Allotment haul 7 September 2009

The weather is definitely Indian summery – torrid wouldn’t be strong a word for it – although it will break very soon. As we have seedling swede and freshly-sown mooli, I am having to head up to the plot every second day to water.
I’ve also spent an entire Sunday doing the most disgusting thing in the world: squashing caterpillars. It is really gross – but if you want to be organic (or as organic as you can be) in your gardening habits, the only way to deal with cabbage whites is to pull on your gloves hunt down every crawler and squeeze them swiftly and firmly so that they expire instantly.

And because I am a wimp, I always let things get too bad before I intervene. I try to find all the eggs and squash them instead of the poor bugs, but one always misses a few (or a lot, when it’s that time of year when so much needs to be picked and weeded and mowed and pruned) and those few seem to multiply until you are left with lacy brassicas.

We cut some sunflowers, leaving plenty for the birds to harvest, and pulled the first celeriac (just tennis ball sized) and the first parsnip, to test their growth. Both were very good roasted in tinfoil with Chioggia beetroot, fresh rosemary and a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar. Which more or less made up for the brassica destruction and the caterpillar destruction that followed. It’s a ruthless business, this allotment lark.

Labels: allotment-brassicas, allotment-celeriac, allotment-parsnips, allotment-sunflowers

And the winner is … (allotment competitions)

We had twelve entrants for the sunflower competition, although when we visited some of the plots, no sunflowers were to be seen! All the entrants had to be children, which ruled out some overly competitive types (Himself for a start!) who were ineligible through age!

Our tallest sunflower was grown by Hannah, and it was 9’ 9” tall – see how staunchly Imperial we still are? The sunflower with the biggest face was grown by Brendan, and it was a whopping 18” exactly across.

The onion competition had fewer entrants, which was a little disappointing, especially as the first prize was substantial (£50!) However, all the entries were very good in terms of weight, shape and condition, so we decided to give marks for three criteria: weight, size and appearance. Our winner was grown by an adult, who just pipped a twelve-year old onion-grower to the top spot by one point! We were encouraged that the second-place onion was not only grown by a younger horticulturalist, but was grown organically.

So that’s the good stuff. The bad stuff is that having spent a lot of Bank Holiday Monday on 201, I stopped and looked back just before we left and it was as if we hadn’t been there. The only change I could see was the raised bed that I cleared out of bolting pak choi and lettuce to sow some mooli (probably too late but fingers are crossed) and the weed heap being taller than when we arrived. We have a serious weed problem, believe me! But the parsnips are looking good …

Labels: allotment-competitions, allotment-onions, allotment-parsnips, allotment-sunflowers, organic-allotment

Growing artichokes on the allotment

We have two lots of artichokes: the ones in the ground, grown from a sliced-up globe artichoke root and the ones at home, which were grown from seed and look pretty healthy although they are not big enough yet to survive a winter up on the plot, where the winds are awesome and the temperatures can drop to semi-glacial on rare February nights.

So the ones in the ground have been thriving, and a few days ago I went around and did the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do since I got the allotment – I cut off every single bud. Did you know that the globe artichoke is actually related to the thistle? Well I did, as soon as I tried to remove those heads – I speared myself on a dozen different spikes and prickles at once! If you’re growing perennial globe artichokes (not that weird variety that is grown as an annual in the USA) then in the first year, you should remove all the flower-heads because (a) they are pretty well inedible and (b) taking them off strengthens the plant so that it can cope with the winter and produce better and more edible buds the following year.

It was a tough thing to do though because the buds are so pretty, even if you’re not going to eat them, and I notice that most people don’t bother to use them as a crop, perhaps because they are a bit of a faddle to prepare. Anyway, I told myself that the end justified the means, and got on with it.

On the other hand, a crop that we grew to run to seed is doing very well – the sunflowers are looking gorgeous and should be able to provide some winter food for small birds on the plot, as well as the damn squirrels and mice.

Labels: allotment-artichoke, allotment-perennials, allotment-sunflowers