Hazel and Jane's allotment

Brilliant Brassicas!

2012-01-28T19:13:00.005Z

It's been pretty mild for the past two or three weeks, considering we are 'in the deep midwinter' - but it has been frosty this week, and too cold for this wimp to go to the Hill today.

I've been working away at my paths though, the last two or three weekends, and I am almost ready for a new batch of chippings - which I will only be able to collect from the park when the Christmas trees have been chipped.

So the only thing to do is to take pickings of purple sprouting broccoli, which is UTTERLY DELICIOUS - can't think why I haven't grown it before - and sprouts.

The sprouts are a bit of a revelation too - this is the first year that the plants have been great. I have been organised enough to get (admittedly, purchased) seedlings planted out (into a nursery bed) then transplanted to their final homes once I took the pea wigwams down, and it's worked really well.

The sprouts are firm and small to medium sized - which suits me. I can't be doing with the cabbage-sized sprouts which the supermarkets sell which when you cook them go soggy on the outside before the middles are tender.

I must also have a go at winter cabbage next year - at the beginning of the month, while I was turning the paths into the beds, Richard from three plots down wandered up to see how I was getting on and asked if I'd like a red cabbage. "I've got quite a few good sized ones, but when I took one home last week, the wife said she didn't like it as it tasted 'funny'".

Well, I didn't need asking twice. Good value is cabbage - this one is the size of my head, weighs about the same as a medicine ball and is still in the fridge having lasted quite happily with me carving great chunks off for shredding for meal after meal. Brilliant!

And tomorrow it is the annual potato day and seed swap at Ryton Organic Gardens. I've spent a merry afternoon poring over the potato varieties to choose what I'd like to grow this year, and then popping spare bean seeds into envelopes to take to swap for whatever takes my fancy.

I've been going for the past four years and it has always been either exceptionally wet, or exceptionally cold - and tomorrow's forecast suggests the latter. I'm looking forward to it - but I'll be wrapping up well!

Shortest Day

2011-12-22T17:10:00.007Z

Today it is the shortest day of the year, a second shorter than yesterday, and five seconds shorter than it will be tomorrow.

I know that it will still be damp/dark/cold/miserable/wintery for a while to come, and you won't notice any difference in the day length for ages, but even so - it's all good from here on in.

Roll on Spring.

Winter Gardening

2011-12-04T14:31:00.003Z

What does the fair-weather gardener do on a grey and chilly December weekend when she really, really doesn't want to go and dig up paths at the Hill?

She sits in front of the fire and shells beans.

Lovely!

Bean Picking, Path Revamp and Wine

2011-11-26T20:29:00.011Z

Despite the forecast of increasingly windy weather, it wasn't a bad afternoon to be at the Hill. I had it all to myself so had no excuse not to get on with my short List picking the last of the drying beans and taking down the frame.

I also wanted to ruminate on the winter job of looking at the paths with a view to replacing the old wood chippings which have been in situ for nearly three years.

I had a spade handy and had an experimental go at taking the layer of chippings off the top of the membrane and depositing on the nearest bed.

Not as easy as you might think - the chippings either resemble mighty fine compost but I don't want to damage the membrane with the spade, or the weeds have caused the chippings to become one giant mat.

My back soon told me that it was a job for little and often until the New Year, when the chippings will be available to collect from the local park - the Council has an area for people to dump their Christmas trees and then they put the whole lot through a chipper, the pile of chippings a mile high is available for anyone to bag up and take away.

I finished taking down the runner beans, jody's barlotti beans, hunter french beans and I was left with a miscellaneous group of various bean pods - some which climbed when they shouldn't or strayed up a different pole, or I left behind last time, or I can't readily recognise, and these have all gone in a big bucket marked 'beans for eating' so I don't end up next year sowing seeds with look and might be variety X but turn out to be something completely different.

The purple sprouting gave me another good picking, and I dug a couple of parsnips for roasting with pumpkin, onions, garlic and potatoes tomorrow.

So with the poles down, the dried vines cleared away, the coloured ball cane toppers sorted for broken ones with the others stored back in the shed, and a start on the path revamp I was happy to call it a day.

Oh - and I've just opened a bottle of grape wine that I made last year from John Badger's (at the bottom) grapes, and some of mine too. It's horrible. You can't win 'em all, I suppose!

Blackcurrant Wine - The Outcome

2011-11-23T21:09:00.006Z

Remember the blackcurrant wine that I started back in November 2010 and did a step-by-step guide? Well it has been in the bottles since February, and I've started the first bottle.

Gosh.

It really is rather good.

A very passable, fruity, full bodied red.

In the cold light of morning I am going to go and squirrel one or two bottles away for further maturing and very special occasions.

Mm-mmmm.

Hill Allotment AGM 2011

2011-11-20T19:28:00.008Z

Before putting a post together about the Hill Allotments AGM, I've needed to do a little technical jiggery pokery with the blog.

My blog background - of which I am rather fond - has stopped displaying, and investigations reveal that this is because the nice lady at delightfuldots where I had it from has decided that she now has better things to do than provide all and sundry with lovely blog backgrounds for free.

Then I spent an interminable amount of time going round and round in bloody circles trying to work out why my side bar had disappeared from the right hand side, appearing at the bottom of the blog page instead. Eventually I figured out the correct combination of words to use in the Blogger help site search box to reveal the way to fix this.

I will tackle the decision on what to use as a background another time, otherwise we'll have been here all evening with nothing to show for it.

So on to the AGM - it is always an excellent evening held in the clubhouse, and only the second occasion in the calender when the plotholders get together (the other being the Annual Show).

The business end romps along with reports on the Accounts, Health and Safety, Show Report and Secretary's report - and then we get to the nitty gritty issues like Site Access and Water Usage.

No one wants to see the increase in incidences of vandalism continue, or for the Council to take action against us on overuse of water, so breaches in the rules on gate-locking and water-profligacy have now become hanging offences, and don't say you weren't warned. Quite right too.

A final point before the fun bit of the cup presentations, photo competition and bun fight afterwards, was raised by Dr Bob, as 'green' a gardener as you will find on any site.

We've all had trouble with allium leaf miner (a bug which affects onions, leeks & shallots, causing the leaves to twist. The plants do sort of recover, but it ain't great - photo below courtesy of Lichfield Allotments).

There's no remedy, but Dr Bob suggests that all seventy-odd plotholders abstain from growing alliums for a period of - say - three years to see if we can eradicate the pest.

Reg-next-plot, a more traditional plotholder, can be heard spluttering into his beer at this point, and counters with the suggestion of using Armillatox to sterilise the soil, 'kills the lot, that does', at which point Dr Bob splutters into his beer, the Secretary points out that Armillatox is not licenced as a pesticide any more (cue Reg scowling) and - unsurprisingly - we don't come to any consensus on this issue.

The big picture of a secure site and sensible water use to keep our plots safe and our crops thriving is where we all agree - it's just some of the methodology of how to get there that we might differ on...

Takes all sorts though, eh?

Ahem - Where Were We?

2011-11-07T21:30:00.017Z

Obviously, apologies to any purple-faced readers who have held their breath for exciting news of the Hill Show.

My silence is due neither to being swept away on a wave of euphoria through sweeping the board and winning all 72 categories available, nor being cast into the pit of dispair due to dismal failure, but the intervention of real life, primarily WORK. Times is tough, belts have be tightened, hours have to be extended, output has to go up.

Oh, and I went away on holiday for ages too.

Of course the longer the gap between blog posts, the more there is to say, and the more daunting the task, so let us skim over the last few weeks thus:

I had 14 entries for the Show - first place for the dwarf beans, fruit cake & chutney; second place for carrots, lemon drizzle cake & the collection; and third place for rhubarb - hurrah!

I have discovered (and MUST REMEMBER) that four courgette plants are TOO MANY - I picked the first of the courgette in mid July, the last ones yesterday. Over three months, I would guess that I picked nearly a hundred courgette.

Beans continue to be terrific value - I'm picking them for drying now, and there are bags and bags in the freezer.

Mum's friend Chris is more than generous with her spare plums - 'a few pounds for making a batch of wine' translated at her end to 'please innundate me with enough plums for making three batches of wine, eat until I'm almost ill, and to make jars and jars of plum chutney'.

Mum's friend Chris is also generous with her quince - although I only got twice as many as I said I could sensibly use for a batch of wine. I've given half to Julie - I'm hoping that she makes some quince jelly and we can do a swap.

Half a dozen red kuri squash are all cured and in the mini green house, along with a foot-diameter pumpkin - NOT a prizewinner this year. Although the idea of planting the pumpkin plant where the compost heap had been was a good idea in terms of richness of the soil, the fact that it was behind the shed & therefore somewhat shaded meant the plant did not thrive.

The second early and maincrop potatoes are all dug up & stored (the earlies all eaten); garlic and onions dried and strung; three or four dozen sweetcorn cobs all picked, distributed to people I like and eaten.

The pea wigwams have all been replaced with brussels sprouts and purple sprouting seedlings bought in the Focus closing down sale. The enormous apoplexy-inducing fight that I had with laying out the netting to cover these brassicas has paid off - I was surprised to discover shoots on the purple sprouting just last weekend. Mentally, I'd had them down as being ready after Christmas, but then again I don't know the variety, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised

I've started the Autumn tidy up, forking over spare beds ready for either manuring, liming or sowing with green manure. The raspberry canes have be cut down either to the ground (autumn variety) or tidied up with last years growth cut out (summer variety)

And what's to do next?

cut down the asparagus when it starts to go yellowy

turn all the more-or-less rotted down chippings from the paths into the beds and organise fresh chippings.

finish getting the beans in & taking down the frame

Paint the toolshed - a job made all the more pressing by the erection of a smart brand new shed straight across the path by neighbour Jody

And that's where we are.

Hopefully fine weather at the weekend - and the AGM next week...

Show Time!

2011-08-14T12:22:00.007+01:00

I have not been idle at the Hill this last couple of weeks - the lack of blog updates is simply that there are only a finite ways to say 'I have been to the plot and picked a bag of french beans and an overwhelming number of courgette'.

Today, however, it is the Annual Hill Show so there will be plenty of photos to take and tales to tell when I get back.

I do have one tale of woe already, though - I've been to pick my entries this morning, and the lettuces which had been just nice and plump on Friday, are now 2' tall with a flower spike.

I'm sure that this isn't an omen!

Summertime...

2011-07-24T22:11:00.005+01:00

... and the picking is eaaaaaaaasy.

What is really good about Summer is not just that there are zillions of yummy things growing and ready for picking, but that aren't many horrible jobs that you should be doing.

Apart from some weeding (easy peasy in the raised beds), it's courgettes, lettuce, dwarf beans, broad beans, and carrots all the way. Hurrah!

And when I'm taking a breather from that lot I can stuff my face with raspberries - the summer ones have come to an end now, just as the Autumn ones are kicking in.

Mind you, what will be a horrible job (as it involves netting) to be done soon will be to clear the pea wigwams and broad beans so that I can get the brassicas planted out from where they are in the nursery bed.

I'm having a bit of a dither about that as I'm not sure how soon I can take the pods from the (dead) pea plants that I am saving for seed for next year. Advice welcomed on that one.

The french beans win the prize for the most generous croppers at the moment - even above the courgettes - I picked half a carrier bag full again this evening. And where they win over the courgettes is that they freeze wonderfully too - with a quick snip to top & tail and then they are lined up like soldiers in small bags to freeze.

Fabulous!

Courgette Season Starts ... NOW!

2011-07-12T20:42:00.014+01:00

It is, of course, a very busy time of the year at the Hill - although a lot of the busyness comprises the same ol' job. Namely, weeding. And then some.

Squashing asparagus beetles is the other ongoing job - but there are fewer each time I go to the Hill, so perhaps I am winning the battle there.

We're enjoying a spell of mostly warm, mostly dry weather (I think that it is called 'Summer') which is bringing the crops on a treat (and the weeds) and everything is looking very good.

In between weeding is the best bit - picking gorgeous fruit and vegetables to eat.

Tonight alone I have dug up or picked:

- the garlic crop (and planted an extremely late bag of shallots in a spirit of optimism)
- the last of the first early potatoes (red duke of york*)
- the first of the dwarf french beans (emp of russia)
- carrots
- the first of the courgettes. Delicious! The real first sign of summer!
- broad beans
- raspberries, eaten on the spot

Yum, yum, yum!

*red duke of york potatoes. Not a good one for me, as it turns out - a total of just 17 potatoes dug up from six plants; then when gently simmered for 12 minutes, they turn into potato soup. One which I will NOT be growing again. Live and learn.

Just When It Was Going So Well...

2011-07-03T16:46:00.009+01:00

Going to the Hill at this time of year consists of a great deal of picking peas, broad beans, sweet peas, mange tout, strawberries, raspberries, garlic, onion & potatoes.

Of course there are also great swathes of annual weed seeds germinating which need whipping out at the first opportunity, & although the raised beds make this a much easier job, it does have to be said that warm weather & showers bring the weeds on like mad.

But otherwise, all is very well with the world, thank you very much.

Except it is not, as I discovered on Wednesday lunchtime when I nipped over to the Hill to pick lunch.

"Tra la la", I sang in the sunshine, with a trug filling with plump, ripe produce, and the bees humming in the flowers, "tra la la".

Then Julie came down to see how I was getting on and to offer me gooseberries.

"Would you like to help yourself?" she asked, "we have done everything that we possibly can with gooseberries and there is still a full bush that we haven't touched yet! I have gooseberries in the freezer, as gooseberry fool, gooseberry chutney, jam - here, have a pot - we've given them to the neighbours & Phil is even making gooseberry wine." Well I don't need asking twice - brilliant!

We were having a look round my plot & comparing notes, when we came to the asparagus bed. Rather than looking suitably impressed with the bed, Julie said, "er, you do know that you have asparagus beetle, don't you...?"

What?

And sure enough, closer inspection revealed plenty of the little beggars - beetles & grubs.

"At least I offered you the gooseberries first," comiserated Julie, "I didn't just come down here as a merchant of doom!".

Well, I guess that I'm grateful that she spotted them for me, & I am now on frequent bug-squashing raids. If I have to wait three years to eat the damn stuff, I'm damned if someone else is going to beat me to it.

I went back to the Hill later in the evening with long sleeves & gloves & picked a carrier bag of Julie's gooseberries - about half the bush - and I've topped and tailed them and frozen enough for a batch of wine (Phil has the best idea there) and a couple of pounds are left over which have just gone next door to my neighbours.

Elizabeth asked a good question in a previous comment when she said, "I planted my leek plants out about 4-5 weeks ago, and thought that was late. I may be wrong, but may be that's the reason your leeks weren't great last year?"

I checked in my copy of J Seymour, who says, "The trick of planting leeks after the spuds have been lifted can only be done if the spuds are early ones. Earlies are being eaten by June so leeks can be transplanted into the ground when it is clear."

So, the theory is ok, but I think that in previous years the pot-sown leeks that I have transplanted have been too small - this year I have planted pots of leeks out (right to left in the pic sown in January, April and May) into the nursery bed, and the earlier sown ones in particular look to be nicely 'pencil thickness' which all the books say is the right size to transplant.

I love leeks in the winter, so I do hope that I've got this one right.

Weeding, Planting, Harvesting

2011-06-19T20:11:00.007+01:00

I had quite a long List to take with me to the Hill today - and I marked off all but one of the items. Mind you, I was there for the best part of five hours, so I should hope that I did make good progress.

When I arrived, I was alone apart from Woodchippings Paul a few plots down who was mending his new polytunnel - yes, that's right we had vandals on the site on Wednesday evening. I'm not sure that there was anything else damaged (it can be a bit tricky on your average allotment site to ascertain what is damage and what is normal), but there's no getting away from a slashed polytunnel cover, or a path trampled through the foliage on a potato bed.

With the warm but showery weather that we have had this week, everything is growing like mad - including the weeds - so before I could do anything else, the beds needed bringing into order.

Carl & Wendy by the gate arrived. 'Would you like some sweetcorn plants?' asked Carl, 'we've run out of room'.

Well of course, they would be most welcome - was I only saying last week that I had just half of one of the miscellaneous beds to plant? I did smile to myself - when Lionel gave up the back half of the plot and Carl & Wendy upgraded their half at the front to the whole plot, they were a bit worried about the size, and what on earth they were going to fill it all with.

With the weeding out of the way, it was time to do what I'd set out to do - I ticked each job off the List as I went:

- I tickled over the area which used to house a pallet compost bin behind the shed with a fork, made a dip in the soil and planted out the prize pumpkin plant - it's tiny now, but just wait!

- I found the stiff green mesh which I used last year to support the cucumbers, supported it with canes and planted out three cucumber plants

- I planted out the brassicas bought at Focus into the nursery bed - their final resting place will be where the peas & beans are at the moment

- I wrestled with some netting to cover the brassicas - I may have rescued a pigeon from where it had got itself trapped under some netting on teacher Barry's son's plot last week, but I don't think that my act of kindness will cut any ice with the rest of the pigeon population

- I planted a pot of leeks out into the nursery bed - they will be put in after the first early potatoes are dug out. By growing them on from the pot into the nursery bed, I'm hoping that they will be a better size when I plant them out - they were far too small last year, and not a success

- I planted out a pot of red lettuce, and one of green lettuce - I've oversown in each pot and have about 30 of each. My patience was running out by then so I split the seedlings up into 8 smaller bunches and plonked them in, four or so to a station.

- I planted out a pot of swede - no idea why I sowed these in a pot rather than direct, and I don't know how well they will transplant - especially as I was getting really fed up by this point, so did the lettuce trick and split the pot into four and planted each bunch out as one.

- I planted out the final batch of broad bean seedlings

- I gave everything that I'd planted out a good water.

And then for the fun bit of collecting the booty - forking up a pentland javelin first early plant which yielded a dozen egg size potatoes; a bowl of strawberries; a couple of small lettuce; a great bunch of sweet peas; and half a carrier bag full of broad beans, mangetout and peas.

Dinner this evening really was excellent!

Wordless Wednesday 15 June 2011

2011-06-15T13:25:00.002+01:00

Eight Reasons to Love June

2011-06-13T21:03:00.009+01:00

I think that June is my favourite month of the whole year - here's why:

Sweet peas - first picking of these this evening at the Hill. The scent is divine, & I hope to be picking these over the next couple of months.

They are from saved seed from last year's packet - which incidently cost 35p in the Wilko sale at the end of the previous season.

Light nights - these are fab, fab, fab. I love them.

Peas - probably my favourite veg. And (fingers crossed) I seem to have got the supports right for the first time this year - previous attempts at pea growing include a two foot high netting (the peas grew to twice that, despite what it said on the packet); harps with a different variety on each side (the strings rotted where they touched the soil & snapped); and netting on a V of bamboo canes (too flimsy, peas intertwined, pigeons sat on bamboo supports & ate peas). Wigwams seem to be the way to go here.

Broad beans - heros of the veg plot being first out the traps in terms of harvest, & freeze brilliantly without any faffing about.

Potatoes - although even the most ardent potato fan will concede that a jacket spud is pretty much a jacket spud, those first potatoes of the year out of the warm soil, with the skin wiped off and cooked with a spring of mint, salt and butter really cannot be beaten.

Strawberries - what is there not to love here? Must try strawbs with balsamic vinegar as Nic suggests - a bit counter-intuitive, but something chimes with me enough to have a go.

Weather - despite moaning about the variable weather (and yesterday was no exception - it rained ALL DAY LONG), June is a fantastic month to sit outside in the courtyard in the evening with a glass of something tasty, being shouted at by the blackbird - sorry Mr Blackbird, but it is my garden.

Cherries - I think that this must be a good year for them. The little tree in the courtyard is weighed down with ripening cherries, with no blackfly at all (or on the broad beans at the Hill, come to think of it). If the birds come near them, I will be eating pigeon pie - have taken to posting a cat-sentry on the bench.

Come to think of it, that's probably why I get a bollocking from the Mr B when I sit out in the evening.

Wordless Wednesday 8 June 2011

2011-06-08T09:29:00.004+01:00

Weather - And Lots Of It!

2011-06-07T21:51:00.014+01:00

Between bouts of moaning about the weather being too dry (most of May); too wet (all of Spring Bank Holiday weekend); too hot (two days last week); too windy (as shown by the angle of the stems here of the poor ol' garlic) or too cold (virtually every other sodding day for the last month), I have been getting things done at the Hill.

My progress is aided by drawing up Lists which are concise & manageable, & by going to the Hill in the evenings when I am less likely to end up chatting for far too long & bumbling around doing half-jobs which just fill the time available - thus managing to avoid thinking 'I've been there five hours, I'm knackered, & what have I actually done?' on the way home.

An exception to the do-and-go was yesterday evening, which was sunny & tranquil & an utter delight, & when I'd finished the List - which read...

- Plant out petunias (bargain! 2 trays of 6 well grown plants for £3 from Morrisons Supermarket on Friday last)
- Pick broadies for tea (picked two dozen perfect pods with fingernail sized beans)
- Furtle under early potatoes (grubbed about to find two sizeable 'charlotte' potatoes)
- Pick any ripe strawberries (ate half a dozen on the spot)

...I hung around to watch the blackbird digging around the beds, watched by the robin; listened to the woodpecker thumping away, & strolled down to the bottom to see what everyone else was up to. Lovely.

The first batch of peas are overwhelming the wigwam & I've had to run an outer string around the plants to keep them in check (the pods are long, but still thin); & there are buds on the sweetpeas.

The running Plan that I keep of what's-planted-where shows that having planted out the climbing & the rest of the dwarf beans, the squash, cougettes & sweetcorn, there's only two thirds of a Miscellaneous bed unplanted on the whole plot - which gives me a headache as to where to plant out a bargain bag of shallots bought from the Focus DIY closing down sale.

I bought a tray of brussels sprouts & one of purple sprouting at the same time - they should be planted out after the peans & beans, but according to my guru John Seymour, they will come to no harm being grown on in a nursery bed until the ground is clear. We'll see - I've not had the knack of winter brassicas to date.

Weeding is ongoing, of course, but let's hear it for raised beds which make the job (almost!) a pleasure.

And absolutely nothing can compare to the first of the new potatoes!

Wordless Wednesday 18 May 2011

2011-05-18T20:23:00.003+01:00

My How You've Grown!

2011-05-16T20:50:00.017+01:00

I was busy messing about with other things this weekend, but went down to the Hill this evening for a couple of hours in order to:

earth up the potatoes

plant out some pot sown lettuce

sow a row of CARROTS (early nantes 5) & of PARSNIPS (hollow crown)

I do find that if I don't have a List, I lurch from from half-done job to half-done job, & don't really achieve anything very much.

The weeds have certainly enjoyed the rain showers that we've been having for the past week, as have the peas, which are romping up the wigwams with the first batch now in flower - only a few weeks until I'm eating fresh peas from the pod - yum!

The potatoes are certainly ready for earthing up - & are a bit big, really - but it means that I'll only have this job to do once rather than twice. I hauled out a some big annual weeds whilst I was about it - some poppies & thistly type long-tap rooted weeds.

Of course, once I had the weeding bucket out, I couldn't help but hand weed the onion bed, & the paths as I went, & the other roots bed where at last I can see a few parsnips - patchy germination, though - & carrots coming through.

Because I could only see the very occassional parsnip seedling out of four rows the other day, I had a panic purchase of extra seeds from Aldi (35p, 275 seeds), as I think I might only be eating about three parsnips this winter.

I sowed two rows of these (with a marker row of radish), & then the carrots, and turned to the misc beds to plant out half a dozen LETTUCE (stoke), & a dozen LETTUCE (dazzle). The four lettuce I planted out mid April have come on in leaps and bounds, and I will have one out the ground very soon to eat.

Before I came home, I had a wander down to the bottom to see what everyone else is up to. Quite a few plotholders are putting their tender plants out now - I saw sweetcorn, courgette & squash plants on various plots. And I do hope that returning -allotmenteer-Chris at 2A posts some pics of her clematis on her blog - they are beautiful!

Now, Where Was I...?

2011-05-10T17:11:00.013+01:00

Despite not blogging for a week or two (or three), I have not been idle*, & since last blogging I have achieved the following at the Hill:

• Put up the bean 'V' - i.e. ran two pieces of stout fencing wire down the length of the bed between the two end T pieces, one to each extremity of the 'T'.

Once taut, I inserted twenty 8' canes along the centre line angled towards the wire on alternate sides, & tied the canes to the wire.

• Weeded all the beds, inc. digging over the two misc beds B ready for planting up.

• Prepped the asparagus bed & planted out the crowns - this was a real faff, & the crowns themselves like horrible squids with long roots for tenticles.

The roots were much longer than the planting guide seemed to think they would be, so rather than spreading the roots out evenly on a mound of soil in the bottom of a pathalogically weed free foot-deep trench, they were a bit spiralled round. Picky beggars - all that, & I can't even eat the spears for 3 years.

• Weeded the strawberry bed which lives under a cage normally, & so tends to get ignored.

Flowers are on the strawberry plants - a report in the paper this week says how prolofic the soft fruit will be due to the unseasonal warmth of April. Didn't say how the fruit was going to swell, given the unseasonal dryness of April, but there you go.

• Planted out the last batch of peas & strung the wigwam round & round.

• Pulled lots of rhubarb to make crumbles, for mum, godmother (who is stopping with mum), neighbours, & enough to get a batch of rhubarb wine going.

At home:

• Sowed seeds for all of the 'tender' crops - dwarf & climbing beans, courgette/squash/cucumber, another batch of leeks, sweetcorn & spring onions; as well as the final batch of peas.

• Planted out the tomato plants into their buckets, & lined these up against the sunny south dwarf wall in the courtyard.

One of the plants came to a sticky end almost immediately when the washing basket careered off its handy spot on the wall and landed on two of the buckets, with only one survivor.

I planted up a spare in it's stead, and put a long cane in each bucket to tie the plants to - it might look a bit daft now, when the plants are tiny, but they will soon grow & need support - as well as protecion from flying washing baskets.

• Planted up a spare recycling bag with the competition potatoes in a layer of grow bag compost - I was late going up to the store shed to pay my £2 for the grow bag & seed potatoes and so the spuds only had a few days on the windowsill to chit.

I wanted to get them planted up, though, as the official weigh day is that of the Show (14th August), which is only 14wks away. Mind you, I can hardly do worse than last year's efforts.

Phew! That brings us pretty much up to date, & yesterday evening I went to the Hill to see how everything is getting on (which is very well, thank you - particularly the weeds which have gone crackers now that we've FINALLY had a good soaking of rain over last weekend) & planted out half of the dwarf french beans.

I can see 'weeding' being top of the List for this weekend...

*Not strictly true - I am just back from having been particularly idle in a horizontal-lying-on-the-beach type way for a week or so.

Wordless Wed. - Expectation

2011-04-20T14:23:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday 13 April 2011

2011-04-13T16:18:00.001+01:00

Wordless Wednesday 6 April 2011

2011-04-06T10:27:00.001+01:00

Persevering with Peas & Nice Neighbours!

2011-04-05T22:58:00.007+01:00

I started this weekend’s allotment List on Saturday, & went back this evening to finish off.

On Saturday, I started off by planting the last of the POTATOES (pink fir apple) which I bought in Wilko the other day – they haven’t chatted for more than a week, but they’ll just have to get on with it.

By the potato beds, the front of the plot is starting to look really good - the wallflowers which I bought at the King's Heath Gardeners' Show last September have just started to flower and are really bushy & sturdy.

I also wanted to do some planting out & sowing, but first I had to attend to the pea wigwam where I’d planted out the PEAS (Robinson) last week – they have not grasped (literally!) the principal of climbing, as yet, & were doing some forlorn waving about mostly on the ground – no good at all – so I hunkered down to ground level & started to tie up the plants to the string to give them a start.

What a fiddly, backbreaking job. Half way through Rhubarb Brian came over to see what I was up to. “Tying the bloody peas to the bloody string”, I scowled.

“Well it’s looking good” he grinned, & looking over my shoulder to the gap by the shed said, “I see you’ve moved your compost heap – what’s going there instead?”

I stood up, pushed the loose rail back towards the shed roof from where it hangs & I told him that I’d thought to put the competition pumpkin there, “although I must nail this back to the shed roof first before it falls off completely!”

He went on his way, & I finished my fiddly tying up job & called it a day.

Back to the Hill tonight with renewed vigour & I discover that I have a new Worst Job in the World which is spiralling the string round the wigwams ready for planting out the peas.

Rhubarb Brian stopped by again, to make sure that I was happy with the shed repair. Seeing me looking blank, he pointed at the now solidly attached roof rail on the shed. “Blimey, did you do that? I didn’t see it – thank you so much!” I beamed “That’s brilliant!” I must remember to drop a bottle of parsnip wine to him at the weekend as a thank you.

With the middle two wigwams strings attached, I planted out the PEAS (kent blue) & sweetpeas – they do look rather good, & hopefully plants will appreciate my extra efforts with the string hoops closer together & get climbing. Then I popped the BROAD BEANS in along the edge of the bed.

As the light was fading I whacked in a couple of rows of PARSNIP (hollow crown), RADISH (rainbow mixed) & CARROT (early nantes 5), & came home with a sense of satisfaction that not only had I done all the jobs on the List, but that there is only one more bloody wigwam to string up…

First Planting Out of the Year

2011-03-31T22:03:00.013+01:00

Given that it had been such gorgeous weather for most of last week, it was a considerable disappointment how chilly it was on Saturday morning. No matter, I knew that if I dug the rest of the compost bin (bin 2) out onto the pea bed, I'd soon warm up.

It didn't take long to do that, so I went for broke & turned the adjacent newer bin (bin 1) into the now empty one (carefully moving Mr Toad to his new quarters) - a horrible, hard job - but at least it is full & ready to 'cook' now. Then I shuffled round the pallets to make a fresh bin (bin 3).

I've moved it along one from it's original spot - I had a brainwave & thought that the site of bin 1 would make a fabulous spot for the competition pumpkin - the ground will be rich, & it should stop the plant from getting quite so bloody triffid like in the 'misc.' bed.

The last 'heavy' job was to dig over the pea bed, & get out the leeks - these have not been a resounding success - planted too late, I suspect, but I did get a couple of dozen 'baby leeks' which have tasked very nice indeed.

To let my back recuperate a bit, I planted out the main crop POTATOES (maris piper & king edwards - easy peasy, make hole with fat stick, drop spud in, cover over. I realised that I have room for just one more row between the second earlies & the main crops, so I bought a small pack of 'pink fir apple' from Wilko this week, which are now chitting on the windowsill.

With the pea bed all ready, I put the four wigwams up - there was a certain amount of trial & error with putting six 8' canes in the ground fixed together at the top end with a plastic saucer with six holes in. Carl, next door but one, kindly helped with the first one, but I worked out that if I attached the saucer to the canes first, then put the canes in the soil, that works quite well, although it wasn't easy any way round.

I planted out the BROAD BEANS (violetta) along the edge of the bed, then wrapped string round and round the first wigwam and planted out the first batch of PEAS (robinson).

I would have put the string round the other three wigwams, ready, but I was now cold & achy after nearly four hours at the Hill & no lunch, so I pulled a few rhubarb stalks, & went home for a welcome cup of tea & a hot bath.

Wordless Wed. - Oliver the Lookout Cat

2011-03-30T12:22:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday 23 Mar 2011

2011-03-23T17:33:00.002Z

Plot Prep & a Friendly Resident

2011-03-22T19:33:00.011Z

When Saturday proved to be a lovely day, I went to the Hill with the idea of moving the two ends of the climbing bean frame along to this year's bed, prepping the soil by adding the 'cooked' compost heap, & maybe putting up the pea wigwams too.

It's high time that I got the legume beds for this year sorted out, looking at the broad bean seedlings in the mini greenhouse at home, as well at the first batch of peas & the sweetpeas, which are pretty much ready to go out.

It was an ambitious list (as my back told me later), but I got stuck in. Actually first up was the nice job of planting the second early POTATOES (charlotte & kestrel), but then I got the cordless screwdriver & the spade out and 'planted' the bean frame ends at each end of the new bed then screwed each frame to the bed ends.

The bean frame has been a fabulous success over the past couple of seasons - especially now I know to use the 'fence grade' wire for the cross pieces to tie the canes to, which is robust enough to withstand any autumn storms.

I still haven't perfected a system for the peas, but this year it will be four traditional wigwams with a spiral of string wrapped round for the peas to grab onto.

Whilst the spade was handy, I roughly dug a trench down the centre of the bed, and started to fill it in with the contents of the oldest compost bin.

Although this is only the bed next door but one to the bin, it was Very Heavy Going & I threw the towel in with the bed fairly well full, and the compost heap about 3/4 empty - the rest of the compost will go onto the other legume bed next weekend before I put the pea wigwams up.

I wasn't alone which my compost heap - I'm afraid that I evicted this toad. Actually, he was lucky that he didn't come to a grizzly end chopped in half with the spade - he's incredibly camouflaged.

I popped him by the bottom of the other bin - he can take temporary residence until that bin is turned into the newly emptied one, and then I will leave him in peace.

The thought of turning the compost heap finished me off, so I tottered up to the club house for light refreshment before heading home for a hot bath.

NB: When applying Tiger Balm, which has a warming effect when applied to aching muscles, do remember that it does take quite a while for the heat to develop, so care should be taken not to keep slathering it on over-liberally, especially after a hot bath has opened all the pores...

Wordless Wednesday 16 Mar 2011

2011-03-16T11:59:00.002Z

Skip Painting & Parsnip Harvest

2011-03-15T20:22:00.014Z

It was a lovely Spring-like day on Saturday, so I composed my List Of Things To Do, packed the car - including my overalls - & got myself to the Hill.

I parked my car at the top end & said hello & waved to to plenty of people as I walked down to my plot to find returning-allotmenteer-Chris from 2a by the manure skip, busy readying equipment for the main event for the day - skip painting.

At the AGM in November, when a list of jobs was circulated that need doing for the upkeep of the site, we ticked the manure-skip painting job as being - frankly - not overly arduous, & now the better weather is with us, we had no excuse not to get on with it.

So, on with the overalls (and woolly hat - it wasn't that warm), we rubbed the loose paint off with some vigour, then got the paint brushes out.

It looked a lot smarter when we'd finished. Mind you, I didn't look smarter when we'd finished - I looked like someone with green paint on their hat. And here we do look a bit as though we've escaped from somewhere, but it does show us doing a Job of Work.

We chatted as we painted - not least to about three quarters of the Hill plotholders who passed by, every one a comic - & we agreed that some painted flowers on the side of the skip would look good.

Well - blow me down - Chris has been on the case and demonstrated an excellent artistic talent - just look at those sunflowers! I'm tickled pink - it looks fantastic!

With skip painting finished, I put the overalls back in the car, & on the way by spotted Teacher Barry's son, three plots up from mine. I was glad to see him, as the last time that I saw his father before he sadly passed away last Spring, he gave me some parsnips for making wine, & I promised him a bottle when it was ready to drink.

I'm glad that Mike has carried on with his father's plot, & very happy that I've managed to keep my promise - maybe he'll drink a toast to Barry. I know that I will when I open the first bottle in a couple of weeks.

I got busy with the fork & dug up all the remaining parsnips - I'll need this bed for the potatoes, & I wanted to get it cleared & add some manure. There is rather a mountain of them, actually, even after I discarded any ropey ones.

I put them to one side, then made holes to plant the POTATOES (red duke of york & pentland javelin) in, heaved 3 tubs of manure from the skip, then sowed a row of CARROTS (early nantes 5) in yet another misguided gesture of hope over experience, I suspect.

That was my list all ticked off, so all I had to do was work out what to do with a couple of hundred weight of perfect parsnips.

So I filled the big bucket & walked down to the bottom & back up again foisting them off on anyone who would have them, including JB; his gardening buddy Catherine; Chris; woodchippings Paul (who produced a jar of damson jam in exchange to my utter delight); neighbour Jody's mate Shaun & young family who are helping Jody out; Carl & Wendy and potager Chrissie.

I still bought this lot back home - enough to feed me, the neighbours, mum AND to make a couple of batches of wine. And soup. And to blanch and freeze...

Wordless Wednesday 9 Mar 2011

2011-03-09T15:51:00.002Z

Wordless Wednesday 2 Mar 2011

2011-03-02T18:22:00.002Z

First Outdoor Sowing of the Year

2011-02-27T20:10:00.006Z

I had a lovely hour or two at the Hill yesterday!

On my List was:
- Sow onion sets which Julie’s has kindly offered me - no tempting trip to Wilko for me!
- Dig parsnip
- Fork over this year’s roots bed & sow parsnip (& radish seeds as ‘markers’ for the rows)

I arrived at the Hill to the sound of hammering coming from the bottom end, & I saw Rhubarb Brian in the distance erecting some sort of sentry box on the front of his plot.

As I went to get the fork out the shed, I spotted the tops of some rhubarb stalks from the very early crown over the top of the compost bins, & could not resist going across & pulling half a dozen of the longest (still only 6-8” long) which I later cooked in lemon juice & a little honey for tea.

I busied myself digging out a parsnip, & forking over one of the roots beds, & sowed a couple of rows of PARSNIP (saved white gem) & RADISH (French breakfast). The parsnip seed is a year past it’s best, so I’ve sowed quite thickly & hope that even if – say – only one in 15 or so come up, I’ll still have enough in each of the two rows.

I went up to collect the RED ONION SETS from Julie’s greenhouse – a couple of good sized handfuls was enough to fill in the rest of the bed between the overwintered white onions & the rather good-looking garlic.

Sowing done, I starting to fill the big trug bucket with manure from the skip, Brian headed past, & so I asked him what he was building.

“It’s a tool shed!” he beamed, “like Carl & Wendy’s by the gate. It looks a bit like an outside privy at the moment, but it’ll look better when it’s tiled – I’m just going to get the tiles now, back in a bit.”

I emptied half a dozen big trug buckets onto this year’s potato beds where possible – some re-sprouting parsnips are still in situ (I feel a batch of parsnip wine coming on!), & forked it level to the top of the boards, & felt that I’d more than finished what I’d set out to do.

I did do a little extra job, though – as I was putting the fork & trug bucket back into the shed, I spotted the bag of lime, so after the mental gymnastics that thinking about crop rotation always necessitates, I figured where it should be spread, & gave this year’s legumes beds a good dusting.

And because I had also given me a good dusting, I went home zombie-like, heading straight for the bath.

Spring!

2011-02-24T21:51:00.006Z

It was a lovely sunny, spring-like today - a fact reflected in the blog entries of gardeners all over the UK, no doubt - so what a shame I was stuck indoors.

But if the wolf is to be kept from the door, a living has to be made, so no playing at the Hill for me today.

A little bright spark in my day, though, was to see these tiny tete-a-tete narcissi just coming into flower by the front door when I went to buy a paper at lunchtime.

They are so tiny, I had to practically stand on my head to take the photo, much to the amusement of a number of passers-by.

But spread a little happiness, eh?

Rotten Veg & Seed Sowing

2011-02-23T20:39:00.008Z

I replaced the cover on the mini greenhouse in the autumn - it had split, but had lasted three years, so no complaints here.

Generally, I leave the 'door' unzipped & up - I figure it still keeps the worse of the cold off whatever is in there, it soon gets full of condensation in the morning, & I really can't be bothered with whipping the top up & down each day.

However, the weather this winter has been so exceptionally cold, that I've left the new cover zipped down to give extra protection to the one or two bits in there.

It turns out that I should have kept a rather better eye on it though - as a revolting sight greeted me last weekend when I finally opened it up in order to move a tray of onion & leek seedlings in there.

The pumpkin has not survived the harsh winter, & deflated - sort of composted itself. The stuff in the tray on the bottom shelf was like primordial soup, & left much long would have spawned new life forms, I am sure.

After cleaning that lot up (noticing that the rudbekia seedlings kindly sent by Vegetable Heaven are looking perky too - despite pumpkin goo everywhere), I got the compost out & sowed pots of LETTUCE (hsl bath cos), LEEK (saved), SPRING ONION (apache), BROAD BEANS (violetta) & a root trainer tray of sweetpeas.

Gearing up for the new season!

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 4, Month 3

2011-02-20T20:40:00.010Z

Step 4: ..... Let it stand until fermentation ceases & the wine clears, usually in about three months, then siphon off into fresh, sterilised bottles

And duly, three months later, here we are. Mind you, because the wine is so richly purple, frankly, I have no idea if it has cleared or not – even with a strong light behind the demijohn, it just looks well, purple.

But racking the wine off the little layer of sediment will be a good idea (don’t want the wine sitting in its own yuk for too long in case the yuk taints the taste of the wine), so after sterilising the tube & a bucket it’s time to take off the airlock & see what’s what.

With the bucket on the floor (on newspaper – we don’t want blackcurrant wine spilling on the carpet at all!) & the demijohn on a table, the one end of the tube is put in the wine half way, & the other end gets a good suck to pull some wine up the tube.

Stick your finger over the end then lower the tube into the bucket – take off finger & watch the wine transfer from the demijohn up the tube & down into the bucket.

A clip on the tube is handy here so you can secure the tube to the bucket whilst you keep a beady eye on the wine in the demijohn. Keep the tube end under the falling wine level, but away from the sides/bottom, & when it gets to within about an inch of the bottom, pull the tube up & out of what’s left.

Now you have a bucketful of wine which CJJ says can be siphon off into fresh, sterilised bottles. Good practise says that he’s a little previous – before bottling, wine should be stabilised to stop the possibility of any further fermentation at all – the last thing you want is fermentation happening in the bottles – they’ll explode!

So the final step before bottling is to pour the wine from the bucket back into the rinsed-out the demijohn (not forgetting to take a sample to measure the SG & have a quick taster) & to add a crushed Camden tablet, & a teaspoon of potassium sorbate in order to stabilise the wine.

This is where the reserved portion of wine comes in - the level in the demijohn will be lower than it was, as we’ve left some wine/sediment behind when we siphoned, so carefully top the demijohn up back to its previous level.

Leave it alone for a couple of weeks – any final sediment will settle out, then it’s time to bottle & mature.

Ryton Potato Day & Seed Swap

2011-02-19T18:15:00.009Z

Predictably, although the potato day & seed swap were great - & I wouldn't miss it for the world - the last weekend in January at Ryton Organic Gardens was very cold indeed.

It was laid out a little differently to last year, with the seed swap first up - so I gave in my shoe box of bean seeds, & girded the loins of my self control & only chose the equivalent number of varieties to take home with me. Well, just one extra one, but only because the chap running the seed swap wouldn't let me leave without - honest!

So on to the main event - I'd done my homework choosing which varieties of potatoes that I wanted to grow this year from the dozens of types to chose from, so I could go straight in & get picking. In fact, I was startling efficient, & took six big brown envelopes with me already labelled up with the name & number that I wanted of each, so all I had to do was find the right crate (potatoes alphabetically laid out in the marquee), & fill the envelopes.

I've gone for six of each of the first earlies 'red duke of york', 'pentland javelin', six of each of the second earlies 'kestrel', 'charlotte', & eight of each of the main crop 'king edwards' & 'maris piper'.

This exercise took me about 3 minutes from entering the marquee to leaving the pay area, but given that I'd paid a not insubstantial entrance fee, I felt obliged to get my money's worth & have a good look round the gardens.

Although it is very interesting to see how gardens are laid out and the bones' of the structure, there is no getting away from the fact that it was - er - bare.

I persevered round the whole site, reading labels (the composting area of most note - the difference in yields of potatoes when planted in ground which has been fed differently with nothing/leaf mould/compost was astonishing), but on the whole I was very glad to get back in the car & get it toasty warm on the drive home.

Potato Day Prep

2011-01-27T22:48:00.003Z

It’s the Potato Day at Ryton on Sunday, & this year they have very helpfully published the list of varieties that will be for sale along with their properties, so I’ve printed this off to have a browse through & to select my two varieties of earlies, second earlies & maincrops.

Deciding in advance means that I can by-pass the bun fight & get straight on to picking what I want.

This has two distinct advantages – the first being that it always seems to be about -6 degrees in the marquee, & the second is that as soon as I have the potatoes under my belt, I can whizz off to the other most excellent attraction of the day – the seed swap.

I always have plenty of bean & pea seeds that I have grown that I can pop into envelopes to take along to contribute, & this year I’m taking eight or nine envelopes of five different types of beans, & I reckon that entitles me to my choice of half a dozen packets to bring home.

An excellent arrangement!

Parsnips & Potatoes

2011-01-23T22:30:00.004Z

The weather yesterday not being (a) raining or (b) Siberian freezing cold, I went to the Hill to see how the plot was getting on, & to dig a couple of parsnips for tea.

A mooch round revealed that the early rhubarb crown is showing pink buds, & the garlic just beginning to sprout, but despite the temperature being 4 or 5 degrees, the ground was still frozen down a few inches.

It took a bit of brute strength with the fork to expose a couple of lovely parsnip which I whipped out in short order.

As you’d expect, there were very few people trying to dig their plots – if the frost doesn’t defeat the digger, the wet soil sticking to the spade will – however, Potager Chrissie was back & forth to the muck skip with a wheelbarrow taking manure up to her beds.

It was lovely to see her & we wished each other a happy New Year & chatted for a while. We talked about potato varieties, & I offered to get her some potato seed from Ryton next week when I go for the Potato Day.

Chrissie went off with a couple of parsnips too, & after I dug over one of the small fruit beds (into which I will plant the ordered asparagus crowns), I decided that I was doing more harm than good, & called it a day.

The days are getting the tiniest bit longer, now, & just to show that Spring is round the corner, the onions & a lonely leek have sprouted in their pots at home.

Long Winter!

2011-01-09T20:06:00.008Z

So it has been the coldest December on record, and January has hardly warmed the cockles of the heart yet - although we have actually seen the sun today – all day. Mind you, it has still been pretty raw out.

I wanted to make the most of the break in the depressingly dank grey weather, so I started by giving the grapevine in the courtyard a severe prune. Every year its triffid like growth gets wildly out of hand, so hopefully this will make it rather less unruly come the summer.

It wasn’t until I’d filled a green bag with twiggy offcuts that it occurred to me to wonder whether my enthusiastic pruning might affect the number of bunches of grapes this year – by which time it was rather too late.

Over a cup of coffee to thaw out a bit, I thought about going to the Hill & weighed up what is on the List (dig parsnip, manure new potato bed at some point, I suppose, but there’s no rush) against the chill in the air & decided that I really didn’t fancy it – & that a six mile round trip’s worth of petrol really couldn’t be justified for a single parsnip.

Instead, I got my January seeds envelope out & sowed a pot of each of LEEK (saved), ONION (long red Florence) & LETTUCE (hsl stoke), which will go on the cold windowsill then out to the mini greenhouse when they are up.

It might be the New Year, but there’s still a great deal of bleak midwinter about!

A New Growing Year Ahead

2011-01-02T20:33:00.008Z

Although the weather was no less grey today than previous days - & only about 2 degrees - I dragged myself away from the cosy fire and went to the Hill to see how the winter is treating the allotment.

After the very cold temperatures & a few inches of snow lying for a couple of weeks, the plot is now very wet indeed - I went to dig up a parsnip & ended up with half the soil in the bed adhered to the spade. Nice looking parsnip, though.

The only other item on my List was to pop some bits & pieces from home into the compost bins - cut offs from the Christmas tree, & some indoor plants that had seen better days.

Back at home I spent a merry hour going through my embarrassingly large stash of seeds & sorted them into the relevant month for sowing, & also put all the beans (now hard & dry) into storage jars.

I thought about sowing some onion & leeks seeds, but truth be told, I couldn't be bothered leaving the warmth of the fire again to go & get the frozen compost out of the garage - it'll surely wait.

Grey Days

2011-01-01T17:29:00.003Z

It finally started to thaw on the-day-after-Boxing-Day, & the snow slowly melted off the verges by midweek. It has, of course, been remarkably wet & grey & gloomy since.

I have failed – again – at growing Brussels sprouts or carrots for the Christmas meal, however the home grown potatoes & parsnips were delicious.

Assuming that the murk lifts even slightly, I will go to the Hill tomorrow - if only to check that it is still there. With such miserable weather I have not been remotely interested in trudging round the plot during the Christmas break.

I might dig a parsnip, but that’s about it – although there will be some more muck to spread on this year’s potato beds, & some lime to apply to this year’s bean beds, there really is no rush at all.

New Year’s resolutions? The normal gubbins about being more organised, I guess – and to space stuff out more in order to grow sufficient-and-a-bit, and not unfeasibly large quantities of some stuff e.g. courgettes.

We shall see how we get on with that!

Bah, Humbug mk II

2010-12-19T21:06:00.008Z

After a few normal days, it's back to snow & bloody cold weather again.

The five day forecast shows all the temps - night & day - in blue, meaning below freezing, so it looks like the couple of inches of snow which fell on Friday & Saturday will be hanging around for the foreseeable. I'd show you, but I can't work out how to copy & paste the screen shot thing - the formatting comes out all funny when I try.

So that means being confined to barracks again & not being able to get to the Hill - but on the plus side, the tree is up & looking good ready for Christmas next weekend, & Oliver cat has taken up timeshares between my lap & being in front of the fire.

It's not so bad, really.

Lucky Birds & Monster Veg

2010-12-13T00:05:00.008Z

Nothing lasts forever - although that snow & ice seemed to, I must say - & so with a thaw late last week we can all get out & about & back to normal again.

Good.

Sorry Chris, you can keep the white stuff.

With big sister Helen up this weekend, we did some garden centre shopping (& tea & toasted teacake eating, naturally) - my Christmas tree now bought from the wonderful Pacific Nurseries, to be delivered tomorrow, & whilst we were browsing, this chap caught our eye.

Like most garden centres, Pacific has a sales area under cover, but unlike other garden centres it cordons off the part of the sales area where the robins decide where they would like to build their nest in Spring, so they can raise their youngsters in peace. What nice people.

The robins know that they are on to a good thing here - it must be heaven - this one was very much at home here by the bird food display.

Home via the Hill to dig a couple of parsnips - one was rather forked, but this one is a cracker - can't wait to roast all 2 and a half foot of it!

I might not be getting many veg from the Hill at the moment, but when you grow parsnips this big, that doesn't seem to be a problem!

Bah, Humbug

2010-12-08T20:12:00.004Z

The whole country, it seems, is in the grip of Winter, & has been for a good couple of weeks. That's proper snowy, icy, temperatures-down-to-minus 10, schools closed, transport grinding to a halt, check-on-your-neighbours WINTER.

On the plus side, it has been extremely pretty; I work from home, so don't have to brave the elements; the shops are but a short walk away, I have a freezer & plenty of supplies; & plenty of warmth.

But I really have had enough of it now. It is still lethal underfoot with ice, freezing cold, & the reward that I have had for being Mrs Sensible & not driving? A flat battery.

I have not been to the Hill for three weeks - and then only for the AGM - as the chances of being able to do anything or to dig up any parsnips is nil. Fortunately the cabbage the-size-of-your-head which I cut at the beginning of November is quite happy keeping in the fridge having portion after portion of crisp white tightly packed leaves sliced off each day.

And yes, I know we'd all be bored of the same weather all the time, & it is extremely festive - but really.

Bah, humbug.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 4, Week 3

2010-11-26T09:39:00.005Z

Step 4: ..... then let it stand until fermentation ceases & the wine clears, usually in about three months.

After a couple of weeks or so, the blackcurrant wine has stopped noticeably bubbling through the airlock and just sits not doing much, so fermentation has pretty much finished.

It's time to take it from its nice warm spot by the radiator - where I keep tripping over it - and up into the attic room out of the way in order to clear. CJJ doesn't say to do this here, but elsewhere in the book he says to move wines to a cool place to clear, so that's good enough for me.

I've angled the demijohn (by resting the back edge on a handy inch-thick notepad) so that as the sediment settles, it will all be piled up in the corner rather than a thin layer over the whole bottom area, which will mean it'll be easier to siphon off more of the good stuff later.

When I do siphon off the wine from the sediment, I'll make the level back up with the extra in the milk carton, but there is surprisingly little sediment which means that I might not need all of the extra.

Meanwhile, I can forget about it for a few weeks until it looks clear.

Autumn Plot Clearing

2010-11-15T18:26:00.006Z

It's not all wine making at the mo - although given the heavy frost last night, last week's strong winds, I've been quite happy with some indoor activity.

But it was nice enough to whip up to the Hill for a couple of hours last Sunday, & an hour yesterday to go some autumnal clearing.

The beans are as dry as they are going to get, I think, so I took lots of carrier bags with me (one per bean variety) to collect the pods. Some plants had grown in a wayward fashion & had escaped to climb up other poles, but after a while I could tell the differences in the pods & detect any strangers in each batch.

I stripped the plants off the poles, untied the cross wires, put the coloured ball cane-toppers back in the bag in the shed & the poles into the back of the car for storing at home in the garage for next year - a good job well done. Well, almost - the T-uprights at each end of the bed are screwed in to the bed sides for sturdiness, and I didn't have the drill with me to undo them.

I dug over one of the fruit beds too - I need to do further tidying and tying in of the raspberry canes too, but that's a job for another day.

I bought the beans home to spread on newpaper up in the attic room for final drying, & also dug up a couple of parsnips & some Jerusalem artichokes for roasting - they taste wonderful!

How bare the plot looks - I do have some brassica seedlings at home with I have somehow not got round to planting out, and it seems a bit late now. Mind you, they've got two choices, haven't they - so that's on the List for next weekend.

Much excitement this week, though - it's the Hill Association AGM tomorrow evening in the clubhouse!

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 4, Day 9

2010-11-14T18:18:00.006Z

Step 4: Then strain into a fermenting jar, fit an airlock then let it stand until fermentation ceases & the wine clears, usually in about three months.

Sploshing buckets of blackcurrant wine into a demijohn via a sieve & funnel is potentially pretty messy, & blackcurrant is likely to stain - so it's on with the pinny. All the kit sterilised (demijohn, sieve, funnel, jug, sample tube, hydrometer & airlock), then first up is to measure the SG to see what all that frothing has been about.

At 998 already, the yeast has romped through the sugar, and an SG this low implies that we will have lip-puckeringly dry wine - so now is the time to add some more sugar. Another 4oz goes into the bucket, and then the is SG taken again.

The reading this time is a more reasonable 1006 - the SG will drop further as the wine continues to ferment, & we're aiming for a final SG of about 1000.

I put the wine through the sieve & funnel into the demijohn (there's some leftover which goes into an old milk carton for the minute - we'll need this for topping up once the wine is siphoned off the rest of the blackcurrant pips & sediment) and an airlock fitted.

It's back into a warm room for a few days to carry on fermenting - then I'll put it up in the cool attic room to be forgotten about for three months or so until it starts to look clear with the sediment in a layer at the bottom.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 3, Day 6

2010-11-11T21:32:00.004Z

Fermentation is the magic bit of wine making - sprinkling fairy dust yeast on a bucket of fruit juice & the juice turns into wine.

As CJJ says, 'when the yeast is put into a sugary solution, it begins to multiply vigorously & in the complex chemical processes which ensue, the sugar is converted roughly half to alcohol ... & half to carbon dioxide...'

And just a day or so after adding the yeast, not only are there warm & yeasty smells coming from the bucket, but there's a constant shifting in the surface froth as bubbles burst & new ones break to the surface & listen closely & you can hear the fizzzzzzzzzzz of all that yeast furiously multiplying, feeding on the sugar & exuding alcohol & gas.

Actually, examining the process in that much detail makes it all sound rather mundane & more than a bit grubby.

We'll stick to the magic fairy dust, I think.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 3, Day 4 - addendum

2010-11-10T09:29:00.007Z

In all the excitement of adding yeast to start off the fermentation of the blackcurrant wine yesterday, it slipped my mind until later to take the initial Specific Gravity (SG) which measures how sugary the juice is.

When the fermentation has finished & the yeast has transformed all that sweetness into alcohol, the SG is taken again & the strength of the wine can be calculated, which is useful so that you know how much respect it deserves - some of the parsnip wine that I have made has been nearly as strong as sherry, so I serve it in a sherry glass.

If mum came round for Sunday lunch after church & I gave her a wine glass full, although it would slip down in a most agreeable fashion, I suspect that she'd fall asleep before pudding was served, & she'd certainly lose at Scrabble in the afternoon.

Measuring the SG is simplicity itself, assuming that you have a jug, a hydrometer & a sample tube (or a tall glass). As ever, sterilise these (DON'T use boiling water on the hydrometer! It will break! Use a tsp of sterilising powder in a big mixing bowl full of water and put the jug, tube and hydrometer in for 10 minutes before rinsing off with cold water).

Dip the jug in the bucket, fill the sample tube with the hydrometer in until it floats. Give the hydrometer a whirl round to dislodge any airbubbles & to make sure that it floats freely and read the SG off the scale.

The wine measures 1086 at the mo (the aim is for 1080-1090 as a start) so that's fine - and off it goes.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 3, Day 4

2010-11-09T18:39:00.005Z

Step 3: .... & a day later a wine yeast, & keep closely covered for five days in a warm place, giving it an occasional stir

Now for the exciting stuff - getting the yeast to do it's stuff to metamorphose the sugary fruit juice into delicious wine. And another easy step too, but - no - what's this? In the text CJJ says to add a wine yeast, but makes no mention of the nutrient that is listed in the ingredients section.

I have to say, that excellent tome his 'First Steps in Winemaking' is, it could have done with the services of a better proof reader - it has all sorts of inconsistencies & changes of style within the recipes that the beginner could well do without.

However, ploughing back through all the introductory stuff in the book - 'to obtain the best possible fermentation....it is wise to add a nutrient to give the yeast a boost'.

So the two go together & I add just under a tsp of yeast & the same of nutrient to each of my buckets, which are stirred, covered & will be left alone for five days save for an occasional stir with a (sterilised with boiling water) spoon.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 3, Day 3

2010-11-08T19:21:00.005Z

Step 3 - When it has cooled to about blood heat, add the pectic enzyme...

The blackcurrant wine has cooled down overnight, & it's time to add a tsp of pectic enzyme. Well, that's pretty easy, isn't it?

According to CJJ:

'It is a great help to extraction to add 1tsp of a pectin destroying enzyme to hasten the breakdown of the fruit (and incidentally, ensure a clear wine). '

and

'It is particularly important to use a pectin destroying enzyme with fruits high in pectin e.g. blackcurrants.'

If the pectin is not destroyed, then a 'pectin haze' might form, which looks like 'tiny jelly blobs rather like frogspawn surrounded by haze particles.'

Well, that's vile (I have some experience of this with last year's apple wine), so I've added a tsp of Pecotlase to avoid problems later, & given it a quick stir with a metal spoon (dipped in boiling water first to sterilise) & I've covered it back over and will leave it for 24hours for the Pectolase to do it's stuff.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 2, Day 2

2010-11-07T22:43:00.007Z

Step 2 - Boil up the sugar in the water & pour, still boiling, on to the currants.

I've reached Step 2 in the making of the blackcurrant wine - I've a maslin pan which is ideal to boil up 8 pints of water & to add 2lb 12oz of sugar (rather than the 3lb that CJJ uses - he's got rather a sweet tooth, & sugar can always be added later on).

The sugar added isn't an exact science as the amount of sugar in the currants will vary depending on variety & ripeness. I'll be measuring how sweet the mixture is (the SG) before the yeast is added by using a hydrometer, & extra sugar can be added then.

At this point it is important to make sure that the bucket is big enough! A gallon of water, the sugar & the fruit will be 6 litres or more in total volume, so my weedy 5 litre bucket is not big enough - the mix is split into two buckets.

Then it is covered & can be left to cool down overnight, ready for Step 3.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 1, Day 2

2010-11-07T21:54:00.007Z

Step 1 - put the currants into a plastic bucket or bowl & crush them.

The blackcurrants for my batch of blackcurrant wine have defrosted overnight & are now ready to be crushed, per CJJ's first step.

Except that they are not are they? Close inspection of the bucket reveals that there are leaves & stems still on the blackcurrants due to lazy fruit picking back in July.

Actually, I'm not sure if leaving these in the mix will do any harm - after all, they will all drop to the bottom with the rest of the sediment in due course, but conscience dictates that I should pick out any stems and run a fork down them to ping the currants back into the bucket, & to fish out all the 'extra' stuff to leave just the blackcurrants in the bucket.

Well, what a tedious job that is, but it leaves a bucket of plump blackcurrants waiting to be crushed.

I've experimented with a number of methods of pressing soft fruit to extract the juice, & find that you can't beat using a potato masher (remembering to run boiling water over it first to sterilise). If I had a metal colander, I'd probably press the fruit through that - but I haven't, so the potato masher it is.

Once I'm happy that I've mashed every little currant, it's on to Step 2.

Blackcurrant Wine - Step 1, Day 1

2010-11-06T20:59:00.006Z

The golden rule with wine making is to keep everything clean, so even before the first step of making our batch of blackcurrant wine, the kit is sterilised.

This means that 1 teaspoon of steriliser is put in the bucket, & water up to the litre & a half mark, then let it stand for 10 mins or so, giving it a swirl round every now & again. Give the bucket a good rinse out with cold water, and away we go with step one.

The first instruction from CJJ is to put the currants into a plastic bucket or bowl & crush them.

Well, precisly 1 second into the wine making process, I have hit a hitch. I have 3lbs of blackcurrants, but they have just come out of the freezer, so although I can put the currants into a plastic bucket or bowl, I cannot crush them just yet.

They will defrost in their bucket overnight - covered with a lid - & I'll carry on tomorrow...

Blackcurrant Wine - Step by Step

2010-11-06T18:49:00.005Z

I'm getting fed up with not being able to get anything in my freezer as it is rammed full of grapes, redcurrants, blackcurrants & elderberries, so it's high time that some of that lovely fruitiness was turned into something tasty.

In this case, something tasty will be blackcurrant wine, so turning to the trusty CJJ Berry's 'First Steps in Wine Making', he suggests the following:

Black, red or white currants 3lb
Sugar 3lb
Water 1 gallon
Yeast and Nutrient
Pectic enzyme

Put the currants into a plastic bucket or bowl & crush them. Boil up the sugar in the water & pour, still boiling, on to the currants. When it has cooled to about blood heat, add the pectic enzyme & a day later a wine yeast, & keep closely covered for five days in a warm place, giving it an occasional stir. Then strain into a fermenting jar, fit an airlock. Let it stand until fermentation ceases & the wine clears, usually in about three months, then siphon off into fresh, sterilised bottles.

I'm going to interpret the above as I see fit - ha! - & I'll try to set down what's happening without any shortcuts - like assuming that sterilising stuff is a given, or thinking that how to do this or that is obvious. After all, you're reading my blog, not reading my mind!

So, being in possession of all of the above ingredients as well as a bucket, sterilizing powder, a demijohn, an airlock, a tube for syphoning, a tall sample jar & a hydrometer (all off the shelf from Wilkinson, or from a brew shop) & a funnel, we're off....

End of British Summer Time

2010-11-01T22:56:00.008Z

After a welcome break in the sun, it was back home to frosty nights, & the leaves off every tree within half a mile of the house piled up outside the back door.

I did my bit with the leaves, filling 10 green bags for the 'green' collection & lugging them to the front of the drive (I have more than enough compost material at the Hill without adding these) - it's just a shame that the collection chaps haven't done their bit & come round with the green bin lorry today as per schedule.

This weekend has been mild, although grey & gloomy (not helped by the clocks being turned back an hour on Saturday night - so that was Summer, then), & so I headed off to the Hill with my List reading:

- clear the misc. beds of toms/squash/cucumber/courgette

- plant garlic instead

- dig parsnip for tea

Clearing the beds was easy. After collecting three 'butternut' (?) squash (well, they don't look like the ones you buy in Tesco, do they?), all it took was a few armfuls of frosted greenery & a tickle over with the fork & they were ready. I found a last perfect courgette amougst the collapsed leaves - a final taste of summer.

The squeak of a wheelbarrow approaching heralded Jason (bethind retired Maureen) & his dad.

"Did you know that I've moved to a full plot up the top end?" he beamed, "I'll soon get it to how I want it - I've been moving some of my fruit bushes - and guess what! It's got a greenhouse too!" Well this is a terrific move for Jason as it is a well cultivated full plot, near the top compost bin, and away from the hedgerow.

We'll all have to up our game - he picks up so many prizes at the Show already, with a full plot, there may be no stopping him!

I got waylaid by the pea frame - a failure of a structure which was inadequate in nearly every way, but you live & learn - & spent a bad tempered half hour untwisting wire tags to dismantle the bamboo poles from the netting from the dead peas.

I rescued a few pods which I am nearly certain are from the 'ne plus ultra' for next year. I confess that the netting will not be used again next year, what with being stuffed in a wild tangle in the dustbin when I got home.

Back to the List, & I planted out 36 plump garlic cloves - twelve from each of three of the biggest bulbs from last year (the smaller cloves from each bulb will be eaten) - as I know that Big Cloves planted grow Big Garlic bulbs.

The bean frame will be the next to be taken down - but this is a job for next week's List - but I did pick great handfuls of drying bean pods 'hunter' for shelling, then I dug my parsnip - big & Ood-like - some small but respectable carrots & the final cabbage (bigger than my head), then loaded the car & came home when it got dark. 4.45pm. Boo.

Halloween come early?

2010-10-05T22:02:00.014+01:00

Horrendous rain on Friday & Sunday, but dry on Saturday so I spent a satisfying hour at the Hill.

On my List was:

- pick Bag End pumpkin & clear patch

- make good the bed & plant onion sets ('shakespear' bought from the Kings Heath show a few weeks ago

- indicate competition pumpkin so that kind Jason (behind retired Maureen) & John Badger (from the bottom) can take it up for weighing as I won't be present

- clear more ripe beans for drying at home

I suspect that it was no coincidence that there was both no one else at the Hill & I made swift progress - I completed my List within the hour.

I also picked a few more courgette (including a big beggar which I had clearly missed last time round, & maybe the time before that too), & the head off Ollie's sunflower so I can save the seeds for next year.

Back home, I weighed the Bag End pumpkin (18lb) & measured its circumference at 37" - & at that size I need to think about what it will be used for, apart from being a convenient prop with which Oliver can play a convincing game of Being Witch's Cat.

Mind you, if I think that finding a use for the Bag End pumpkin is tricky, I'm really going to be taxed by the huge competition pumpkin which will go up for weighing this weekend...

Party!

2010-09-29T20:08:00.010+01:00

John Badger (at the bottom) has been wanting to have a bit of a get together - possibly a barbecue - with the plotholders for some while, & I had an email through on Monday saying, 'It looks like tomorrow evening 5.30 till around 7.30 and all you need is bring yourself.'

In the event, I took along a bottle of apple wine as well as myself (which might seem a bit miserly, but then it is 15%, so was served in very small glasses), & found things in full swing.

Brilliant catering abounded of a prawn-&-everything stir fry, courtesy of JB; yigandes plaki (a greek starter consisting of big butter beans slow cooked in tomato with garlic, oregano, tomato & basil), courtesy of returning allotmenteer Christine & Mike; greek yoghurt & honey - ditto - & beer, courtesy of Rhubarb Brian.

Obligatory mug shot of the assembled here - and comment of the night goes to JB who, on sampling the apple wine said, "ohh - this is lovely, really tasty - cracking that! D'you know, it smells just like - now don't take this the wrong way - just like paint thinner!"

Not sure if that says more about my wine, or about JB's taste in tipple...

Mrs Potato Head

2010-09-26T20:19:00.009+01:00

Autumn is certainly here (but I guess that it is allowed to be, at the end of September) with the nights drawing in fast & much cooler weather - in fact, a frost this morning at Bag End in Cumbria.

Nothing like that nonsense here, yet, but I was armed with a jumper when I went to the Hill yesterday. On the List was:

- dig the final eight maincrop potatoes & sow green manure in their stead

- get rid of the horrible collapsed pea frame - save some pea pods of each for next year

- clear another variety of dwarf french beans, saving pods

- pick courgette + anything else for tea

Well, that all look fairly achievable, & I got off to a great start by forking up the potatoes. The variety is Setanta - 'a floury allrounder with red skin & excellent blight resistance'.

It also yields - although this was not referred to in any of the info that I read about them - absolutely MASSIVE tubers. About 8 to each plant, all about football size. This does cut down on potato peeling, of course, as you only have to use a single potato when you are preparing a shepards pie for - say - ten people. I weighed them later when I'd put them in a sack to store - nearly 40lb of potatoes from just eight potatoes sown.

I cleared the early warwick dwarf french beans from where they were nicely dried out on the plants, then was having a half hearted go at trying to work out which peas were which from the tangle of dead plants on the collapsed frames in order to save a few pods for next year when I was happily distracted by John Badger (from the bottom) coming by.

We admired the luxuriant growth of the green manure in the front bed - photos of this bed taken mid Aug, and now, 4 wks later - and JB suggested that I don't leave it overwinter, but dig it in now whilst it is young & sappy & will rot down easily.

"It's nearly a foot high now, it'll be a devil of a job to dig in if it gets much bigger," he advised.

Well, that is where he was wrong - it was a devil of a job to dig in as it was. Much too tall to neatly turn in, & the rows I'd so carefully sown to make the digging in easier were grown over & virtually non existent. It was a hateful, heavy going job which I did badly - with sticking up bits and blades of grass scattered everywhere.

I ended up a slightly strange colour in the face, & was completely not happy with the job I'd done - if the rye grass is not turned over properly it was not rot, but regrow where it can. I scowled & muttered & stamped over to the manure skip to haul muck in tub after tub across to cover the bed over - right, rye, grow back through that if you dare.

Having learned a valuable lesson about green manure, I roughly raked the two old potato beds & sowed more rows of rye seed to leave in over winter - or until it makes a bid for world domination, whichever is sooner.

Look Over Your Shoulder...

2010-09-21T19:53:00.006+01:00

At the Hill the Sunday before last, when I was vainly trying to whack parts of the plot into some semblance of order, I chopped down the haulms from the potato plants to stuff onto the overfull compost bins.

Along with these, I cleared one or two sunflowers - which had all but blown over - some nasturtium & calendula, all of which had self seeded from last year & sprouted up in the potato beds - great armfuls of green leaves, flowers and stems.

I stood back when I'd cleared the growth from these potato beds, ready for digging up the crop (this weekend for some of them), and gave a nod of satisfaction, then a shrug in the direction of the heap of compostable rubbish waiting for a new bin to be made & turned to come away.

I don't know what made me turn back - but I'm so glad I did. The flowers on one of the branching sunflowers discarded on the compost heap had seen better days, but I thought that they might cut & keep for a day or two in a big vase, & wielded the secateurs.

A week later, they are still adding sunshine to the kitchen - wonderful.

Good Deeds All Round!

2010-09-20T14:26:00.011+01:00

After a brilliant day out with mum on Saturday which involved kitchen shops, garden centres & a very fine Italian coffee shop called Corleone's, I was all set with a car full of pallets to go to the Hill on Sunday with my List reading:

- make compost bin
- weed neighbour Jody's plot
- dig up potatoes
- harvest courgette/runners/beans for seed etc

I haven't gone crackers with the item 'weed neighbour Jody's plot' - he was off this weekend doing the Great North Run in aid of the Birmingham Children's Hospital Children's Heart Appeal, as they did such a spiffing job with his young daughter when she was so poorly earlier this year. Helping to straighten his plot was the least I could do whilst he was going about this madness up in the frozen (actually, rainy) North.

As I was unloading the pallets from the car, Reg-next-plot came by, & as well as having an exchange of information on various plotholders, he helped me collect a big bucket of elderberries from the tree in the hedgerow between his & David-other-half's plot (3lb it turns out - exactly a batch of wine's worth!), told me to help myself to his runner beans & beetroot, & pulled me a swede.

Providing that you pass some sort of acceptability test (criteria known only to Reg), you wouldn't actually have to grow anything yourself - maybe one of the criteria is that you do grow things yourself.

After he'd gone & I'd wired together pallets to make a new & bigger compost big adjacent to the two existing ones, I had a brainwave which consisted of turning the contents of the 'nearly ready' bin (in actuality, still full of last years sweetcorn & sunflower stems along with nice composted stuff) into the new bin, then taking out the partition between the two older bins away giving me two big sized bins.

This was heavy going (understatement - there was much going-purple-in-the-face), & the photo reveals a certain crudeness of the project, but after an hour or so, I did achieve a functioning BIG two bin system.

If you want to see how clever beggars do a proper job of constructing compost bins, go up to the Bag End blog.

I christened the bin with a great deal of green stuff which had been growing round Jody's parsnips, but decided that virtue only went so far, after some tremendously sneaky nettles had stung me once too many times.

I cut courgettes, and a few tomatoes and a handful of raspberries, then dug up the eight main crop potatoes 'robinta'.

Whilst they rested on the soil to harden off the skins, I walked down to the bottom to go & pick John Badger's grapes from the greenhouse - he's offered the lot to me for wine making again this year, which is jolly d of him considering that we haven't seen what last year's tastes like yet.

Returning allotmenteer Christine was working hard next to JB's, & we had a lovely chat about all sorts before she sent me off with a bijou lunch-sized squash from her plot.

I went home with my haul & put JB's 5lb of grapes safely in the freezer - they will be added to the grapes from my vine in the Courtyard which are a week or two away from ripeness yet, for this year's wine making.

Getting a Job Done - Eventually

2010-09-12T20:29:00.007+01:00

There is not a List of Jobs in the world that means that you can starts with Task One, & move smoothly through all the other tasks until the last one is ticked off, when you can give yourself a pat on the back & have a guilt free evening in front of the tele with a cat on your lap & a glass of something lovely in your hand.

No.

Lists of Jobs always have tasks on which have differing time sensitivities, or are dependent on one or more of the others, or someone else who isn't there, or can't be done until something else happens - something which is not even on the list.

Today was a case in point - I bought wallflowers at the Birmingham Gardeners' Show last weekend & they have been sat in a couple of buckets all week & need to be planted out, so with my list reading 'clear front of plot of summer bedding, plant wallflowers, pick a few beans, come home for tea', I nipped up to the Hill this afternoon with a trowel & weeding gloves.

Two hours later I still hadn't got the front of the plot completely clear of nasturtiums, calendulas & yet more gung-ho forget-me-not seedlings which are surely in contention for most persistent annual - the real problem is that the compost bin is completely full, & the other compost bin needs emptying onto next years potato beds, which are still full of parsnip & green manure.

A new compost bin of pallets needs putting up pretty sharpish, so that's a job for next weekend, & in the meantime today I started an overflow compost area - a complete mess, but you can't do everything all at once.

The compost bins are by this year's potato beds - which look like they are full of nasturtiums, calendulas, & a couple of stray sunflowers, so I weeded this lot out & added to my overflow compost heap & the beds now look a great deal better.

I don't think the tubers will be growing much more now, and there is still a risk of blight, so I cut off all the tops & cleared most of the weeds away. I managed to break my new ratchet secateurs that I bought last weekend whilst I was doing this - maybe I should have invested in that expensive pair of Fiskers after all.

I got the fork out and dug up the Anya potatoes whilst I was about it - not very big tubers, but loads of them - all this lot from just 3 seed potatoes which Julie (second best plot) kindly gave me in the Spring.

Neighbour Jody arrived to do some clearing of his plot too. His compost bin - conveniently sited near the front of his plot right by the path separating our plots (whereas mine is right at the back, by the toolshed) is also completely full.

I edged in front of his highly heaped bin so he couldn't see that the top layer consists entirely of squash leaves that I'd piled in the other day, & distracted him from the topic of full compost bins by asking about his plans for building more manageable beds, & where he was going to put a shed.

I can see that the French bean pods are drying out on the plants, so I'm starting to get some of them in for drying on newspaper in the attic room ready for storing (some will be eaten & some kept for growing next year) - & today I bought home some black turtle beans & broad beans.

Still with the beans, I picked some runners, then turned to the courgettes & squashes. I have a couple of Brampton Butternuts - seeds kindly sent to me from Cumbria - although I rather suspect that the seeds have not come true to the parent. One of the plants is smaller leaved that the other & bearing a few embryonic butternut squash shaped fruit, but the other is more vigorous and its fruit are big & pale green & slightly stripy & sort of squat - although I'm not saying that it is any the worst for this.

Given the lateness of the season, I chopped back about a third of these plants to stop new fruit forming & hopefully the plants will concentrate on growing the ones that they already have.

Time was getting on - Jody long gone home - so I got the trowel out and planted out the wallflowers.

So I did do what I set out to do, after all - but it took far longer than it should have done, so I have other Lists of Jobs still not done, which is why I am not spending a guilt free evening in front of the tele with a cat on my lap & a glass of something lovely in my hand...

Procrastination...

2010-09-08T20:59:00.011+01:00

For one reason or another my visits to the Hill are frustratingly less frequent than I would like - I'm just snatching the odd hour to harvest things here & there at the moment.

A trip to the Birmingham Gardener's Show in Kings Heath on Sunday instead of going to the Hill is a case in point - although it was a lovely (if very rainy!) morning out with mum.

I bought a new pair of ratchet secateurs, & wallflowers for the front of the plot, then we watched a demonstration beehive & marvelled at the vegetable show entries.

Mind you, my competition pumpkin will be giving one or two of these a run for their money...

Back at the plot, the courgettes continue to crop, but at a less stupid rate than previously - I think that some rather cooler nights have checked them. Also the stalwart runner beans - another good handful tonight.

I even picked some tomatoes - the plants have been soundly ignored since planting out, and a number have been overwhelmed by the butternut squash & courgette plants.

But before I moan too much about the plot being a bit - er - bohemian because of my lack of attendance, I'm put in my place by Dave C from the top , who came by when I was formulating an overwhelmingly long mental list of Jobs To Do whilst yanking out handfuls of nasturtiums from the front of the plot in the dusk earlier.

He kindly offered me some of his leeks to go with my courgettes & beans for tea, & as we walked up to his plot, I asked him about his recent holiday to Australia & he enthused about the weather, the people & what a wonderful time they'd all had.

"Mind you," he concluded, as we arrived at his plot, "six weeks in the middle of summer is quite a long time to leave the plot to it's own devices."

Six weeks? So how come his plot didn't look wild, like mine does? He's got well ordered & well grown crops, a huge - but neat - pile of well rotted manure waiting to be dug in, & not a weed in sight. All I can say is that he must have worked bloody hard since he got back - an advert for application, I think.

10 Things Learned Whilst Making Runner Bean Pickle

2010-08-28T21:12:00.007+01:00

1 Before you start, it's sensible to check that you did actually buy all the ingredients when you went shopping with this recipe in mind - it'll save having to race up to the little Tesco to buy missing items.

2 It's worth listening to your own advice about storing onions, so you don't have to fish through a cardboard box (kept in the mini-greenhouse) of increasing mouldy specimens to find the required amount, leaving half a dozen small relatively sound ones as the remainder of this year's entire crop.

3 If you don't keep an eye on the food processor you run the risk of liquidising, not chopping the onions.

4 Don't assume that just because the salad box in the fridge is full of runner beans, you have enough.

5 Do think about alternative ways to string & slice runner beans - the current gadget cannot cope with beans with are too thin, too fat, or variable in thickness; beans which are too soft, or beans which are too old.

6 When the beans are cooking for 5 mins in salted water, and the onions are softening in the big maslin pan with some vinegar, do check that the correct knobs on the cooker are turned to high for the beans & low for the onions - Delia doesn't say what to do if the onion isn't 'softened' but 'burned to the bottom of the pan', but I took an educated guess and sloshed in a load more vinegar on the basis that you either won't taste crispy onion, or it might add a certain je ne sais quoi to the end product.

7 Do check that you have enough kilner jars before you start.

8 If the pickle looks a bit thick when you put it into jars, don't shrug & slosh some more vinegar in, but check the recipe to make sure that you haven't forgotten a vital ingredient, like, for example, the sugar.

9 Having to return the pickle to the pan with the sugar does give you time to find & sterilise more jars

10 Although a new extractor fan will make light work of transferring vinegar smells from the kitchen to outside, it will not stop you wondering why the chippy is open at this time of night every time you go outside the back door.

Hill Show 2010

2010-08-26T21:31:00.004+01:00

The Show crept up on me this year - & I rather ended up entering classes on a reactive rather than proactive basis - i.e. run round the Hill on Friday evening with entry form in hand to tick what I had got ready to enter, as opposed to planning earlier in the year.

As ever, I worked in the spirit of taking part rather than with with any enormous hopes of zillions of 'firsts', which meant that there were one or two less than impressive entries - for instance, I scraped together 7 rather mature peas which had not quite gone brown & crispy yet, but they weren't what you might call a matching set.

Domestic sections are easier, as they can be organised in advance - the fruit cake cooked the weekend before, & jars of jam, jelly & chutney, just plucked off the store shelf in the garage. Why don't they have a wine category? I must ask.

Big sister Helen times a weekend visit 'home' to coincide with the Show - it's firmly set as a diary date - & entered cake, jelly & jam.

Mum entered a sponge cake, inadvertently going head to head with Jane's lad, who is now too old for junior classes, young E had the junior baking sections in her sights, and Jane wasn't to be outdone in the 'special cake' category - this year a lemon drizzle.

Sunday morning, & I spent an hour selecting, washing & trimming various veg then went and 'staged' my entries.

We all spent an idle afternoon wandering the plots & eating hot dogs whilst the judging took place, then the moment of truth when we could go back in to see the results - which revealed a goodly smattering of certificates for us all - then we went back to mum's after the prize giving to have a grand divvy-up of cakes, jams and veg.

A good day!

Rhubarb Wine - Bottling

2010-08-22T21:00:00.009+01:00

The last stage for this batch of wine is to bottle it, so it can quietly mature for a few months before being opened & enjoyed next Spring.

All wines seem to have different recommended 'maturing' times but as a rule of thumb, although you can drink your efforts earlier, I reckon that you can properly enjoy wine a year from when it was started.

The wine on scrutiny in the demijohn is clear with no sediment in the bottom appearing since it was stabilised a couple of weeks ago.

It's better to be safe then sorry, though, so it is syphoned again into a bucket to leave any minute particles behind in the demijohn & crystal clear bit-free wine ready to be funnelled into the bottles.

Whilst the bottles are sterilising, it's worthwhile checking the SG reading again - the final strength of the wine is worked out by taking the final SG figure away from the initial SG, & dividing by 7.36, which gives the percentage of alcohol in the wine.

This is 13.5%, so quite robust enough to be going on with.

All that is left to do is funnel the wine into the bottles, cork & label - not forgetting the most important taste test.*

Don't be alarmed if you pull a face at this point - the wine will be a bit 'raw' at the moment, but once it has mellowed for a few months - and rhubarb pulling has commenced next year - I promise that it will be a delight.

*Obviously, this size sample is recommended in order to conduct a very thorough taste test

Desperation!

2010-08-17T21:10:00.004+01:00

Having run out of family, friends & acquaintances, I have resorted to passing courgettes to total strangers.

This worked pretty well - the basket on the front wall was all but empty after a couple of hours - even the huge courgettes, verging on the marrow size.

At the Hill, the runner beans have finally kicked in & I may actually have got the quantities right this year (about 12 plants, for future ref) - which is giving me a steady, but not overwhelming, quantity.

Unlike the french beans, which have been disappointingly stringy, they melt in your mouth - consequently, I'm leaving the french beans for drying, & scoffing the runners at every opportunity. It's worth waiting for 10 months of the year in order to get this taste!

Chatting & Cropping

2010-08-02T22:02:00.009+01:00

I had a wonderful afternoon at the Hill yesterday - although I suspect that I would have had a more productive day if I had done more & chatted less.

The first job was to tidy up the front border - deadheading the calendulas & thinning those which are overwhelming the lavender plants. I was just eyeing up the ripening seed heads on the self seeded poppy plants when John Badger from the bottom came up to say hello.

"Can I pinch some of the seeds heads off those poppies?", he asked.

"Of course - I want to save some for my friend in Cumbria too - do you think that they are ready to pick?" As we rattled one of the pods, it scattered seed like a pepper pot, so we concluded that they are - and of course there is no need for me to sow more for next year now.

Deciding that snapping the heads off to take home would leave a trail of poppy seeds all over the car, I left them for the time being, to be collected next time round.

We exchanged news - he gave me an update on his chickens (five out of six of his ex-battery hens laying each day) & his pond at the bottom (froglets galore), & admired newcomers Carl & Wendy by the gates magnificent floral front of plot, concluding that if they didn't win 'best front of plot', then we were Dutchmen.

Returning allotmenteer Christine came by as I was digging up my second early POTATOES (osprey) & was so impressed with a particularly big one that she told me to enter into the show as 'heaviest potato' & took a photo of me & it to put on her blog.

She was back & forth busy 'dressing her shed as a beach hut for the best dressed shed competition - wonderful photos on her blog. If they run the competition next year, I might have a go, depending on any rare sparks in the creativity department.

I dug up all the onions - they've finished any growing now - and rather disappointing they are too.

Not that big (some of the red onions were no larger than they were when they went in as sets in the autumn - what have they been doing for the last 6 months?) & quite a few split - maybe I should go for spring sown sets next year instead. Or some of both, perhaps. And some shallots too.

I sowed green manure in this bed in rows, hoping that the grazing rye would do better than it did last year - i.e. at least sprout.

Neighbour Jody arrived as I was on picking duties - his onions are brilliant. "Ah," he winked, "secret weapon - they are from Reg-next-plot's seedlings," which goes some way to explaining it.

I had a last scout round the plot to assess what might be there or thereabouts to enter for the show next week then picked more bloody courgettes & came home to make courgette soup - which turned out to be surprisingly good.

Rhubarb Wine - 3 Months

2010-07-29T21:05:00.007+01:00

The rhubarb wine has now been sitting quietly for a couple of months - it stopped fermenting ages ago & it has been happy to be left to its own devices to sloooooowly clear, leaving a slight layer of pale sediment on the bottom of the demijohn.

The sediment will taint the wine if it's left in the demijohn too long, so it's time to siphon off the good clear stuff into a bucket & discard the yuck.

Once the clear wine has been safely siphoned through the tube into the bucket, the next stage is to de-gas the wine - when CO2 gas is locked in the wine, it is said to affect both the taste & appearance of the wine, although it does dissipate over time.

De-gassing wine involves shaking it all about vigorously & splashing is back & forth between demijohn & bucket a number of times in order to release any carbon dioxide gas present.

The wine ends up back in the demijohn with a teaspoon of potassium sorbate & a crushed campden tablet - a belt & braces measure, these chemicals stopping any possibility of further fermentation in the bottles.

Any sediment should appear & settle out quickly, & it will be ready to bottle in a couple of weeks.

Oh - do remember to have a taste, but don't be surprised if its not perfect at this point - it will need a good six months in the bottles where further magic will transform it from simply alcoholic fruit juice into something really rather good.

Generous Yields!

2010-07-24T20:44:00.008+01:00

Number 1 - potatoes

All these charlotte potatoes dug up today from just six plants in an area 4' by 4'.

Number 2 - courgettes

All these courgettes from just five plants - and all these produced in the last 5 days. Note to self: DO NOT GROW FIVE PLANTS NEXT YEAR!

Chutney already made using a couple of large ones from earlier in the week, courgette cake recipe (kindly supplied by Veg Heaven) to be made tomorrow. Courgette wine still a possibility, although - frankly - not immediately appealing.

Number 3 - french beans

This dinner plate full of triomphe de farcy dwarf french beans picked today off about four plants.

Days of Plenty!

2010-07-19T22:00:00.009+01:00

Looking at this little lot, it occurs to me that I have possibly got too many COURGETTE plants on the go.

Interestingly, I have the plants that the very pale green courgettes were cut from down in my notes as 'black beauty' - I think not, black beauty are glossy dark green.

No worries, though, not only do I hope to make courgette chutney, but I think that size of the courgette mountain might allow me to make an experimental batch of courgette wine.

In fact, I had a wine racking session last night - the strawberry in particular is remarkably promising. With each of the two REDCURRANT & two BLACKCURRANT bushes yielding 2lb of currants each (now in the freezer), I have the next two fruit wines lined up too.

I also dug up the GARLIC bulbs this week - they are fabulous & all I have to do is put a few matching ones on one side for the Show (approaching fast!) before plaiting the rest to hang up to store in the garage.

No vampires round here!

Strawberry Delight!

2010-07-08T21:26:00.006+01:00

The plot looks good in the sunshine - the crops are good, the weeds are few; but there is still no rain, despite the weather being sultry & oppressive.

I took mum to the Hill on Monday lunchtime for a look round & a spot of light PEA (reg) picking & POTATO (mona lisa) digging. We saw Julie (2nd best pl0t) with her sunhat & trug picking salad for tea.

She had some suspiciously tall lettuce picked, & when she saw that I'd spotted them said, 'If I take all the leaves off the stalks, no one will notice that they've bolted. I'd forgotten that they were interplanted with the taller brassicas, & it was only after they got to a couple of feet tall & I saw them peeping over the top of the cabbages that I remembered them!'

We discussed what a good year it had been for strawberries - Julie hasn't been able to give them away quick enough.

'After all,' she said, 'there is only so much strawberry jam, sorbet, crumble & syrup you can make with the ones that are left over from plain eating - & I've offered them to everyone here to help themselves too.'

At this point I confessed that I knew of her great strawberry glut though Rhubarb Brian, potager Chrissie & cheery Brian & Pauline, all of whom had told me over the past week or so that family Julie were overrun, & so I'd taken the liberty of picking a pound or two myself in order to make a batch of strawberry wine - there will be a bottle put aside for Julie, of course.

Actually I had another cheeky source of strawberries to use for jam this year at home - next door have moved away & the house is empty, so with a fence panel removed between our gardens whilst I have some work done at the back, there has been ready access to their strawberry patch - better to be used that to be left to rot, I say.

Maybe I should give the new people when they arrive a pot of jam.

The Good Life!

2010-06-29T22:21:00.009+01:00

Another hot week - summer days, eh? Obviously I don't want to quibble, but a bit of rain would be good - although established plants are doing well, there's no chance of those seeds sown last weekend germinating in the dust.

But it would be churlish to moan, with long light evenings, glorious sunshine & new crops to pick at every step at the Hill.

I hadn't been at the Hill long on Saturday, picking a whole heap of flat peas to eat as mangetout, when rhubarb Brian drove up in his loaded truck and stopped to ask how things were going.

After giving me a tray of cabbage seedlings & 'I think that these are lettuce, but I'm not sure' seedlings (they look like brassicas to me), pointed to some scavenged corrugated plastic on the back and said, 'Guess what that is?'

'Er - corrugated plastic?'

'Aha, yes, but do you know what it's for?', he asked, beaming. 'It's for my CHICKEN RUN!'

I established that he wasn't going to keep chickens on plot 4A, but follow JB's example & have some ex battery chickens at home, & once he'd gone whistling off to his plot, I pondered on what the going rate is for barter of homemade wine v's the supply of eggs.

I planted out the cabbage & 'lettuce' seedlings in a spare bit of fruit bed. The red & blackcurrants both are looking fabulous - dripping with fruit - and I'd better get stripping the fruit this weekend.

Covering the bushes has meant that the birds haven't got there before me (with the grizzly exception of a fat pigeon who met his sad demise tangled in the netting - I felt terrible about this until I saw how the pigeons had treated any pea plants that had dared to stray from inside the pea frame) & I must check on how to prune the bushes which can easily be done at the same time as fruit picking, as I recall.

I dug up the last three POTATOES (international kidney), a bag full of BROAD BEANS (saved), and I was thrilled to cut the first baby COURGETTE (defender & jemmer) & also came home with a huge bunch of heavenly scented sweet peas - wonderful!

And strawberries & strawberries & strawberries, but that's another story...

Summer Days!

2010-06-23T13:36:00.005+01:00

The weather is very dry at the moment. We had a week forecast to be full of rain a couple of weeks ago, but with the exception of one day of very wet weather indeed, that was it, & it has been warm & sunny since. Sunday was a lovely day – it was a pleasure to be at the Hill.

I love the raised beds – despite the rain & not having been in weeding mode for a couple of weeks, it only took an hour to whip round the whole plot (the messy edge at the back by David-other-half excepted) & get the whole lot – including the flower border at the front – looking spic & span.

Sunday lunchtimes are surprisingly quiet at the site, & I had the birdsong almost to myself – just Richard three plots doing some weeding. He wandered up for a chat & said that he’d harvested his garlic, & he was very pleased with it – which made me immediately fork up one of mine to see how it is getting on.

I must stop listening to him – it took forever to find a few potatoes last week when he said he’d had the first of his, & the garlic I dug up was not particularly impressive yet either (although tasty when I cooked it with some lamb later).

I planted out all five of the germinated sweetcorn plants, making a very modest block in one of the not-yet-used fruit beds, & half a dozen dwarf French beans (talisman) on the basis that any plants are better off being planted out at the Hill rather than being stuck in pots on the bench at home, however poor the plants look.

It was rather dry to be sowing seed (something that I didn’t think about until after I had the seeds thinly sown in drills) but nonetheless I sowed a row of LETTUCE (arctic king), RADISH 9fresh breakfast), BEETROOT (bolthardy) & CARROT (early nantes 5)

I suspect that I’m going to get caught out with successional owing (again!) this year – I haven’t got any winter brassica sown yet, so I must sort that out very soon – although later at home I did at least, pot the peppers on to their final pots in the mini greenhouse at home.

Lastly (but bestly), on to the booty! I picked a bag of BROAD BEAN (saved) pods – no longer than 6”, filled with sweet baby broad beans (you don’t get those in the shops!), a big handful of immature peas to eat as mange tout, a LETTUCE (dazzle), POTATOES (international kidney & mona lisa) & a huge bunch of sweetpeas – magnificent!

I Didn't Expect THAT!

2010-06-16T20:52:00.006+01:00

I wasn't free to go to the Hill over the weekend, so last night I was keen to see what ten days of warm & wet weather has done to the plot.

I was delighted that all the crops are growing apace, but not too much in the way of weeds - brilliant!

I hadn't planned to stop to do anything bar harvesting whatever was ready, but ended up thinning the annuals (OK - the odd thistle too) out of the flower border at the front, just to give it a tidy up.

I dug up a couple of POTATO plants (int kidney & mona lisa) for a couple of handfuls of new spuds, then whipped over the BROAD BEANS (saved) where I found plenty of 6" pods, perfect for shelling for fingernail sized beans.

The sweet peas are in full bloom & so a good handful of those came home with me too, one of the LETTUCE (dazzle) & a small armful of rhubarb sticks.

Star of the show, however, were these magnificent cauliflowers, hiding in their leaves - they have been growing since the autumn in with the curly kale, and have been no trouble at all, & are a good 10" across each head.

Not having anything planned for them, kitchen wise, but reluctant to risk them going over, I picked them both & have broken them into florets and frozen them - I'm planning a cauliflower cheese bonanza at the weekend!

A Toast To Teacher Barry!

2010-06-07T21:56:00.009+01:00

It was sad going to the Hill on Sunday - teacher Barry, three plots up, died suddenly last week & so I spent a while having a wander round his plot, remembering him fondly.

His kindness to us as new plotholders, giving advice, seedlings & surplus crops freely - most recently a huge batch of 'gone over' parsnips for me to make wine with - was always appreciated. The wine is upstairs clearing in the demijohn - I've not got the chance to let him have a bottle now, but I will have to settle for having a drink on his behalf in due course.

The weekend has been very hot, & increasingly humid - in fact I got caught by the first raindrops of a storm as I was coming away, just in time!

I started by planting out the 10 various tomato plants - I was going to grow these on in buckets at home, in an attempt to dodge the inevitable blight that comes arollin' down the Hill every August, but for one reason or another I've decided to give this lot a go at the Hill anyway, and see how we get on. Optimism triumphing over experience!

Then I set to with the trowel, planting out the second sowing of RUNNER BEANS (self saved) & FRENCH BEANS (barlotti jody, hunter & cherokee trail of tears) to replace all of the direct sown seeds which have been decimated by the local slug population.

The red flowers on the peas are a delight - & whilst encouraging the peas up the netting, I also noticed that the sweet peas have just started to flower. I cut just three there & then - the scent is so generous, it fills the room even with those few blooms. I love them.

Richard three plots down wandered up for a chat & casually mentioned that he had just dug his first new potatoes, & (not being jealous at all) I immediately went & spent ten minutes furiously poking around under the first earlies trying to (a) not disturb the plants & (b) find any potatoes which were larger than marbles.

I was rewarded with half a score of potatoes just about big enough for the pot which I had with a handful of baby broad beans for dinner - and very very tasty they were too!

First Veg!

2010-06-02T20:35:00.007+01:00

I went to the Hill tonight for no other reason than I wanted to.

I had it all to myself & had a lovely half hour appreciating how things are growing.

I picked a good handful of baby broad bean pods - no bigger than 3" long - the first vegetables of the new season!

I brought them straight home to eat with quiche, in a salad, lightly cooked & tossed with balsamic vinegar & extra virgin olive oil.

Yum!

Peas, Potatoes & Planting Out

2010-05-31T22:18:00.008+01:00

I've had a busy bank holiday weekend, although only part of if it at the Hill - there was some most welcome light rain for most of Saturday & yesterday I was otherwise occupied.

Looking at the seedlings still at home on the bench or in the mini greenhouse, it stuck me that not only are the tomato seedlings looking rather small, it is the end of May and I have quite a lot of seedlings still to get planted out.

The tomato plants will benefit from being put into their buckets (these will be in the courtyard garden at home, hopefully safe from blight), but that's a job for another day, so I packed the various pots into the car along with the trowel & headed to the Hill.

A scrutinise of the plot reveals that Saturday's rain had done very little good - although there are flowers on the PEAS (red flowered) & 3" long pods on the BROAD BEANS (witkiem manita) - I'll be picking some of these next weekend, I think, to eat whole.

After I planted out the FRENCH BEANS (contender), MARROW (long green bush 2), COURGETTE (black beauty), PUMPKIN (bag end) & BUTTERNUT SQUASH (brampton), I got the watering can out & got busy giving all the plants a good drink.

I got bored of this by the time I got to the furthest beds from the tap - which was a bit of a shame as these are the potato beds, and stood to benefit the most from a good watering, but there you go. I did have a poke around under one of the potato plants to see if they are ready to harvest (answer: not yet - this one is about an inch across).

Before I left I popped down to John Badger (at the bottom)'s plot to drop a note off to thank him for collecting some empty wine bottles for me.

When I'd enquired at the homebrew shop about larger corks to fit into the necks of screw top wine bottles, I was told that I shouldn't be using these as the glass is weaker at the screw top bit, so I ditched any spare bottles that I had & asked JB if he could have a scout around for non-screw top bottles (saves looking like a bit of a loony hanging round the bottle bank).

Peter & Jane (behind returning allotmenteer Chris) were planting out leeks, along with inquisitive young daughter A - so we had a chat & when I'd dropped the note off, A came back up to my plot to compare the progress of my competition sunflower against hers, skipping off back down the bottom when she was satisfied that mine was no further ahead.

I nipped up to the club house before going home & heard some sombre news that one of the Saturday Old Boys is very unwell, so tonight he is in my thoughts & I have toasted him with his favourite tipple, a nice glass of red.

Rhubarb Wine - Day 14 to 3 months

2010-05-24T19:03:00.007+01:00

The rhubarb wine will be fairly quiet now - maybe the odd 'blip' of air through the airlock - but pretty quiescent over all.

Now for the trickiest part of wine making, in my view - the syphoning of the wine from the demijohn into another - called 'racking the wine'. The purpose is to take all the yummy fermented wine (opaque as it still is at the mo) off from the layer of pale sediment at the bottom of the demijohn - which comprises dead yeast, bits of stray rhubarb & all sorts of other yuck which we don't want hanging about in our wine.

With the demijohn of wine on a worktop & a fresh demijohn (or bucket) on the floor, insert a long tube part way into the wine - but not all the way down into the yuck.

To get the wine flowing along the tube, suck the lower end to pull the wine up the tube & then QUICKLY put the sucky end into the lower demijohn/bucket (this seems a bit unhygienic to me, but I haven't worked out a way of sterilising my mouth as yet). As if by magic, the wine will flow up the tube out the top demijohn and down the tube into the lower. Hold the tube firmly into the lower demijohn/bucket - if it gets free there will be wine pouring out everywhere.

The idea is to get the good stuff up the tube & leave the sediment behind. The level of wine in the top demijohn will be going down at an alarming rate and you will have to concentrate to keep the tube in the top demijohn below the liquid level, but not so far down as to suck up the sediment. When the level is perilously close to the yuck in the top demijohn, pull the tube out at the top end.

Points to note:

- when you suck the tube to get the wine flowing, you are not attempting to drink the stuff, just to draw it up the tube sufficiently to get it out of the top demijohn
- swiftly taking the tube from your mouth and putting it into the lower demijohn/bucket is essential if you don't want to end up squirting the wine all over you and the kitchen floor - and is a catastrophic waste of your good wine.
- keep the tube firmly fixed into the lower receptacle while you concentrate on the top
- try not to suck up too much yuck, but if you do, it will always settle out as sediment & can be syphoned off again in due course.

Make a note of the SG & have a taste - I dithered about adding a couple of ounces of sugar as the SG reading was rather low (i.e. will be pretty dry wine), but a taste told me it was not mouth-puckeringly so - I compromised on adding an 1oz of sugar to sweeten it a little. The strength of this wine is 13.5% at the mo.

The demijohn can be put in a cool spare room/cellar for a couple of months, at which point it's likely to be clear - but with a small amount of sediment on the bottom, so we'll then go through this rigmarole again.

PS - A Confession

I extracted the juice of a pound of redcurrants that I had in the freezer to my rhubarb at start - I didn't mention it in order to keep proceedings simple - but it does seem to have added a very pleasant colour to the wine - it's more certainly more pink that it would have been using rhubarb alone.

Generosity Again!

2010-05-23T19:48:00.009+01:00

It has been a very hot weekend indeed - the sun shone all day long both days & today I am typing this sitting in the courtyard garden being told off by the blackbird. He will likely get his own back, though, by eating all the cherries off the tree in a week or two as they become ripe, like he did last year.

When I went to the Hill yesterday, I saw that neighbour Jody has had a couple of dozen scaffold boards delivered, & he was sizing up where to put them - the immediate priority being to replace the old edging at the side of his plot on the other side of our shared path.

As he busied himself with that, I made a lovely discovery of a tray under some fleece in which were couple of courgette & three cucumber plants which Julie (2nd best plot) had left for me - I'd been bemoaning that it's not been a great year for me germinating seeds, & she seemed quite happy that she could offload some of her spares to a good home. Suits me just fine!

I had a planting out session with the courgettes & cucumbers, along with Ollie's sunflowers, FRENCH BEANS (triomphe de farcy, emperor of russia & early warwick), four pots of SPRING ONION (apache) & the last few PEAS (newick), then did a little weeding in the roots bed where the parsnips, & a few carrot have come up.

The peas & broad beans are looking good - tiny beans forming on the broad beans & there are flowers on the crimson flowered variety just starting to come out.

The direct sown climbing beans are not so clever, though - only coming through patchily, and some slug damage too. Tonight I've sown extras in pots where I have the seed - I think that in my pots-vs-sow-direct experiment, the pots have it.

Although digging in this weather is a bit daft, I wanted to get the rest of the strawberry plants out of the messy patch at the back of the plot & into the little veg patch at mum's.

I've already moved 25 into the square fruit bed & these are the left over ones - they are doing rather better than the ones in the bed, but I'm putting that down to the fact that these haven't been replanted, rather than me choosing weedy ones, or giving them some sort of kiss of death when I replanted.

I was overheating by this time, so took the strawberry plants to mum's to plant out, & in turn she not only fed me delicious ham sandwiches (home cooked ham & home baked bread) & chocolate cake fresh from the cooling rack, but even gave me half the cake to take home with me - result!

Rhubarb Wine - Day 7 to 14

2010-05-17T23:54:00.009+01:00

With the wine in the bucket having calmed down somewhat from it's wild frothing earlier in the week, it's a safer bet now that it can be transfered into a sterilised demijohn without fizzing up & out through the airlock.

It's worth checking the SG at this point - it will have dropped fairly dramatically.

The reading for this batch has fallen from 1086 to 996, which means that in the space of a week, the sugary rhubarb juice has fermented into something opaque containing 12% alcohol, & it is still working away.

(I know this because the difference in the start & finish SG readings divided by 7.36 gives the percentage of alcohol)

The lower the SG at the end of the ferment, the drier the wine will be, & I think that this batch will end up rather sharp if I leave it as it is, so I added 2oz sugar to the bucket (watch it FIZZZZZZZZZZZZ!) & gave it another stir.

I then poured it into a demijohn (use a funnel) & fitted an airlock (half fill airlock with water) - actually, with rhubarb wine being so exuberent, I used two demijohns, half in each.

The wine will finish fermenting soon - it gets to a point where level of alcohol is too high for the yeast to survive - so when there are no more bubbles moving in the airlock, it can be put in a cool room where it will start to clear.

Kindly Plotholders

2010-05-16T20:37:00.010+01:00

The downside of growing vegetables on an allotment is that I have to travel three miles to the Hill just to pick something to eat for tea, as opposed to nipping out into the garden. The advantage, however is that I do meet some incredibly generous people.

On Monday evening I went to the Hill to collect the pepper seedlings offered by neighbour Jody & also went round to returning allotmenteer Chris' house round the corner to collect some tomato seedlings (& to have a nose round her lovely garden!).

Whilst I was at the Hill collecting the pepper seedlings, I saw Julie (2nd best plot) & in the course of conversation I said how well the rhubarb is doing & that I was looking for maybe a chutney recipe to try.

"It's great, isn't it!" agreed Julie, "but there's so much rhubarb that I'm having to find different ways to con the boys into eating it - I think that the recipe I have for rhubarb chocolate sponge is a winner, & I have all sorts of other recipes to hand, including chutney, I'm sure. I'll copy them for you."

Not only were the recipes there in the toolshed for me to collect later in the week, but Julie also said how the purple sprouting is overwhelming the family too, & to please go & help myself - brilliant!

Yesterday was a day for jobs at home, one of which was to repaint the fence - I borrowed mum's spray gadget, which made the job rather quicker (& considerably less messy) that using a brush - & with the small amount of fence paint left over, I nipped to the Hill & treated the toolshed to a couple of coats.

And at the Hill today I saw the havoc that this week's cold nights have wreaked on the potatoes - it has certainly been frosty enough to damage the leaves, although having earthed them up last weekend, there is no lasting damage.

It was a lovely afternoon with the sun shining & the birds singing - there are great tits nesting in the birdbox next plot but one, the young tweeting away furiously everytime one of the parents flew in to feed them.

Richard (3 plots down) wandered up to see what I was up to (weeding the onion bed, as it happens) & we talked about different varieties of veg.

"I always sow late varieties of leek & brussels sprouts - what's the point in having them ready in October or November when you are stacked out with things to eat? Much better to have them to pick in March & April when there's not much else to be had," which made a lot of sense to me, I must say.

"The ony other plentiful crop at the moment is the asparagus - we're stacked out with it. I suppose that I'll have to come down in the week after work and pick another bagful," he sighed.

He must have seen me goggling at this news, so took pity on me & handed me a huge handful of spears, saying, "We have prawn & asparagus risotto, but really, there's only so much you can eat!"

Now furiously making plans to plant up one of the spare fruit beds with asparagus.

Rhubarb Wine - Day 3 to 7

2010-05-13T21:59:00.004+01:00

With the bucket of wine covered & in a warm room, a sneaky peep will reveal that it does not at this point look very appetising - less like a delicious light rose style wine, more like something which might appear on Dr Who.

It will be fizzing away like a grown-up bowl of Rice Krispies, & you can hear & see the contents of the bucket furiously working away, all the while the yeast eating up the sugar & transforming it into alcohol.

In a few days it will calm down sufficiently for it to be transferred to a demijohn without the danger of it frothing out through the airlock like a sherbet fountain.

But for now, besides a daily stir, it can be left quite happily to its own devices.

Rhubarb Wine - Day 2

2010-05-11T20:16:00.008+01:00

Once the sugar in the bucket of rhubarb has all dissolved - takes about a day - the sugar can be gradually rinsed off with a gallon of water into another bucket.

Keep the rhubarb as it can be cooked down & eaten.

Actually it can be eaten as it is like sweeties - the sugar softens the rhubarb as well as sweetening it.

Add in the tin of grape concentrate and give the bucket a stir.

At this point, the specific gravity of the mixture needs to be taken - pop the hydrometer into the bucket (or a sample jug) & take the reading.

It should be somewhere about 1080 - 1090, although if it is lower than that, more sugar can be added (add by 2oz at a time) until the reading is there or there abouts.

Now for the magic.

Add a teaspoon of yeast nutrient & a teaspoon of yeast, give a final stir, cover the bucket & leave in a warm room. By tomorrow morning it will be fizzing away, turning the sweet rhubarb juice into light fruity delicious wine!

Rhubarb Wine, for Jody - day 1

2010-05-10T22:10:00.006+01:00

Neighbour Jody would like to start making wine, & so I've offered him my surplus of demijohns, syphons, bungs, airlocks, a spare hydrometer & other paraphernalia (mostly courtesy of John Badger from the bottom) & tonight I took a selection of useful bits to the Hill for Jody to collect to get him underway.

Rhubarb wine seems like a good place to start - Jody has an embarrassment of riches in terms of rhubarb on his plot to pick, the juice is extracted 'cold' (so there is no faffing about boiling stuff up in a in a cauldron), it's pretty straightforward, & the wine (which is ready in about 6 months total) is fresh & light.

He'll need to buy wine yeast, nutrient & a tin of grape concentrate from Wilko to get him going for this first batch of rhubarb wine (& steriliser, but Milton's is just as good, & likely to be handy with a small baby in the house) & the full ingredient list is as follows:

3lb rhubarb (about 12-14 stalks)
2.5 lb (and a bit) sugar

1 can grape concentrate (from Wilko)

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp yeast nutrient

(Its useful if you have a couple of gallon buckets (with approx measure marks) and even better if they have lids).

Chop 3lb rhubarb stalks into 1" chunks, & put into a clean bucket
Pour over 2.5lb white sugar, shake the bucket, cover & leave for 24 hrs for the sugar to dissolve.

That's it for now. Tomorrow is 'making up the batch to start the brew' & the final step is 'fermenting out, racking & bottling'.

There, easy!

Flowers, Decorative & Possibly Edible

2010-05-09T22:35:00.008+01:00

It's been jolly cold all week, & yesterday was not only cold, but drizzly too, so I decided on an afternoon baking rather than gardening.

Today, however, the sun shone warmly, so armed with a list of things to do, & a handful of seed packets I headed to the Hill where I saw neighbour Jody busy with the hoe & we chatted in the sunshine as I weeded the front of the plot.

It's looking rather good, by fortuitous accident - a whole heap of last years annuals have self-seeded, so once I'd pulled out all the chickweed & bittercress there is quite a pretty display in the offing.

Then I sowed a row of CARROT (manchester table), RADISH (french breakfast) & LETTUCE (dazzle & mini green).

The spring cabbages are coming on well (from seedlings that Julie (second best plot) kindly gave me back in September) & I cut one for Jody in return for his offer of a some spare pepper plants & whilst we looked at the brassica bed, we considered the kale.

"What a shame it is that it has started to bolt", I said, looking at the long flower shoots, "it looks a bit like purple sprouting, but green. I wondered if I can eat the shoots?"

"Dunno," he said, then leaned over & snapped a flower head off & popped it in his mouth & ate it. He considered for a moment before nodding "yep, you can. It tastes like that cabbage you use for coleslaw."

Brilliant! I wasted no time in cutting all the sprouting stems, and had a portion for tea tonight. Admittedly I cooked the ends furthest from the flowers, but - boy - they were woody. I'll try again tomorrow with the tips to see if it is less like eating twigs.

Back at the plot, I planted out the PEAS (newick, neplus ultra, raisen cap & ezetha's) along with the ONION (hi-keeper) seedlings. I used these to fill in some gaps left from some of the sets not making it overwinter.

I was just earthing up the potatoes when returning allotmenteer Chris came over & we chatted about this & that - she's offered me some spare tomato plants, & asked if I wanted to go across in the week to collect. Fabulous!

With all the jobs done, I picked a huge armful of rhubarb and headed off home to get a batch of rhubarb wine underway.

Return of the Tourist!

2010-05-03T21:05:00.004+01:00

So the planes did fly, the sun certainly did shine, but all good things come to an end & now it's back to business.

So a quick trip to the Hill today with mum (tempted by the offer of rhubarb - although she didn't actually go home with all of this armful) to see how a few dry days, followed by a few wetter days have treated the plot.

The wind was chilly (only potager Chrissie around putting up her bean frame) so it was a whistle stop tour to see that all the POTATOES have sprouted; there's no sign of any of the direct sown climbing beans yet; & all the KALE has started to bolt with flower heads ready to burst.

Back home, with frost forecast tonight, I tucked up all the pots of french beans on the bench with fleece & pulled the front down on the mini greenhouse to make sure that the tender seedlings which have taken the trouble to sprout don't get stopped in their tracks.

Onwards & ... upwards?

2010-04-18T19:47:00.008+01:00

Another lovely sunny day at the Hill yesterday (which reminds me, I didn't take a bottle of suncream to put in the shed) - with plenty of allotment holders getting stuck in to their plots.

With the ash from Iceland's volcano Eyjafjallajoekull currently putting a halt to all air traffic, we also enjoyed plenty of birdsong & peace & quiet. This is putting a positive spin on the Act of God which in all likelihood will put paid to me going on my much anticipated holiday later this week.

It was lovely to see neighbour Jody (big sister Helen tells me that after three years, Jody can no longer be referred to as 'novice neighbour Jody') with his smashing little lad in tow talking to Reg-next-plot, and I could hear teacher Barry talking to Potager Chrissie further up the Hill.

First job was to put up the bean frame - quite enough of a job to be getting on with, for which I needed bamboo canes & after three years at the Hill I thought that I'd treat myself to new ones.

So up to the store shed for a stack of canes, with John D was manning the counter (or more accurately, sunning himself outside on a fold-up chair with a newspaper) & I bought just enough for the frame, but that did wipe out the shed's entire stock & also meant that I ended up temporarily financially embarrassed with potager Chrissie coming to my aid with a three quid sub to make up the shortfall.

I dug up the last few overwintered LEEKS from the bean bed then set about putting the two 'T' shaped end pieces of the frame up, which was quite hard digging in the heat - but it wasn't long before these were in and fixed & I had a length of robust wire run between them on each side.

Then it was simply a matter of slotting in the canes from a centre line alternately left and right to the wire & tying them in.

I've decided that all the climbing beans will be direct sown this year (& all the dwarf beans in pots - see if it makes much difference) so I put 2 or 3 to each cane of FRENCH BEANS (coco, zebra (from HSL), bridgewater, jody's barlotti, spagna bianca (from veg heaven), hunter (from indomitable fran) & cherokee trail of tears) & also RUNNER BEANS (self saved).

Time was getting on, & so once I watered the beans in, I nipped off to buy a sandwich from Sainsbury's (& made use of the cashpoint) then came back & had a very enjoyable lunch in the clubhouse with Potager Chrissie.

Afterwards, I finished the bean frame off, topping each cane with a coloured ball, & then planted out a two trays of PEAS (red flowered mangetout & reg's climbing) & a tray of BROAD BEANS (crimson flowered) in the adjacent bed.

Back home I had a mammoth seed sowing session:

SPRING ONIONS (apache)
COURGETTE (yellow golden & black beauty)
MARROW (long green bush 2)
CUCUMBER (burpless tasty green)
FRENCH BEANS (early warwick, triomphe de farcy, talisman, emperor of russia, black turtle, contender & speedy)
SOYA BEAN (ustie)
SWEETCORN (incredible f1 & extra tender & sweet f1)
SQUASH (brampton butternut & bag end pumpkin)

...along with some runner beans & sunflowers for mum, some sunflowers for me, and a batch of aqueligia & nigella for the front of the plot.

All this activity just in case the skies clear & I do get away to warmer climes...

Wine Processing

2010-04-11T21:15:00.005+01:00

With the wine rack in situ in the garage ready to be filled & a number of demijohns vying for space in the attic room, I had a bottling session today.

First up was this year's Parsnip wine from January, followed by the Elderberry & Apple - which is the most delicious colour. A taste of each is promising - but also reveals that they will benefit from maturing for a few months.

This has freed up space upstairs for a demijohn of the second batch of Parsnip wine made from teacher Barry's parsnips, then still in a warm room downstairs (& now transferred from buckets to a demijohn) is a batch of Jerusalem Artichoke wine made with 4lb of Jerusalem artichokes dug up a couple of weeks ago.

The alternative to making wine would have been a tasty soup, albeit several gallons of it, & there's only so much room in the freezer.

Of course Jerusalem artichoke wine is a bit experimental, & whether it is a hit like the Parsnip, or utterly dreadful like the Celery remains to be seen!

Plot Inspection!

2010-04-10T21:22:00.008+01:00

Today has been the warmest day of the year so far, with beautiful Spring sunshine - it certainly brought the plotholders out at the Hill.

As I arrived I saw Reg-next-plot, & went straight over to say thank you for planting the raspberry canes. I also asked him about supports for the canes & he gave me some advice about the height of the uprights at each end, & about how many & how high the cross wires should be, & I busied myself with sorting that out.

The ladies from the stable arrived with a trailer-ful of bags of manure, so I broke off to give them a hand with unloading, & once they had gone, Reg & I emptied about half of the bags into the skip.

I kept a few bags back and topped off the front compost bin, squished it all down a bit then covered it with a black plastic sack (rather inadequately) & that can now magic itself into compost over the next three months or so.

I went up to the store shed to pay my money for the '3 spuds in a sack' competition & collect compost, bag, potatoes & instructions - John Badger (from the bottom) was in charge of the shed this morning doing brisk business with so many plotholders on site.

Back to the plot to plant out a tray of PEAS (latvian) - the broad beans planted out a couple of weeks ago look really good, the sweetpeas slightly less so, but I think that they will come on. In contrast, another of the lettuce has shrivelled up, & the other two don't look great - I'll definitely let them grow bigger before planting out the next lot.

Big sister Helen is up for the weekend, and arrived with mum to see what's going on - she said (rather kindly) that the plot looks better 'in the flesh' than in my photos on here, and was suitably impressed on being given The Grand Tour.

We had a look round all the plots - said hello to Rhubarb Brian (mum got him to promise us more tayberries this year) & saw returning-allotmenteer-Christine's new Salad Bar - her wonderful looking young lettuce contrasting greatly with mine, I must say.

Tour over, it was all off to the garden centre for a cup of tea & a toasted teacake. A good day!

A Lovely Surprise!

2010-04-08T21:47:00.005+01:00

On the way home after being out & about in the last of the day's sunshine, I couldn't resist the short detour to the Hill - I wasn't dressed for it, & didn't have anything to actually do, but I did enjoy a mooch round just to see what was what.

I spotted straight away that Reg-next-plot had been busy - some while ago he offered me some of his autumn raspberry canes which he said he would be thinning out in due course, so we discussed where I'm going to put them & I have prepared a trench ready, along side the summer raspberry canes.

He said that if I wasn't there when he dug them up, he would 'heel' them in at one end of the trench ready for when I could split & plant them properly, but - damn me - he's very kindly spaced them along the trench & planted them up - brilliant!

After admiring these for some while, I had a look round the rest of the plot.

Next time I must wait until the lettuce are bigger before them planting out - I've lost a couple from the 6 planted out at the weekend, & I think that they would stand a better chance if they were more robust to start with.

No sign of the potatoes/carrots/parsnips/latest batch of radish sprouting, & the kale is looking like it'll bolt soon, so I picked a big handful of 'tops' to try to delay the inevitable for a while & came home in the dusk for supper.

New Toy!

2010-04-06T21:34:00.006+01:00

For my last birthday, mum kindly gave me a big wine rack so that I can store my wine more safely & in a more orderly fashion in the garage.

The bottles have previously been stood on any spare bits of shelving in the dim recesses & this along with a tendency for the labels to fade with time means that choosing a bottle to enjoy a glass or two of on a Friday evening has always had a slightly random factor.

But as of today, the wine rack is safely affixed onto its own dedicated shelf, & I have spent a very enjoyable hour shuffling bottles about deciding on the most logical 'filing system', & I only stopped when it got too dark to play with it anymore.

As a bonus to the evening, I've discovered two bottles of last year's parsnip wine & a couple of the second batch of rhubarb wine - all of which I am looking forward to tremendously!

New Wines, Blending & Bottling

2010-04-05T23:17:00.005+01:00

With the 5lb of parsnips that teacher Barry gave me on Saturday, yesterday I set to & started to turn them into something to drink.

Familiar with the method, I soon had them scrubbed, chopped, boiled & strained; then I added sugar & citric acid & boiled again; then once cooled, in went the amylase, yeast nutrient & finally the yeast - stirred it all up, & off it goes.

Of course somewhat after the event, I flicked through my copy of CJJ Berry & found out that I could have made something called 'Parsnip Sherry (light)' - I'll definitely give that a whirl with some of next year's parsnips.

This year's parsnip wine that I started at the end of January is already clear as a bell, so I siphoned it into a spare demijohn & I can bottle it at my leisure - as ever with the parsnip wines, it's as strong as an ox at 16% & tastes like it needs to sit somewhere quietly for 6 months or so.

The redcurrant & apple started in December is ready to bottle too - a taste reveals it to be a bit sharp (& a bit bland, if I'm honest), so decided to use this wine to have a crack at Wine Blending.

As all the apple wines have been sweet, I siphoned off some of the apple mkIII & made up 8 bottles in total, with each bottle being approx 2/3 redcurrant & apple and 1/3 apple mkIII, which I think should make something better tasting than either of them individually.

The mixture seems to taste OK, but I'll know if it's been a success when they have sat quietly for a few months too...

Generous Gardeners!

2010-04-04T22:59:00.011+01:00

The weather was much better than forecast yesterday (with occasional showers threatening), so I took a gamble, left a line of washing out at home & managed to get a good couple of hours in at the Hill, ending up with quite an impressive list of 'things done'.

Things started well when I found a couple of demijohns left for me by the shed, along with a plastic bag of wine making bits & pieces, for which I presume that I have John Badger (from the bottom) to thank.

On later investigation of the bag of bits, there are tags included detailing the wine maker's racking & bottling dates from 1978 - which might also explain the prices on the equipment packets - 8 ½ p for an airlock!

Soon after, teacher Barry came down from his plot three up towards the clubhouse. "Now, do you make wine?" he asked, "in particular, parsnip wine?"

"I certainly do, Barry!" I nodded.

"Good - then are these any good to you?" & he showed me a big bag of washed parsnips in his car. "When we had some the other day, we found that they'd gone quite woody, so if you can use them, then please do."

I didn't need asking twice. "Thank you very much and I'll bring you a bottle when it's made." Brilliant!

When he'd gone, I turned to the potato beds, dug up the last couple of PARSNIP (hsl guernsey) and SWEDE (virtue) & dibbed holes to plant the main crop POTATOES (robinta & setanta).

I spotted this wonderful peacock butterfly on the shed - I would have thought that it was far too early (and cold!) in the year, but there you go.

Soon after, novice neighbour Jody arrived - with family news, & we worked side-by-side chatting for an hour or so.

He was digging in some manure into his potato patch, whilst I whipped the netting off the brassica bed, hoofed out the done-for Brussels sprouts & calabrese, weeded & gave everything a good feed with some of Jody's blood, fish & bone.

I planted out four small pots of SPRING ONIONS (apache) sown in February, & half a dozen LETTUCE (mini green & arctic king) & sowed a row of PARSNIPS (saved white gem) in the roots bed.

The compost bins are better after last week's bonfire - & after manhandling two of the three gooseberry bushes from the heap to put in the back of the car to take to the tip, the front bin is now just full (rather than two-times its own height), & the back bin is virtually empty.

That just left the rest of the harvesting, in the shape of a few LEEKS (mrs d), & half a dozen foot-long stalks from the earliest rhubarb crown - which were utterly delicious later on when lightly cooked with a little sugar & ginger - yum!

Rain & Raisen Peas

2010-04-02T21:09:00.005+01:00

It is Good Friday today, & to coincide with the break, the weather has turned vile again. Cold yesterday with some rain, light rain all day today, & the forecast for tomorrow is not good either.

Consequently, it has not been a day for going to the Hill, but it's a new month & there are seeds to be sown indoors. I've invested in a second frame of rootrainers, & so spend a merry hour playing with compost & sowing the final round of PEAS (ezetha's blawschock, newick, ne plus ultra & 'raisen cap').

This fourth variety somewhat of a mystery. I had them from the seed swap at the potato day at Ryton, scooping a handful of these interesting looking large brown peas from a bowl into an envelope & hastily scribbling the variety on the front, but even by my rather low standards, the handwriting clarity is terrible.

I've tried looking online to find out more about the variety 'Raisen Capucigaers' but the search produced nothing besides an area in India called Raisen where their main arable crop is peas.

I'm rather looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

Spring is Here!

2010-03-28T21:40:00.008+01:00

With nearly a full day spent at the Hill in the Spring sunshine yesterday, I got plenty done - & even allowing for chatting with my fellow plotholders, also lured out by the lovely weather, I'm still pleased with how much I achieved.

I even remembered to pop a bottle of redcurrant wine in the car for retired Maureen, made from her redcurrants last year & put it by her shed before starting off with some planting & sowing.

In no time at all I sowed a row of RADISH (french breakfast) & planted out three LETTUCE (dazzle), then the second early POTATOES (charlotte & osprey).

Reassessing the potato beds (always easier to work things out when they are in front of you!) I realised that I have room for three & not six each of Julie's (2nd best plot) kind offer of accent & anya potatoes. I nipped up to fetch them from where they are chitting in her greenhouse & came back to pop them into holes 18" apart dibbed into the beds with a big stick.

I then applied myself to the pea frame - by adding additional bracing, the whole caboodle is much stronger than it was - there are just four extra bamboo canes still to be tied in - which I thought of after a lightbulb moment earlier on today - to really finish the job off well.

Even putting the netting up on the second side wasn't overly problematic, & all in all, I am finally pleased with it.

I retired for refreshment to the Clubhouse, spending a pleasant half hour with the Saturday Old Boys discussing potato varieties & cursing pea & bean netting, then back to the plot to move the strawberry plants to their new quarters in the small square fruit bed.

The strawberries produced lots of new plants from runners last year, but not much in the way of fruit, so dug up & moved 25 of the youngest plants which should produce more fruit than the older plants. The netting cage fitted over the bed pleasingly well & will protect the fruit from the birds in due course.

I saw retired Maureen's car arriving and she parked up at the top & stopped on the way past to say hello. "My, these beds are the business, aren't they?" she enthused.

"Thank you," I beamed, "I am pleased with them. I'm very glad to see you, actually - I've left you a bottle of redcurrant wine, made from your redcurrants - it's by your shed. Oh, and do you want any strawberry plants, I have about a dozen spare, if you'd like them?"

She didn't need asking twice & soon produced an old washing up bowl for taking the strawberry plants to her plot.

I turned to the compost heaps - they are wildly out of control & the front one far too full. Investigating the back bin, it was pretty much rotted down, so I took the side off & moved most of the contents onto the potato bed. The spuds will love it, & they are robust enough not to worry that the compost is a bit on the coarse side.

With the bin mostly emptied, I was left with a whole load of sticks & prunings, & the three gooseberry bushes dug up over winter, which are both too big for the bins & too robust for my secatuars to tackle - not to mention the thorns which yet again laughed in the face of my gardening gloves.

I decided to burn the sticks (bonfires permitted until the end of the month) & I'll take the rogue gooseberry bushes in green bags to the council tip. Reg-next-plot arrived just as I was trying to light a bonfire in the metal fire barrel that we have for the purpose.

"I can see that you were never a girl guide," he said, casting a critical eye over my feeble fire lighting attempts, & in between letting me have the latest news about new people on the site he re-built my fire & had it burning nicely in no time.

Once everything dry enough to burn had gone up in smoke, I put the fire out, roughly dug the ashes into the ground & went home smelling like Smokey Joe. Yet another day for stripping at the back door and heading straight up to the bath...

An Achievement of Sorts

2010-03-21T21:25:00.008Z

Although the weather this year to day has been very cold & miserable, it has been generally quite dry - but earlier in the week we had a shower or two, then on Friday into Saturday it was really quite persistent, & I wondered if I would get the pea frame up as planned this weekend, so I could get the sweet peas planted out.

I was alone at the Hill yesterday, & admired the garlic coming up - it takes about 3 months to sprout, but then zooms along - then I started to set out the 8' canes for the frame. I was just arranging them into two rows, splayed outwards slightly, on which to attach green pea netting to, when Julie (second best plot) arrived.

This was excellent news as Julie is a key holder for the store shed & I wanted to buy the netting.

"I'm glad to see you, too," said Julie, "I think that you said that you'd like some of my spare seed potatoes - how many would you like? I've ended up with a few extras - partly as I ordered a little bag of one variety & they sent me 4 bags. They only charged for the one that I ordered, so I'm not complaining!"

Of course my mind went blank at this point & I couldn't remember how many I'd like, but as the potatoes are all chitting in her greenhouse, Julie said to help myself to a few of the 'accord' & 'anya' when I'd worked it out.

(note to self: a sketch & some maths reveals the answer to that to be 6 of each, for future ref)

I finished putting the bamboo sticks in - the whole affair seems unsatisfactorily flimsy, despite horizontal bamboo sticks top and middle, & shorter lengths between the two sides to brace. Further supporting sticks are required, I think - but I'd run out of wire twists by then, & it had started to rain quite hard, so I dug up three LEEKS (mrs d) & came home.

Going back today, the frame is no more pleasing to me than it was yesterday, but I figured that I can beef it up when I am in possession of more garden wire twists from Wilko, but in the meantime I can get the netting up, attaching it to the structure with those bag-ties that you get with a packet of plastic bags.

Maneuvering pea netting would test the patience of a saint - it's like wrestling fog. After stopping & unsnagging the bloody stuff about a million times from anything & everything, I eventually moved the 10m length (enough for each side) up the plot to the frame.

It's 2m wide, which is the height of the frame, so it was a case of tying the long edge to the highest horizontal pole all the way along, then down each side, & then to the middle and bottom horizontal poles.

Again, it's sort of ok, but I was running out of time (& patience, frankly), so I planted out the sweet peas by the first 4' stretch of netting, & in front I planted out a row of BROAD BEANS (self saved) & went home.

The joys of putting the netting up the other side are still to come.

Pea Decisions

2010-03-16T22:20:00.002Z

The pea frames last year were not a terrific success - the strings which the peas were supposed to climb up were not robust enough, rotting & snapping where they were in contact with the soil. In addition, with the strings converging at the top of each frame the peas grew closer together the taller they grow, mixing the varieties together.

I've not quite settled on an alternative plan, but I do have some ideas involving netting on two rows of vertical bamboo sticks, which I'm pretty sure will be sturdy enough.

This should mean that there will be room to grow eight varieties of pea - or rather seven types of pea & some sweet peas. In order to prolong the picking period, I've sown three lots of PEA (latvian, alderman & red flowered mangetout) in pots now (along with some BROAD BEAN (crimson flowered), & I'll sow four more types in either April or May.

So the lucky varieties to get into compost so far are:
Latvian - a heritage variety described as 'grey peas grown across Latvia & traditionally eaten with fried fatty port & onions. Soak overnight as use the dried peas as an alternative to chickpeas. The large flowers are as attractive as ornamental sweet peas'
Alderman - 'gives a high yield of sweet tender peas'
Red flowered mangetout - which was sent by a fellow seed swapper in Pembrokeshire. I have no further information about at all - but I'm sure that they will be a very tasty surprise!

Peas a-plenty!

2010-03-14T22:17:00.003Z

Not in my MARCH seed envelope (as it is nowhere near big enough), but still in mind for sowing in pots this month, are a second batch of broad beans, along with the first sowing of peas.

Although I know which pea varieties did well last year, I also know that I've gathered a few extras along the way since then, so today I sat down with the seed box to see which ones I'm going to grow this year.

I wasn't quite prepared (& blame Flummery's infectious passion for all things leguminous over at Vegetable Heaven) for the fact that I have manage to gather FIFTEEN different varieties of pea, & there isn't the space to grow anything like this number. (Well, there is, but only providing that I don't want to grow anything else. I toyed with this idea for a while.)

I've made a provisional list, but that took so long that I ran out of time to actually sow anything...

Sowing Seeds & Liming Beds

2010-03-13T19:39:00.008Z

At last the weather has cheered up - there has been a bitter wind all week, but this dropped today so a trip to the Hill was definitely in order.

Looking at the remaining packets of seed left in the MARCH envelope, they are all suited only for direct sowing, so I gathered these up to take with me (with appropriate labels), along with the egg boxes of first early POTATOES (international kidney & mona lisa).

Cheery Brian & Pauline were the only ones working when I got there, so after a wave hello I got down to a spot of weeding at the front of the plot - it's good to see the bulbs that I lifted, split & replanted last year starting to come up in a row by the bed edge.

Then I helped the worms out by forking over the manured fruit beds, then the potato beds (plot A this year) ready for planting - & rather than dig a trench for planting the potatoes, I made a hole for each one with an old fork handle & dropped them in.

Turning to my seed packets, in the roots bed (plot D this year) I sowed a row of BEETROOT (boltardy) & a couple of rows each of CARROTS (early nantes 5) & PARSNIP (self saved white gem) & to finish off, a short row of RADISH (scarlet globe).

Up at the Club, the lorry with the growbag delivery for the store shed arrived, so I did the decent thing & helped some of the others to unload & whilst there, took the opportunity to buy some lime to put on the legume bed (plot B this year), which I have been meaning to do for ages.

"We don't sell it loose, I'm afraid," said Treasurer Mike, indicating the stock of modest sized bags of lime.

"That's OK," I said, "even if I don't use it all, it'll come in for next year. How much do you put on per square yard?"

"Oh, that well known measure of 'about a handful', I suppose."

So I paid my £3.40 & nearly gave myself a hernia carrying the bag back to the plot - it weighed a bloody ton.

Of course even applying a generous handful per yard to the appropriate beds (and surrounding paths, & me), I don't seem to have made much of a dent in the bag, although I did reflect as I man-handled it into the toolshed that at least it will stop the shed ever blowing away in even the fiercest of storms.

And although the strawberries are still not moved into their new home in the small square fruit bed, I did feel happy with what I'd achieved & came home for a bath to rid myself of lime dust.