Last of the Pumpkins

A quick visit down the allotment resulted in a whole wheelbarrows worth of produce.  I KNOW the pumpkins fill most of the space, but that was the intention, the Tallest had specifically requested some that were of carvable proportions, and this year we have finally delivered.

Sweetcorn is a favourite in our household (minus Mr GT) and these are the absolute last of the cobs, the girls will be tucking into the for dinner tonight and I shall blanch the rest as half or whole cobs, and freeze them. They survive surprisingly well and make for not bad eating considering.

I promised myself that one year I would follow John Seymours directions for drying them, but once again the modern convenience of the freezer wins over – that and the fact that the Tallest can’t join in as it involves boiling water, and is then managed in half the time. I LOVE love love the fact that she is feeling useful it just tends to come at the most inconvenient of times!

Good Potato Crop

One of the few things that has remained unaffected by the last months worth of neglect is the potatoes.

Mr GT was down the allotment for a couple of hours today and lifted two rows of spuds, the barrow was full to overflowing and some of them were as big as a swede. Once we have graded and bagged them we’ll see whether the quality makes the grade too.

These are Cara’s on the left and I’ll be damned if I can remember the name of the others…! These are the slightly damaged ones that need to be used up immediately. The photo below beautifully illustrates just how well the Cara’s have done we’ll definately be growing them next year.

As you can see this didn’t have far to go to be as big as her head! We have a sack full of this size, two of a smaller size and another sack of good egg sized potatoes for next years seed.

Once again certain varieties seem to have been affected by scab but not as bad as last year. There are still a few more rows to come up but they won’t happen today as it is too damp. I’ve the onions to string instead…

Potato Blight

When it finally got to my main crop potatoes. I have dome really well this year, the earlies even managed to get to the point where they died back rather than getting the blight.

So this morning is off to the allotment armed with shears to cut back all the top growth and put it on a crate so that I can dry it out enough to burn it, and this should then prevent the spores from having done too much damage to the tubers.

We already seem to get quite a lot of scab, even with all the precautions that we take every year, so blight on what appears to be a really healthy and pretty bumper  crop of taters this year.

Not quite sure how I am going to negotiate with the two over tired children that I am in charge of this morning!

Barbeque Summer My A**e!

Okay, so perhaps I am being a little harsh, and I have to admit that this is really only the second week that we have had persistantly bad weather, but still…it does get on your nerves rather doesn’t it?

I’ve had two stir crazy kids, particularly in the cases of the Smallest who isn’t able to be bundled into a waterproof and left out in the puddles as is the case with the Tallest, as currently we can’t find any wellies to fit her rather dinky size 4 feet! Poor love.

Last week I spent the majority of my ’spare time’ down the allotment trying to get things looking something like again, and virtually every session we had down there was rained off before I had really finished the job that I was doing.

So to top it all yesterday, after having cleared a patch for the seriously overdue planting of some brassica plants, the clouds rolled over, we were cast into gloom, the thunder started, and then the heavens open with a cast of hail stones the size of peas no less.

As I still here typing this morning (the clock having just chimed to tell me that my lay about children need to be woken up as they haven’t roused themselves!) With the top of the kitchen door open, having just completed ‘poo patrol’ and hung the laundry out in the blazing sunshine!

Now I’m not complaining about the rain you understand…on no! As every good grower wouldn’t. I just wish that it could discipline itself to only falling when I’m in bed, and not disrupt the weeding and hoeing that always needs doing at this time of year.

Nevermind, we have a day off today and a trip to visit my Grandfather planned, so some time to devote my mind to other things, enjoy your day whatever you are up to.

Back to normal again

The distinct lack of posts has been due to actually having a social life!

And having finally returned from what will be the last engagement for a few weeks things may return to their normal pace.

Prior to going away for our first ever weekend without the children, the allotment was given some serious attention, and was completely hoed, and french beans, carrots, swede, chard, spinach, ‘leeks, broccoli and squashes were all sow or planted so that there wouldn’t be anything suffering in small pots over the four days we were away.

I am today about to sow my last attempts at sweetcorn all three other attempts have seen the seeds rotting away in the compost, and another pack of borlotti beans which did the same as the sweetcorn a few weeks previous.

I am currently picking good flushes of broad beans and digging new potatoes and cutting salad and pulling radishes the peas won’t be long so things are beginning to look up for the larder department, which will cut down on the groceries bill in the coming weeks.

The Allotment awaits

Off to get the Smalls up after this post, and as the weather is dry and fortunately not too windy a la yesterday when we had gusts strong enough to blow the Smallest off her feet!

There is much to be done sown the plot as Hubby and I are off for a well deserved weekend away, our first ever without the children. And even though I’m not down there every day, I tend to find that if I’ve gone away for a couple of days, its like someone has moved in down the plot and been planting weeds for me, whereas they don’t seem to grow quite so quickly when I’m around to keep an eye on them!

So today I SHOULD be planting out Broccoli seedlings (and hopefully setting some more when I get home)

Sowing more parsnips now the first rows have come through

Sowing, Chard, Spinach beet, Carrots, French beans and Swedes.

The Borlotti and French beans that I sowed earlier have been an absolute disaster and discussing it with a neighbour he has also had terrible germination this year too, well I live in hope for this lot.

Oh, nearly forgot I have a couple of Pumpkin and Courgette Plants to go out too, I reckon that the allotment should be well on its way to full by now…

The rain has finally worked its magic…

At long last, we have finally had a lasting fall of rain, and it has truly breathed life into the garden and plot, it has been fantastic to not have to use the sprinkler in the garden for the last couple of days, and the allotment has finally had a growth spurt, and things are looking rather well.

And lurking under the broad bean plants are the first succulent looking pods of the year I can’t wait until they are a little fuller and ready to be pulled.

Last year the Broad Beans were attacked terribly by black fly, but as these plants were got in very early, they have so far remained untouched, I’m not sure if the later sown plants will get away so lightly but the tops have been pinced out so hopefully we’ll be okay.

Allotment, bare but beautiful…

Apart from the broad beans, and the fact that the spuds are just coming up (soon to be molded up again) theres not much to look at down the plot, but hopefully all the magic is happening beneath the soil. I just hope that my germination rates are better here than they have been in the greenhouse.

We’re off there this morning to ‘re-home’ the scarecrows, and to see whether yesterdays all too brief downpower has encouraged more than just the weeds to grow!

Globe Artichokes

On the odd occasion I do get to stray away from only planting the things that we eat as a family and get to have a ’splurge’ on a packet of seeds. This years little treat was a packet of Globe Artichoke seeds.

Something I have fallen in love with ever since an exchange trip to France when I was 13, but I have always objected to paying a pound + for one head.

The germination rate on this packet has been 100%, so I may have to trade some of the plants off later as I don’t think I’ll have room for them all.

Globe Artichokes are a perrenial plant (but you can grow them as annuals if you wish) and I won’t be harvesting good edible heads off them until nexy year, but as the saying goes all good things come to those who wait…

I’ve never seen any growing let alone grown any myself, so although my rather informative book tells me how far apart I should place them once they are in their bed, I have no idea how large the plants will grow to, thus influencing which part of the plot they go into…answers on a postcard anybody?

Peas in

Tallest seen here posing with the row of peas that she helped plant up and stake in.

We’ll go back to the allotment tomorrow to have a recce to see how many succumed to the bloody pigeons that seem to wait undetected while us foolish gardeners plant the fruits of our labours into the ground, only to turn our backs on the plot and find the remenants of a rave the next day after we’ve left. I’m sure they taunt me whenever I’m down there…anyway that’s besides the point.

My Cut and Come Again lettuces have been rather more successful than I thought they would be, so rather than have them all in pots I think that either I’ll put them towards a swopsies, or I’ll put a row into the allotment and let them grow into full plants rather than cut the leaves.

In the turmoil that was bulldozing the garden, our beautifully well established Rosemary was done for, and given that Rosemarys are not known for their love of moving, I got the knife out and finally ventured into the unknown world of taking cuttings. I await with baited breath the outcome of my endevours (I hope they root, I think that I’ll be addicted if they do, I found it extremely satifying trimming and cutting the pieces).

My Borlotti beans, are showing very little signs of coming up, out of the five trays that I sowed I can only see two plants shooting, its the same story with the sweetcorn. Last year I sprouted these in a jar first and then planted them out when they had germinated, this year I have sowed direct into modules and it doesn’t take a genius to see whats happened.

The cucumer plants have finally began to show their heads, I am hoping to grow these on in the garden, Hubby is particularly fond of pickled gerkins, and that is one thing that I have never managed to do for him in all the seasons that we have been growing, so we’ll wait and see, although at this rate he’ll be lucky if he gets but one jar.

So late second sowings of my favourite staples seem to be the order of the weekend. We’ll see how much we get done, as the Smallest is currently on a one baby mission to deprive the whole family of sleep, and combined with all the effort that has been going into getting the garden right, we are all beginning to show obvious signs of running out of steam.

Enough for now, time for some sleep while its all quiet up there…