And yet more snow covers the allotment …

About two inches of fresh snow fell in the night, so instead of being able to tell you anything about our planting regime, I’ll talk a little about our Wilja potatoes which are sprouting nicely in their brown paper bag – a bit worrying really, as they will have sprouts like triffids by the time we can actually get them in the ground at this rate1

We chose Wilja because it’s a second early with a high yield. It also has a good even shape and after wrestling with Pink Fir Apple last year I really fancy a potato that isn’t quite so knobbly as it was a bit of a pain to dig and clean the Pink Fir to be honest.

Wilja is said to be a good fryer and boiler and also suitable for roasting, and it used to be grown, traditionally, on Romney Marsh which implies it doesn’t mind a bit of standing water and as our second earlies are going into the lowest part of the plot (which is currently under six inches of snow) we might have gambled on exactly the right variety for us this year! It also has good resistance to common scab and drought and is only moderately susceptible to blight. As it’s a second early, we’re happy to try it as the blight generally affects maincrops most.

Labels: allotment-potatoes, allotment-snow, wilja

Still snow – still no work on the plot

We’ve been to the plot to harvest some parsnips from the raised bed which were only a bit frozen in, and to collect some of the leeks that had been heeled into a sheltered corner of the plot in expectation of the rotten weather, but we really hadn’t expected rottenness of this duration! Some of the purple-sprouting broccoli has flowered nicely, but as it’s also frozen solid, we left it in place, hoping to get up as soon as there is a thaw and harvest the lot.

It feels very strange not to be able to do anything vegetable-growing wise – we wandered around and I managed to take a few atmospheric photographs of the sun going down over the snowy site.

I peered at my broad beans which are poking through the snow and seem to be fine, but who knows? Snowdrops have a special enzyme in their cells that allows them to survive minus temperatures without damage, but I’m not sure that broad beans do and I’m bracing myself to discover that when the snow goes, so do the broad beans. It would be a tragedy if they do, but as snow acts as an insulator, removing it at this point would be more likely to damage the seedlings than help them.

The bed in which we should have been planting our shallots is under six inches of snow, as it turns out to be in an area where a drift has built up. The shallots themselves are in a cupboard under the stairs – who knows when they will eventually get into the soil?

Labels: allotment-broad-beans, allotment-leeks, allotment-parsnips, allotment-shallots, allotment-snow

Still no allotment work

As you can see, 201 is sitting comfortably under another blanket of snow. So while we can’t be doing much, we’re reflecting on what we will be doing when we get the chance. So, starting in reverse order, and as I’ve mentioned before, we had a terrible maincrop potato failure in 2009, mainly because we hadn’t had time to prepare the soil properly.

This year our maincrops are Cara: a white skinned potato that has pink eyes and a creamy coloured flesh. In texture they are ranked as waxy, which means they stay firm when cooked and keep well. They are good for boiling and very good for baking and are said to be slug resistant. They are a later Maincrop which suggests we’ll be harvesting closer to October than September, and like most later cropping varieties they will tend to be larger and therefore more suitable for baking, than earlier croppers.

We’re hoping, if the weather clears soon, to put plenty of manure and compost in our maincrop planting site, to enrich and break up the soil ready for the potatoes to be planted out, once they’re chitted, around early April.

Labels: allotment-potatoes, allotment-snow

Allotment bad weather woes

So far it’s either rained torrentially, snowed, or there’s been a heavy frost ever since we picked up our shallots on 14 December. This means that we’ve had no chance to get them into the ground at all, despite having prepared an area of the allotment especially for them, with a nice blend of soil (which tends to clay) and grit.

It’s bitterly frustrating to find ourselves unable to do anything much on the plot. We are harvesting, of course, and today’s haul includes some leeks, a couple of parsnips from the raised bed (once we’d cleared off the remainder of last night’s light snow) two celeriac ditto and a small swede. Then we cut down a couple of Brussels sprouts stems so we could bring them home with the tops intact to cook in a stir fry. And we have had the last of our red Brussels Sprouts – we ate them on Christmas day with roast duck and they were very good: nutty and firm and we had them again last night with celeriac mash and onion gravy and they were equally good – definitely worth growing again next year.

We also had a massive bonfire in the snow, to clear the last of the rubbish, but that’s all we’ve been able to do, so I hope 2010 is going to start with a rapid improvement in the weather for vegetable growers!

Labels: allotment-bonfire, allotment-crops, allotment-snow

Allotments don’t stop in winter

Forcing its way through snow, this broad bean seems determined to prove it’s winter hardy (I certainly hope so, as there’s not much we can do to help it now) which is more than I was, with water leaking through my boots which had unexpectedly sprung a leak, harvesting Brussels sprouts with frozen fingers, and trying to dig up leeks from a perma-frost of definite Siberian proportions.

Okay, I exaggerate a little. But it was a very long cold snap for Sussex, which has little or no dealings with snow that lays – usually it melts within a couple of hours. One thing it did reveal, for all the things it hid, was that our fox, or foxes, are very much creatures of habit.

We walked quite a bit of the site, making sure there weren’t any burst pipes which were waiting to spew out water as soon as the thaw arrived and one the 60 plots we passed, we found the same story – one set of fox prints, going straight down the main path, veering off to investigate any items of interest (usually compost bins!) and then returning the same way. It was a fascinating insight into the life of the allotments after dark, and the regular patrols that the foxes must make of their territory.

Sunday’s harvest: two parsnips, two leeks (planted in open ground, very hard to dig, compared to those planted in the raised bed which hadn’t frozen below the surface of the snow) Brussels sprouts and a Brussels top from a denuded stem (I shall stir fry the top leaves, they’re delicious and shouldn’t be wasted), one celeriac.

And with that sackful of provisions, I wish you all a happy Christmas and a productive and profoundly germinating New Year!

Labels: allotment-fox, allotment-snow, allotment-winter-crops