brussels Sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower
• Leafy crops like kale, chard, kohl rabi, spinach
• Leeks
• Salad crops like rocket, lettuce and radish

Allotments courtesy of muggers

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-in-april, allotment-seedlings