Distracted

I may not have written anything recently but I think I have a good excuse.

Yes, these two have been keeping me pretty busy at home! I've had them for a week and they are so brilliant, hours and hours of fun. Their names are Boris and Poppet, brother and sister, they were born to a stray at a vets just across the road from the allotment. I heart them.

I've also been away a lot - Cannes, Helsinki and Ireland. A big thank you to James and Seamus for watering the allotment while I was away. I don't know what I would've done if they hadn't put in a lot of hard work for me, thank you!

I've been back for 2 weeks now and have been up to the lottie as much as possible. Its just amazing up there, everything is growing so well. I've been harvesting and picking as much as I can and freezing lots of soft fruit. The strawberries were fantastic and all the currant bushes have produced delicious fruit this year. The rhubarb is still going strong too. Other high points have been potatoes, chard and all the other leafy greens - cavelo nero and kale.

I also have some parsnip seedlings! Whoop! And I'm very proud to say that this year I have finally managed to grow carrots!

Low points are the cauliflowers, I managed to grow 6 gorgeous strong plants with perfect curds developing but then I think they had just had too much heat and the curds started to 'flower' - long white shoots so not very tidy. I picked one and it was delicious, but I think I might only get one good one out of six. I've covered the head of the good one with a leaf so the sun can't get to it. I don't know if this will work but fingers crossed. Also all my lettuce and spinach went to seed while I was away which is a bit of a shame but not the end of the world, I've sown more. The sunflowers haven't been great either. The name on the packet said Giant but there was nothing giant about the plants that grew! It has been very hot and dry for weeks and weeks so I think everything has take a bit of a beating this year. My runner beans have been badly hit by some sort of black fly and I'm not sure if I'll get many beans.

An very good family friend Naomi has been visiting us from Japan, she's in London now doing a garden design course at Hampton Court Palace. I brought her to the allotment last weekend to show her how we grow our veg in London.

As I mentioned, the soft fruit has been great this year. I picked the most beautiful red and white currants the other day, they looked like jewels.

I made a soft fruit tart with the red currants, some raspberries from the lottie and some from the market to fill the gaps!

Here's the plot as it looks now.

Its all gone mad

Haven't written anything in about 5 weeks, bad me. In that time the allotment has gone nuts...I went away for 2 weeks to China, came back and it was like an overgrown jungle. Amazing what some sun, heat and rain can do!

Not long after my last post there was a very hard May frost. All the courgettes and the runner beans were reduced to mush which was more than horrifying, and some of the tips of the potato leaves were burned black. I couldn't believe we could have such a bad frost so late in the year.

Luckily I still had a courgette plant at home and a couple of runner bean plants, and I quickly sowed a few more. One of the mushy courgette plants survived so the situation isn't as bad as it could've been.

Here's a sort of before and after picture, the first picture is from mid May and the second from yesterday:

The King Edward potatoes are literally waist height, its like they're on crack or something, I have no idea why they're that big. The Pent Javelin and Lady Balfour are also taller than I would imagine they'd be. I'm hoping that the ground isn't so fertile that all the energy is going in to making fabulous foliage and no tubers. I'll be very upset if that's the case.

One of my prouder moments this year has definitely been CARROTS!!! I have finally managed to grow carrots, phew. Not many but carrots all the same.

James built a new bed yesterday, in between the fruit cage and the tool box.

I went today and sowed a row of parsnips up one side, planted out the rest of the leeks on the other side and planted some purple kale and cabbage plants that I'd started at home in the middle.

And this year I actually managed to get some straw to put under my strawberries, I've always meant to but never got round to it in time. So here's hoping I get lots of fruit.

I picked these from the plants I have at home. They were delish.

Here's some other pics from Plot 28a.

Monsoon

It has been raining hard in London for nearly 24 hours, and I mean raining HARD. I haven't seen that much water coming out of the sky since the very wet winter we had. On top of that its windy and cold, I've put on the heating at home, brrr. So much for the 22 degrees we had last weekend, it feels like its right back to winter time.

I'm glad I didn't spend any time watering the allotment yesterday! It must be so waterlogged by now, thank goodness I had no plans to go today.

In the last few weeks the plot has started to look like it has some life in it again. Its such a nice time of year... watching buds opening on the trees and tiny seedlings emerging from the ground.

I was really worried about my potatoes, I saw no shoots at all until 2 days ago, I was well chuffed to see a couple coming out of the ground, phew! I didn't dare think that 3 full beds of potatoes would do nothing at all.

The onions and shallots are looking great with long green shoots, I'll leave the netting on them for another few weeks so they are strong enough to avoid being yanked unceremoniously out of the ground by the birds.

The spinach, salad and radishes are all looking good too, along with the kale and cabbage seedlings for later in the year.

I planted out some runner bean plants, this year I've chosen a white flowering variety called Emergo, and some peas that I had started at home. I sowed some french beans straight in to the ground, not sure they'll be happy after the ton of rain that's fallen on the ground but we'll see. I also planted out 6 cauliflower plants last weekend and covered them well with netting. And a strong courgette plant went in too, I've only gone for one plant this year, I can't cope with the amount of courgettes I had last year again!

Last to go in was a couple of very sad sweetcorn plants that I'd started at home. I didn't have much luck with them, I think I started them too early. I sowed another 4 rows though yesterday so fingers crossed they'll fair better.

I'm away for the next week but Seamus will be up at the lottie at some point as he has lots of young plants that someone bought him for his birthday and doesn't have enough space at home for all of them. There's one full bed free but we'll cram everything in somewhere!

We've pretty much eaten all the purple sprouting broccoli, this is the last of it, had it for dinner last night, delish!

Warm sunshine

Went up to the allotment early yesterday morning and it was so gorgeous I nearly went and bought a small shed so I could move there! It was gorgeous and warm and sunny, the birds were singing and there was a real sense of spring in the air. I heard the woodpecker tap tap tapping away and there was a lazy cat curled up on a piece of toasty carpet on the plot next to mine. It was such a sunny day in more ways than one.

Its the only time I'll be able to get there until next week so I spent 4 hours weeding (yes the dreaded weeds are also loving the warm weather and are back with a vengeance), sowing seeds and having a bit of a tidy up.

The purple sprouting is really coming along well, think I'll be able to pick some next week.

I planted out a small rosemary bush I'd had at home for years, it had become really pot bound and sad looking but after one week in the ground its flowering beautifully, the bees are loving it.

I sowed a row each of spinach, radish, corn salad, spicy salad mix and bulls blood beet to use as salad leaves. I'm hoping that the weather will stay warm enough over the next week or so to give the seeds a good chance of germinating. Last year I sowed seed to early (early March), tempted by a glimpse of sun, but I paid the price, very little germinated so this year I waited another month, fingers crossed it works. I gave the strawberries a good feed of blood, fish and bone, I want tons of strawberries this year, at least enough for a good batch of jam!

Early last week I had a big sowing session at home - courgette, french beans, runner beans, sunflowers, chard, sweetcorn and sweet peas all went into small pots or plug trays. I'm really determined to get a good harvest this year, I think I've learnt a lot the past 2 years and this season I'm really going for it. I also potted on lots of small, tender cauliflower plants that I started back in February along with leeks. I've tons of both, there's a plant sale mid May and I think this time I can contribute lots of plants. We desperately need some new wheelbarrows and the plant sale raises money to buy this sort of thing.

I made an improvised cold frame from some bubble wrap and a thin wooden crate, the plants seem to be pretty happy in it so far. I wish I'd bought a proper tall coldframe this year for my terrace, it would've made things so much easier! Next year...

I bought 3 wild strawberry plants at Bermondsey Sq Farmers Market today for £5. Bargain as they will produce runners later this year which will go on to make new plants. I thought I'd start with 3 plants now, keep them at home so I can keep the birds off them and if they do well and I like them then I can have some plants at the allotment next year.

Space

We're getting very organised at plot 28a. Today we moved the tool box back and the new space we have is amazing. Definitely enough for a long thin bed, perfect for parsnips I think. It will be quite a shaded bed, but there are so many things that need some shade so it will always be in use.

I moved some of the bluebell bulbs to beside the water butt, and finally put the clematis in the ground beside the rusty water tank.

We dug out some massive roots from where the tool box used to be, they were huge. We couldn't dig them out completely...we'd have been digging for the rest of the week if we'd wanted to get them out properly. We had to cut the roots in the end.

I love the plot now, there's so much space and its so much more organised.

James has also built the other cage, it can be moved on to any of the other small beds, wherever the sweetcorn goes it will follow! He's going to build me a low one for the strawberry bed, think that'll be it for cages, everyone else is already looking at our plot with raised eyebrows!!

And at last, I've picked something from the plot that we can eat! We'll be having a delicious savoy cabbage with our dinner this weekend.

Shaping up

The old compost heap is no longer! Despite the husband's hernia, he has managed to sieve all of the old compost into our new compost bin. He's very chuffed with himself. And I'm very chuffed with his hard work. It now means that once we move the tool box back about 3 foot I'll have space for another bed. It will be long and thin, the same length as the soft fruit cage bed, but not as wide. Thinking I might try some parsnips in it this year if we get it built in time.

I managed to get another bed of spuds in, this time it was Lady Balfour which are second earlies. My King Edwards are still chitting, and I got my first earlies in about 2 weeks ago. I'm not that keen on all the digging required for getting potatoes in the ground. Its damn hard work.

Seamus gave me 4 (very heavy) bags of compost last weekend, I nearly had my own hernia after lifting them out of the back of the car and getting them to the plot. I've been digging it in to the beds, its gorgeous stuff.

It's Easter this coming weekend, if the weather stays dry we'll try and get 2 full days in at the allotment. We'll move the tool box back and then make a new cage for the sweetcorn.