Sunny but cold

It was deceptively chilly today as the sun was shining and there wasn't much cloud in the sky. It must have been noticably sunny because our cat spent a while catching some rays.



I started the weekend's gardening by resowing some onions. I sowed some a few weeks ago and most germinated but perhaps the light levels weren't quite enough for them to really get going. Then I sowed half a packet of Aquadulce Claudia broad beans into seed trays and put them in the mini greenhouse on the patio. I'll sow the rest of the packet in a few weeks so the beans don't all arrive at once.

Bit of a nice surprise in the post this week - some Santero onion sets. I think they must have been a free offer as part of a seed order I placed back in October. Nice. It'll be interesting to see how these compare to any seed-sown ones that get planted out.

Finally headed over to the plot and it was a lot wetter on the ground than I expected so digging wasn't really an option. I found some cauliflower plants growing well under some tunnel cloches. A few of them had bent stems, probably because their growth had been restricted by the low cloches. I decided to remove the cloches, replant the caulis a bit deeper and cover them with netting.



In the piccie above, they've got that sad-sack look that just-moved plants have. Fingers crossed that they'll perk up. I decided not to water them in as the soil was wet and I didn't want it to freeze around them.

I had 5 elephant garlic cloves at home which I had potted up with the rest of the garlic just before Christmas. 4 of them had developed roots so I planted them all out next to the other cloves planted out 2 weeks ago.

Before leaving the plot (my fingers were getting frozen with all the cold mud on my gloves), I put the sodden brassica plants from Bed 7 (from which I removed the netting to use for the caulis) onto the compost heap. They were joined by some of the rotten leaves around the base of the globe artichokes.

Worth the wait

Today was a lovely day for gardening on Plot 35. At last! The sun was shining and it got up to 10C at one point. Barmy!

A couple of days after Christmas, I covered over Bed 1 with some clear plastic to keep it snow free with the idea of planting the garlic some time in the New Year. Since then I have been waiting for the opportunity and today was the day. It was lovely to do a spot of digging after so long and the revealed soil was damp but nice and crumbly. After digging and raking, in went the 9x9 cloves of garlic that had been in the lean-to in seed modules since a few days before Christmas. Some of the cloves had started to sprout while almost all of them had developed roots.

So in order of transplanting, there are:

Albigensian Wight
Wight Cristo
Early Purple Wight
Iberian Wight

Lautrec Wight
Messidrome
Germidour
Picardy Wight
Chesnok Red



The Picardy cloves had rooted the least and are tiny cloves. It'll be interesting to see if they catch up, and indeed if any of them survive the move. I also have 5 cloves of Elephant Garlic in pots at home so I'll plant them out another time.

On the way home, I nipped over the garden centre to check out the spuds on offer. I have always ordered these from catalogues but this is relatively expensive and you never quite know when to expect their delivery. The garden centre had a great range so I bought loads and I'll put them in the lean-to to chit now that there is space. I purchased the following:

1st early - Swift
2nd early - Wilja
Main crop - Cara
Late main crop - Pink Fir Apple

Just before I left the plot today, one of my fellow plotters came to say hello. We got onto the subject of potatoes and he mentioned that he had been recommended Wilja by a farmer as they are not so readily attacked by slugs. I have grown Cara before and they worked well. I was a bit disappointed by last year's harvest so fingers crossed for a good one this year.

I hope everyone else has had a good day gardening.

Awaiting another frost

Got back from Christmas in Cornwall which was lovely. Wet though. I took down some veg from Plot 35 for Christmas dinner (see below - note the lovely Christmassy thumb nail of my future mum-in-law).



The homemade plum gin also made an appearance as part of the meal - in the cranberry sauce. I was loosely following a Nigella recipe but replaced cherry brandy with plum gin and it worked very well.

I'm itching to get onto the plot to start tidying things up. See below for the how the plot looked a couple of weekends ago, before the frost really hit hard. So much to do.



Tomorrow will be my main opportunity this week as it will be dry (perhaps not on the ground though) and it is due to snow quite heavily on Tuesday.

Oooo, and I think I might be buying a wormery in the New Year.

Silly me...

The ground was so hard at the plot today that it was touch and go whether or not I'd be able to get any parsnips out for Christmas dinner let alone plant out any garlic. My fork bent with the strain. I think I chiselled just enough roots out for the 6 of us. I was surprised at how hard the ground was - silly me. I'll plant out the cloves in trays at home later.

The trick of leaving the cut stems of the Jerusalem artichokes over the ground to keep the frost off came into its own. It was easy to get some of those out to supplement the parsnips. Plus, a sweet little robin used the stems to perch and look to see if I was revealing any worms in the soil. I also took a cabbage to supplement the meagre number of sprouts produced in Bed 7 this year.

Just one other fellow plotter over there today but it was lovely to see him.

Leaving it a bit late?

Today, I came across the packages of seed garlic I received a while ago. I figure those should go in the plot asap. That's one of tomorrow's jobs sorted (there is also harvesting to do - parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, chard, cabbage). There are 10 varieties in all - I fancied trying a few just to see. Fingers crossed that the ground isn't too hard.

Today, I tidied up the shed and lean-to at home a little bit and sowed some onion seeds. It is a bit early but I wanted to celebrate Midwinters Day somehow. Plus, I found some Christmas crackers in the shed so that was a bonus. I also got round to repotting the lemon and lime plants, bringing the lime into the house and putting the lemon in the lean-to to overwinter.

Too damp to dig...

...today. No-one else was at the site. The morning was nice and sunny but it greyed over in the early afternoon. I nipped over to Plot 35 (it had been ages) in my wellies to check things out. I was all ready for some digging but it was simply too wet for digging, soil sticking to the boots and all that. Nevermind. So I harvested some stuff instead.

I dug up a few kilos of Jerusalem artichokes which I'll take into work this week for colleagues to take home (reserving some to try mangocheek's stoved Jerusalem artichokes recipe). I also took a small handful of parsnips (first of the year), a cabbage, three small horseradish roots, a few baby leeks (to use like spring onions) and a couple of handfuls of Brussels.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the weeds hadn't taken over too much at the plot. I am looking forward to having some time over Christmas to tend to the allotment and garden.

mangocheeks was so right...

...with her prediction that the weather would not be suitable for gardening this weekend. It is still windy and wet here. I was hoping to get over to the plot this afternoon just to drop some peelings off but the rain has started again. I'll keep a look out but in the meantime I'll stick with GQT on Radio 4.

I did go through all my seeds yesterday so work out what I might need to buy for next year and to separate out some seeds to give away to colleagues. In particular, I am going to give away most of my packets of tomato seed because of the blight problem on our site. Nearly all of these tomato seeds came free with magazines - I don't have a particular tomato seed-buying habit (honestly). I have bought Ferline and Legend to try out next year. I have loads of seed in terms of types of veg rather than quantity but many of them could really do with using up next year. I am also going to give away any duplicates (again due to freebies - gratefully received) and some others that I don't fancy growing again (e.g. the Lady Godiva squash). It turns out that the only seeds I really need to buy are celery, celeriac, potato and pumpkin/squash. And I found a £5 garden centre voucher left over from my birthday some months ago so that was nice.

I think I will dig up the paths on Plot 35 over the remainder of Autumn and the start of Winter so if I can't get out this afternoon, I'll focus on drawing up a new planting plan. If I do manage to get over to the plot, I'll pick up some Jerusalam artichokes and a cabbage to go with a patridge I bought from the Farmers Market earlier.