Time to plan...

Well 2009 is drawing to a close and winter approaches, so it's time to start planning where things go next year. So here's my first draft of a plan, based on some discussions with Mary-Ann, some thoughts of my own, and the cycle from my book which is basically:
Hungry crops (beans, peas, onions) & salads -> Brassicas -> Root crops

I need to go up and measure properly at some point, so this diagram isn't quite to scale. It's based on drawing round an image from google maps :)

Anyway, going through section by section:

1. Nearest the gate, brassicas and maybe something else as well, covering where the beans, onions, and carrots have been this year. But not digging up the daffodils.

2. Next in, is beans and things, where potatoes have been this year. Maybe aim to have a couple of full rows of beans this year, with more robust infrastructure, but we'll anyway have more beans in the 3 sisters patch. The 3 sisters are sweetcorn, beans and squash: the idea is that the beans grow up the sweetcorn and the squash fills in the gaps on the ground. This is a square area, as it helps the pollenation of the sweetcorn. In the rest of this area we're aiming to go for smaller (and neater!) beds than last year. :)

3. Finally we've got the root crops. The aim here is to grow lots of potatoes, as they're yummy and useful and easy to grow. But we want some carrots, onions and maybe parsnips too. Any thoughts on this?

I think that generally we thought that lettuce needs a tad more attention and is best grown in back gardens, as it has been going to seed somewhat.
So anyway, how does this seem to people?

Milton Produce Show

This year saw the return, after many years' gap, of the Milton Produce Show. Ellie was one of the key people helping bring it all together, and we entered various things from our allotment on the off-chance that some of them might be half decent.

In ascending order of category, then, here's how we got on. First up was the "5 potatoes" category, where you had to enter 5 potatoes of similar size and shape. As a bit of a novelty, we decided to enter some pink fir apple potatoes - they're naturally knobbly, and we found 5 that had knobbles in similar places. And they won the class!

Next up was the squash category, which we felt reasonably confident about, thanks to our packet of "mixed squashes and pumpkins" that we'd planted this year. We checked carefully, and pumpkins are just a type of squash, so we entered our green and yellow stripy round squash and the nicest-looking yellow curly one. The former won 1st place, and the latter 3rd place - not bad at all!

Next again was the "5 runner beans" group. Again, the guidelines suggested you aim for similar sizes, and not too many seeds externally noticeable. I picked about 8 on Saturday, and whittled it down to the most similar-looking 5 to enter. Again once again, we were stunned to discover that we'd won that class too!





After that, our luck started to fade a little - we were 2nd out of 2 in the 'heaviest potato' category, thanks to a real whopper from Stephanie.





And finally, we'd hedged our bets with the pink fir apple potatoes, and entered the knobbliest one in the "ugliest/most misshapen vegetable" category. Clearly the judges knew their potatoes, as we weren't even placed for that. They knew it was supposed to be that shape...

As well as the separate categories, there were also cups for best overall vegetable, etc., and we were very pleased indeed when Simon won the photography cup with a lovely photo of dragonflies in the country park.

The whole day was great fun, if not a terribly serious competition. I think it'll be a lot bigger next year, as there were lots of people coming past and saying "Ooh, I could enter for that class next year." As well as the vegetables, there were also fruit, cake, painting, photography, and handicraft categories. I can't believe I didn't notice the "home-made card" category, for instance! Ah, well, next year...

More clearing

Last weekend, we went up to the allotment again (yeay!). The sweetcorn are definitely coming along nicely - much better than last year. The trick is clearly not to precariously balance a large sheet of wood right next to the young stalks in the high winds...



Similarly, Nat & Jeremy had mowed the orchard the week before, and it was also still looking good. It's pleasing to discover that not everything needs constant attention - every few weeks will keep it under control. it's just leaving it for 2 months in the height of summer that's not so great...

And here's the major (in my eyes) achievement of this weekend - a proper cage around the brassicas, keeping the netting off them. We've also put some stakes in next to the Brussels sprouts, as they were looking a bit windswept. I guess that's what happens when the plant spends most of its formative weeks being supported by weeds!

The one downside to working in the allotment the last couple of weeks, has been that I've been getting bitten by something. My mum also did, so we suspect it was something lurking in the weeds around the brassicas. As they're all gone now, it'll hopefully be safe to venture up there next weekend...

Rediscovering the soil

Having finally moved into our new house, we've been catching up on the allotment over the past few weeks. Thanks mainly to Ellie, I think, it'd been kept in check over the summer, but there were areas where the weeds were close to winning the battle, such as in the brassica area, so it was time to set to and fight back.

The beans, by contrast, have fought off the weeds and become a heaving mass of greenery near the allotment gate. Another year, we'll know not to fiddle around with pieces of string, but just get a load of bamboo canes and let them grow up those.



The squashes have also been doing well. The seeds we planted were a packet of 'mixed pumpkins and squashes', so we weren't terribly sure what to expect. This one appears to be a ... curly yellow squash.





Here's another one, probably a pumpkin this time, with me next to it for scale. I wonder when these should be harvested?



Onto the aforementioned brassicas. We'd covered them in butterfly-proof netting, to stop the cabbage whites eating them to death like last year. The netting was holding up just fine, but most of the vegetation inside wasn't brassicas...

We extracted the edges of the netting from the ground-level weeds, and rolled it back as far as we could, squashes permitting. Now that we had good access to the weeds, they were easy to pull out, and there were a reasonable number of pretty healthy looking brassicas in there, which was encouraging.


Talking of the squashes, here's my mum amongst them. They'd spread all over the place, including up the fence and up and over the brassica netting, so we've had to gently reroute some of them out of the way. I think they've all survived the experience, though.

Lettuce

Weeded the lettuce area yesterday. They've nearly all bolted but I got a couple of decent ones and I think there are a few more to be had, if anyone wants them. Pak choi has all disappeared - at least the slugs got a good meal!

Weeding 11 August

Went up to the allotment today and cleared under the pea wigwam (didn't find any living pea plants, I'm afraid) and the corn area. Lots of lovely blackberries ready to pick from the brambles around the well. Plenty more weeding to do - will try to get there again tomorrow!

Busy busy busy

Just a quick update to say that we haven't abandoned the allotment since the last post, but N and M-A have been rather busy moving house (including renovating it before we move in), so there hasn't been much chance to update the blog.

We've had a nice crop of raspberries, and even a few tayberries, despite this being the first year that the tayberry plant was in the ground. The thornless blackcurrant bush is covered in green berries, so it should be a good crop come the autumn.

A few of the potato plants have wilted, so we've harvested those ones, but nothing else yet. We ought to start harvesting them soon, especially the earlies!

The lettuce was a great success again, like last year, but the first lot has all gone to seed now. The 2nd lot should be just about there shortly. The Pak Choi looks rather nibbled - it's all under netting, so presumably slugs rather than rabbits.

The broad beans got covered in black fly, but we still got a decent crop from them. We don't eat huge amounts of broad beans generally, but they're so easy to grow that it seems a shame not to... we need to find some good recipes, though.

The courgettes are busy producing, and we harvested the first 3 courgettes and a (very long!) marrow this evening. The squashes are covering the ground nicely, and there's even the beginnings of a gourd in there. We don't know which squash plant is which variety, mind you.

The onions have begun to 'flop', but the current thinking is that it's best to leave them until the leaves actually start turning brown, so no harvest there just yet. There are signs of carrots between the rows of onions, but nothing spectacular - probably due to late sowing and not enough watering.

The herb bed hasn't really come to anything, apart from the chives, which seem pretty happy. I've got some tarragon cuttings from Freecycle that I'm trying to get to grow roots, but they don't look terribly happy so far.

The beans are busy climbing up their (carefully tied) string framework. J says it would have been much quicker (in retrospect) to just use canes, rather than the string, but it's there now, and we can re-use it in later years.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post with some photos in the next few weeks!