Alan's Allotment

So my autumn sown onions and garlic are all now a couple of centimetres tall, and my Broad Beans have started to poke through this week which is all good news. Unfortunately, with the mild weather we're having, a lot of weed seeds have germinated too so this week I'm going to have to get the hoe out and give the plot a good going over. All the compost and top soil we carted and spread was full of weed seeds. At least they're coming through now while some of the soil is bare and it's easy to hoe off. I've started pulling my first parsnips this weekend which, whilst being exciting, was also a bit of a disappointment as they were quite small (in comparison to those wehad last year which were as big as your arm!). More like long carrots than parsnips but still great flavour all the same. I'm still thinking about which potato varieties to grow next year. In looking at the catalogues, I think I might go for the £2.99 bags from Thompson and Morgans, rathert than th...

So as my 'To Do' list starts to dwindle as we approach November, I've got to thinking about projects for the winter. As much as I love the general potter around over the winter months, there are a couple of things I'd like to achieve before the hustle and bustle of spring. Project 1 and 2 I've got four currant bushes which are a little close together and really could do with a bit more space. I've got an area earmarked for them, and after a year of not using the old compost bin, I'ts time for it to become my new fruit bed. The old wire bin is going to be cut down to provide support for the path/bank area. The plot is on a slope so the bank is somewhat eroded and I hope the mesh should provide a little more support. I freecycled some roofing tiles to edge the new bed which will make it look quite smart when finshed. Project 3 I've got the bug for topsoil and I think I'm going to try and fill my last raised bed. Well it's not really a raised ...

After much anticipation, I've just sat through the first episode of Mr Fearnley-Whittingstalls new series. In preparation for the event, I prepared and cooked a shoulder of lamb using the recipe in his Meat book for our Sunday Roast which I can wholeheartedly recommend.  Cooking time was spot on - 30 mins at 230oC followed by 18 mins per 500g at 160oC. The shoulder was prepared with 8 garlic cloves and several sprigs of rosemary pushed into the meat. After the first 30 mins, a glass of white wine was poured over the joint, and 10 mins from the end a glass of water added to deglaze the roasting dish. I also threw in a handful of redcurrants for the gravy. I didn't need to add anything else to the gravy - it was delicious! I thoroughly enjoyed the programme and it was great to see one of the recipes I posted from his previous book making its debut on the programme. Although, I do think my version looked slightly more colourful than his if I say so myself....

After pondering a thread in which fellow allotmenters were discussing 'lessons learned this year' I got to thinking... Coriander seems to be one of those herbs you either love or hate - a bit like Marmite. Angela Hartnet has named it 'The Devils Herb' and this view is subscribed to by Tim Lovejoy on Something for the Weekend too. I must agree with them...I hate it too. But I have a very strong contender for second place - What do you think of giving second place to the Jerusalem Artichoke? To be honest, I think the only reason anyone chooses to grow it is because they are given a few tubers from a 'friend' and they stick them in. Does anyone actually buy tubers? Once they're planted, one feels quite proud as they shoot up, give a lovely yellow flower, and all from those couple of gifted tubers. But then what do you actually do with them when you harvest the hundreds that come from that small handful you were given back in the spring? A nice recipe is fou...

Monty Don advocates that any gardener worth their salt shouldn't need to purchase a gym membership. After the number of wheelbarrows I carted to and fro over the past week, I don't think I'll need the gym in a hurry. We had a delivery of manure yesterday at the allotment. As it never lasts more than a week after it's been delivered, I had to work quickly to secure my haul. I dutifully put several beds 'to bed' for the winter all tucked up under a thick blanket of manure and mulched the raspberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries and rhubarb. All in all, I made it about 24 barrowfuls that got put down. I know putting down a manure mulch is a contentious issue...but ours has a lot of wood shavings in and isn't too concentrated so I go with it. It keeps the weeds down over the winter, adds humus and nutrients to the soil and the fact I get a good harvest the following year means it can't be doing that much harm. Now it might have been OK if my b...

It's finally arrived! I'm glad I got so much work done last week and saved the remaining tomatoes. I'm currently watching a big black crow ice skate across a puddle on the top of our silvered garage roofs. Jobs for today will be getting out all the summer bedding, which, to be fair has had a good old stint. Mid October to still have Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Poppy, Poached Egg Plant etc. still in flower ain't bad!

Someone told me this week, the reason vegetables are seasonal is so that you don't get bored of them. By the time they're back in season, you'll have had enough of a break and be ready to enjoy them again. I thought it was quite a nice way to look at things. However, I do think marrows may be an exception to this rule! I've been 'lucky' this year...the dry weather in May and June meant a lot of my squashes didn't make it so I haven't had the usual glut of courgettes and marrows from the plot. I know by this time in the year, some of you are regretting the decision to pop another seed in back in the spring.  For an alternative stuffed marrow try this... Peel and cut marrow into 1" thick rings. Meanwhile fry off a red onion with some diced spicy chorizo sausage. Add a handful of peas, some mixed herbs and some cous cous and mix together to make the stuffing. Fill the marrow rings with the stuffing. Cover with foil and bake for an hour. Check ...

I thought I'd share this recipe. Its dead simple and I found it a refreshing change from some of the more traditional recipies for beetroot. With this hot weather we're forecast, a salad might be called for. Roast the beetroot in the oven with some thyme and garlic and slip it out of its skins. Leave to cool, chop into chunks and serve on a bed of lettuce with feta cheese and redcurrants. If you want a dressing, I chose a sweet honey and balsamic to offset the sharpness of the redcurrants.  If only I had a sheep or a goat, I'd have grown all the ingredients myself.... One day! p.s. I've just made raspberry and white chocolate muffins for afters. With all that goodness in the salad, I can treat myself!

It's been a while since my last post...what with summer holidays and then going back to work, things have been busy. But ... I'm still on top of the allotment... fulfilling my plan to be even better this season! The strawberry bed has been tidied up, and I have trays of runners potted on to pass out to friends. The last of the seasons potatoes have been harvested which will make way for my autumn onions and garlic going in. I've got my raspberries to cut down today, and to weed my winter brassica bed - hopefully for the last time as the weeds start to slow. I live in hope! This year I'm growing 3 varieties of garlic - Early Purple Wight, Provence Wight and Red Sicilian. I grew these last year and got a good harvest so thought I'd repeat the same varieties this year, and hopefully repaeat my sucess. I've tried with numerous varieties in the past - I used to get a pack from The Garlic Farm  on the Isle of Wight, but some varieties just didn't do much in my ...

Taking the advice of my sage and guru Mr Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I decided to try growing my spring onions in guttering this year. At the River Cottage HQ Open Day, we had a demo of the technique and had seen it working well in his polytunnels so thought I’d give it a go! Guttering was obtained from freecycle, cut into 1m lengths and we were ready to go. The plan was successional sowings, every two weeks. Starting in early spring and following through the summer. Quick to grow, quick to harvest was the advice! Well, a phrase commonly used by Jim Royale springs to mind! As you can see, I kept going for 8 weeks and then stopped sowing and I’m still waiting 5 months later for my first pickings And as for my leeks...In heeding the advice of my gardening tips email (remember the one which said to sit back in August?) my pencil thick leeks should be ready to plant out this month! Mine look more like matchsticks! I don’t think they’ll be going out any time soon.

I know Pyracanthia is regarded as a good hedge for deterring intruders but ranking a pretty close second has to be the Gooseberry bush! I've been 'training' mine (no, not to attack) for the past two seasons as I inherited them in quite an overgrown state and continued with the obligatory summer prune yesterday. The patch they're on has a lot of bind weed in it, so that had to come out too, and boy did they put up a fight. I have numerous battle scars, but I won, and have gained two new plants in the process as two of the lower branches have layered themselves. One I'll use to replace the one which just upped and died this year, and the other will become a bartering tool....what do I fancy swapping it for? On the subject of fruit, my strawberry runners are doing well. More bartering fare coming from this bed me thinks! However, there seems to be a bit of a North South divide going on, which surprises me for a 10’ x 5’ bed. I didn’t think it happened on s...

Need I say more?

I’d seen this advertised months ago and it just so happened we were free this weekend so decided, if the weather was fair, we’d go. And after a bit of drizzle Saturday morning (and some umming and aahing as to whether we should risk it) it brightened up into a lovely afternoon and we were glad we made the effort to go. It was a small Fair, compared to a lot that we’d been to, almost not big enough for the number of people who came. Either way, for £4 per adult we couldn’t grumble. We arrived just before 11, and headed, with tea and cake in hand, to a talk by Simon from ‘Rough Old Wife’ Cider on Cider Making. Quite interesting, I would say. I now know the difference between the West Country cloudy ciders, and the clear Kentish ciders. And no, its not just the alcohol content. It’s all to do with starch and the apples they use. Dis you know, the worse an apple tastes, the better it is for cider? We decided to buy some to try. I’ll give you the verdict once I’ve cracked it open. Th...

Today was time for my second earlies to come out to see the world and I wasn’t disappointed. Orla gave the highest yield and Kestrel were the biggest by far. Definitely some good sized jackets to be had. I lifted a third variety as well today, but I’ve lost the label (repeat offence, I know). I’ll have to go back to my receipt, if I still have it, and see what I ordered. They suffered a bit with the irregular watering and quite a few had split. I positively enjoyed the ego boost as I sat having my lunch alongside my three piles, strike that, mountains of potatoes while my neighbours cooed over my harvest. Although, in true allotment tradition, one gentleman took the liberty of telling me how he thought I wouldn’t get much off my six little rows and that actually I hadn’t done too bad! How nice of him to stop by and say! I collected some raspberries and blackberries today too...not too many...because I ate most of them while I was picking...but enough to do something nice for tea...

...as I collected my potato sacks to head up and lift my potatoes, one stray leftover had turned into a Christmas Bauble!

So I was checking my emails today, and my monthly tips email from the garden centre came though with the advice of... "August really is the time to sit back, enjoy your garden and contemplate the hard earned fruits of your labours." "The most important thing this month is to enjoy your garden; heady scents, glorious colours, an abundance of fruits and vegetables and hopefully more sunshine. What could be more enjoyable and satisfying than surveying the results of your hard work throughout the year?"     Yes, that's right, all I do on the allotment in August is sit back and given myself a good old pat on the back! As you can see from the pic below, these piles of weeds picked themselves yesterday while I sang 'Bibidi-Bobbidi-Boo' interspersed with 'A spoonful of sugar'. Oh what a magical time August is on the plot...ha ha! Am I getting old and cynical? Surely not.

Well, I thought I'd head up to the allotment today for a bit of a break. After chewing the cud over last nights events with my neighbour, he headed off to pick a marrow to make his marrow and ginger jam. I tried this a couple of years ago, but made a bit much and got fed up of it. Maybe I'll try again this year if I've got a glut of marrows. I've got a recipe for chilli jam I pulled out the paper to try when I get a spare moment. I, however, had a weeding and planting marathon on my hands. I managed to completely weed one bed and get 40 or so leeks in. I had a few stray tomato plants in the bed which had self seeded from the compost I presume. Now, how is it that these self seeded beasts were bigger than all my tomatoe plants put together? Seriously, they were massive but had to come out I managed to turn the top half of the compost heap today too. I only did the top half as the bottom is ready for spreading but I thought I'd leave that for now. I then ha...

Just couldn't resist posting these on here straight away...The 'Golden Globe' really were golden! Here are my ingredients... I'm making roasted beetroot with rosemary, red onion, garlic and balsamic vinegar. Not bad that the 4 main ingredients have all come from the allotment. I'm having it simply with some good sausages. I get mine from a local farm shop and I'm having Lincolnshire with these.

So here is the first of (hopefully) many posts... So I have a full allotment, progresing from half to a full allotment last year. It took a year to get the new half under control but I now have it all cultivated. I wouldn't say this was my best year on the allotment, a combination of poor weather and time constraints early in the year have led to a few gaps although I am now starting to reap the benefits of what I've sown. I'm back on top of the weeding again - although this new venture into blogging might detract from that - and have (for the first time ever) brought some seedlings on ebay to fill the gaps. They're in the capable hands of Royal Mail and should be with me shortly. I'm as organic as I can be with no pesticides or fertilisers in use for the past 4 years. I did dabble in making comfrey fertiliser last year, but accidently strimmed through the bucket. The scene was something akin to the outtakes you see from cookery programmes when the food proces...