Happy Christmas

I picked the vegetables for our Christmas dinner yesterday... sprouts, cabbage, parsnips, leeks and swede.

Our neighbour Mick kindly offered some baby carrots, so we are set well for a fantastic meal.

We wish everyone a very merry Christmas and are looking forward to a happy New Year !
Bill & Heather

My kind of allotment...

I received the latest issue of the Guildford in Bloom Newsletter today and was delighted to see Compton Allotments getting the recognition we deserve !

Compost

We have constructed a frame using chicken wire and hazel posts to hold the leaf litter that we have been collecting, looking like a couple of old road sweepers.. still, who cares ?

Leaf mould will be put into the trenches when we are planting potatoes, as this is rumoured to a) reduce the risk of blight and b) give you nice clean spuds when they are dug up.

Tidying up

This morning we took some of the compost from the bins at home and spread it on the area which had been 'green manured' with red clover and this then dug-in. We covered the area with a large sheet of black plastic and this will be left on until next April when we will plant potatoes on the warmed-up soil.

Some of the compost had been sieved, and this was used to mulch around the base of the fruit bushes.

We pulled some leeks, celeriac and parsnips and cut some kale and a cabbage to see us through the week.

Earlier this week we sorted through our sacks of stored potatoes to check for signs of rot. A couple of nasty ones were found and discarded and the rest sacked-up again. We plan to check these every four weeks or so to prevent any rot from spreading and ensuring us a good supply of spuds for a good few months to come.

Autumn Review

We have cleared all of the old vegetation away and now just Cabbage (Red and Savoy), Celeriac, Leek, Parsnips and Swede have been left to overwinter.

We have been reviewing our 2008 results as we plan our planting for 2009.

• Beetroot : The Cylindra was excellent and we had a bit of a glut, but we intend to try Moneta in Spring. This is a monogerm seed so we can sow little and often with less thinning-out.

• Borlotti Beans : A lot of effort for little return and will not be tried again.
  

• Broad Bean : We grew Imperial Longpod and had good results, but the plants were very big and took up too much space. Our choice now is Aquadulce and an Autumn sowing has already been made
  

• Cabbage : Both Red (Red Drumhead) & Savoy (Tarvoy) have been very successful and we will be growing both again next year.

• Carrots : These were a disaster as carrot root fly infestation took hold. We will sow Autumn King and protect the beds with mesh to prevent the low flying insects reaching the seedlings.

• Celeriac : Brilliant has been slightly disappointing with smaller than expected roots. We will be trying Prinz next year.

• Fennel : Our crop of Monte Bianco bolted, and we will be sowing Pronto next year... earlier, so that we can harvest early.

• Kale : Tosco di Nero was good and will be grown again next year.

• Leeks : Mussleburgh have not produced good long stems and so we will be sowing Oarsman in February.

• Onions : Growing from sets, Red Baron produced exceptionally good bubs. Stuttgart Giant was also very good, but I prefer a rounder Onion and will be trying something like Setton in 2009.
  

• Parsnip : Cobham Improved have exceeded expectations, but Countess will be sown next year.

• Peas : Onward was sown late and became infested with Pea Moth grubs. We have made an Autumn sowing of Feltham First and will make a sowing later in the year when the danger of infestation has passed.

• Squash (Butternut) : We grew Avalon and had some nice fruits... we have some seed remaining and will grow this again.
  

• Swede : Virtue has been OK and we have sufficient seed to sow again next year.

We have used mainly F1 seed in our first year and have had consistent results, but it is expensive and we can't save the seed for the following season. Our intention is to move away from hybrid seeds and use more traditional, heirloom seeds that have proven results for performance and flavour.
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Back in September I wrote about our patch being awarded a prize in the Guildford in Bloom 2008... see here.

Well we didn't attend the prize giving because we were away on holiday, so we thought, perhaps, that this would be posted to us.

After a decent interval, I contacted Guildford Borough Council and they informed me that the prize was waiting to be collected from the Parks Department Nursery.

Heather went down there yesterday and received this nice certificate and (even nicer) a £20 gardening voucher which was a really pleasant surprise.

Work Party and AGM

There was a work party down at Compton yesterday with an al fresco AGM and barbecue lunch.

Pictures from the party can be seen here.

Heather's entry to the Scarecrow competion missed out on the prizes,  but top prize went to Daniel and Ella's 'Mathilda' which was featured in this blog back in August... see here.

Getting fruitier...

Our apple trees have arrived from Deacons Nursery !

We received two Egremont Russet and one Sturmer Pippin as 1st-year 'whips' on M27 rootstock and they will be grown as either a stepover (single-tier) or a two-tier espalier at the top of our patch.

Getting fruity...

We've been busy down the patch since returning from a short holiday in Spain.

A further row of onion sets have been planted, the gaps in the garlic have been filled with some Purple Wight bought from Homebase and the gaps in the shallots have been filled with some of the bulbs grown in the garden last year.

We  moved the raspberry canes from the garden and these were planted alongside the frame we built.  I am sure that these are Glen Clova, a summer fruiting variety.

Two Invicta gooseberry bushes were also moved from home and these were thinned out to produce two additional plants. However, we decided to plant only three of these green gooseberries and leave a space for the Hinnomaki Red bush that we have ordered.

This leaves us with space for a further four currant bushes and we will now be deciding which ones to plant.

Finally, I hammered in two posts at the top of the patch which will be wired to train the apples we have ordered.

Autumn Planting

Heather has re-planted the Garlic Moraluz and Cristo in the space where the beans were grown last year.  To this has been added Garlic Solent Wight, Shallots (Griselle) and Onions (Senshyu Yellow). 

Heather has sown a row of Broad Beans (Aquadulce) and Peas (Feltham First) where we had planted the garlic a few days ago... where the onions were grown last year.

We still have some more room, so we will plant another row of Onions and another row of Broad Beans in the next few weeks.

The last of the Beetroot has been lifted and we are going to store this in a clump just to see how well they last.

Danger, man at work...

I dug a trench, filled it with compost and incorporated plenty of bonemeal.

Two poles were hammered in yesterday and I will soon be attaching galvanised wire to straining bolts to create a strong support framework for the raspberry canes that we are going to move from the garden.

Keeping the vampires at bay...

Yesterday we planted the first of our garlic.

We bought one bulb of Cristo (as pictured left) from Proper Plants and two bulbs of Moraluz from Simpsons Seeds. Two bulbs of Solent White have yet to arrive from Dobies and I will plant these along with the German Red that we harvested from the garden this year.

...the beet goes on

Heather has been busy in the kitchen, pickling beetroot and red cabbage.

We have cleared out the Bulls Blood beetroot and given most of it away to people on the allotment.  We won't be growing this on the patch next year because it is a bit to 'earthy' tasting and the leaves are not very good eating, even when young.  However, the colouring of the leaves is spectacular and we will probably grow some for foliage in the flower beds at home.

The Cylindra beetroot has proved to be very successful both in yield and taste and we may be growing some more next spring. There is another variety called Solo F1 Hybrid which we will try. It produces a single seedling from each seed cluster, so avoiding the need for thinning-out.

Red Cabbage

We cut this one last week to make my favourite braised red cabbage dish. This particular variety is Red Drumhead and despite the collateral damage to the outer leaves, the head was firm and round.

The recipe for the dish is as follows :

• 1 red cabbage
• 2 desert apples
• 2 medium onions
• 2 ounces lard
  
• 2 tbsps brown sugar
• 3 tbsps wine vinegar (red preferably, but white is fine)
• 1 tsp mustard
• 6 crushed juniper berries
• a good scratching of grated nutmeg
• a good glug of red wine

Shred the cabbage roughly. Peel, core and slice the apples, then slice the onions. Melt the lard in a large pan then add the cabbage, apples and onions. Stir until they are glazed.

Add all the other ingredients, put the lid on the pan and cook slowly for about 2 hours.

We served this with roast chicken and roast vegetables, but it goes really well with game or garlicky sausages.

This dish tastes much better if eaten the next day !

With a little help from our friends...

Today Anne came over with young Daniel and Ella to build a scarecrow that will be entered in a competition at the Compton Allotments.

The new addition to our patch has been named Mathilda and we now anticipate her performing to the highest levels in the competition !

Well done Daniel and Ella !

A bad case of bolting fennel

Back down to the patch today after a short break in the New Forest.

We cleared away all the carrots and managed to salvage a few that had not been infested with carrot root fly larvae. Our first year is being treated as a learning experience, and we have certainly learnt the hard way ! Next year we will protect the rows of carrot seedlings with mesh and will also grow something 'smelly' alongside to deter the little critters.

Most of the fennel has bolted. This is not that surprising considering the fluctuating temperatures we have been experiencing this summer, but we should have taken evasive action by picking the crop earlier... ah well, it's a learning experience !

I have started to dig in the red clover that we sowed as a green manure and this patch will be used in spring for planting our potatoes. Of which, we will pick the remaining Cara potatoes next week and use the patch for our autumn sown onions, shallots and garlic.

So what's left ? The cabbages (both red and savoy) are doing nicely, the black kale is 'leggy' but will be OK for the table. Parsnips, leeks and celeriac are looking good and should be ready for picking over the winter months. The swede hasn't fared so well (the roots look to have split) but they were only sown to break down the soil, so no big deal. There is still a lot of beetroot to harvest and the squashes have begun to fruit.

I have mixed feelings about the dahlias : We need to have some for cut flowers next year, but maybe some different, bolder colours. The small purple/red ones are too small for cutting, so will go into a bed in the garden next year. I will also have to be a bit more courageous when I am de-budding next year... so we can have nice blooms on long stems.

Overall though, it has been a good summer.

Our Prize Winning Spuds !

It was the Farncombe Village Show today and Heather decided it would be fun to enter some of our produce.

Heather baked some scones and arranged a vase of flowers picked from both allotment and garden. Heather also entered two courgettes from the garden, dahlias from the allotment and entered five of our Sante potatoes under my name.

To my surprise and delight, the spuds won first prize in the White Potato class

To cap it all, Heather won second prize for her scones, first prize for her flowers and the rosette for best flowers in the show !

Sante !

We lifted two rows of Sante potatoes during the week and found a few with soft rot and a few more with the early signs. Heather sorted out those which were good for storing, those which we could use within a week or so, and those that are fit for the dump.

I was pleased with the yield and the taste of Sante, but they are an early maincrop and seem to be ready a bit too early for my plans... so they may not be planted next year.

Our prizewinning patch

There was a letter from Guildford Borough Council in the frame this morning and I opened it thinking that it may have been a parking ticket or something.

To my surprise I read that our allotment has won a prize in the Guildford in Bloom 2008 Competition !

I don't know what the prize is, but whatever it is it will be nice to get a bit of recognition for the efforts we have put in.

Read all about it !

Beth Otway has entered Compton Allotments into the Best Allotments in Britain competition run by the Daily Telegraph

Peas and thank you's

The remains of the peas have now all been taken down and the juicier tops fed to a pair of grateful pigs.

The roots and some small nettles were dug back in and the soil given a dressing of blood, fish and bone.

In the empty space we have put up a wigwam of hazel poles and sown some late climbing French Beans... hopefully this will give us some crops before October when this part of the patch will be used for Autumn sown Onions, Shallots and Garlic.

The foliage on the Sante potatoes has withered and shrivelled back to almost nothing. I lifted one plant to see if there was any problems with the spuds. There wasn't, we have some very big bakers and I will leave the remainder in the ground until needed.

And on the seventh day...

This is Cynthia and Babe having a peaceful snooze in the mud after snacking on the tops from the broad beans we had cleared from the patch this morning.

There are a few peas left and these will be cleared away in a few days and the rows will then be ready for some catch-crops before we plant Autumn Onions in October.

The early maincrop potatoes, Sante, are looking a bit sad with the foliage shrivelled and yellowing, but we have plenty of spuds this time of the year and I want to keep these until later... so will just have to leave them and trust to good luck and learn from the experience.

Beetroot : Bull's Blood v Cylindra

We have lifted a few more spuds for the weekend and thinned out some more carrots and beetroot.

We will have the carrots raw with a bowl of garlicky aiioli dip.

Some of the beetroot will be cooked Indian style in a thoran and the rest will be pickled.

The globe shaped Bull's Blood has a more pinker flesh than the long roots of Cylindra and seems to be a bit more tastier when freshly boiled. However, the Cylindra is more sweeter and the dark red flesh looks nicer when pickled.

Potato and Courgette Rosti

Heather cooked this rosti using potatoes, courgettes and onion from the patch and it was served with a couple of fried eggs on top for our supper.

The onions were softened beforehand, but they should have actually been fried golden to add a bit more bite to the dish.

The potatoes and courgettes were grated, squeezed to remove the moisture and then added to the onions with salt and pepper to season. The mixture was spooned into a frying pan and cooked until the bottom layer was browned. The recipe states that the pan should then be placed under a grill to brown the top layer, but this can be achieved by turning it over onto a plate and then replacing top-side down in the pan.

Nice flowers... shame about the carrots !

We have found some of our carrots have been attacked by the dreaded Psila rosae or Carrot Fly. We know what to do next year, so will just have to profit from the experience and hope that the little buggers save some of the crop for us !

Mark from the neighbouring patch has been taking some pictures of our plot using a very technical looking digital camera and his partner, Beth then e-mailed them to me. The pictures were all of a very high quality, but I think this one showing our Dahlia : Gallery Art Nouveau is especially nice.

This is our first real attempt at growing Dahlias and whilst we are delighted with the beauty of the flowers, we were a bit disappointed that they had not grown very high. We have also grown two other varieties, Canary Fubuki and Ferncliff Illusion. These have budded, but not yet flowered and we are hoping for some larger blooms.

Back to Work

We've only been away on holiday for a few days, but the growth has been tremendous !

From left to right in the picture are : Leeks, Celeriac, Carrots, Beetroot, Fennel, Parsnip (with Radish intercrop) and Potatoes.

We have lifted some of the Beetroot and now have three jars of pickled beetroot. One each of the Charlotte and Orla Potatoes have been lifted and I was surprised at the size of the spuds in so little time. The smaller Charlottes have been cooked boiled with butter and the larger Orlas have been baked. The flavours are OK, but not exceptional.

Slim Pickings

Everything is coming along nicely down at the patch, with only some windblown Potato haulms and 'pigeon pecked' Kale plants as a blot on our landscape. All information that I have checked seems to indicate that the Potatoes will not be a problem and the Kale plants were just leftovers we stuck in the area sown with Red Clover.

We have lifted some of the Orla and Cara spuds out of curiosity. Boiled with butter, they were very tasty... although not as good as the Charlottes we have lifted from our garden.

We have also had some of the last large Beetroot thinnings and these were really good. Heather wants to lift the complete half-row for pickling, but I feel we should wait another week. So we will !

Pigeon Attack !

Our Red Cabbage had been growing up nicely until yesterday. Pigeons had attacked the young plants and taken out about a third of them. Dave had some spare plants (some 'pointy' ones and some 'round' ones) and we planted these alongside the ravaged 'Red Drumhead'. Heather dashed down to Homebase and came back with some netting and we rigged up some protection using hazel poles. The Savoys had not been so seriously attacked, so as an interim measure the plants were covered with the tops of 2 litre water bottles and we will assemble a netting cover next week.

The last bit of the plot was dug over and raked to a fine tilth. We planted two rows of Celeriac 'Brilliant' and two rows of Leek 'Musselburgh'. Some remaining Celeriac was planted at the end of the patch sown with Red Clover.

We have utilised the little patch in front of the peas and beans by constructing a hazel wigwam and have planted a couple of Butternut Squash 'Avalon F1 Hybrid' which we hope to train up and over the structure.

For good measure, we planted another couple of the Squash in the 'clover patch'. Finally, some Sweet Peas were planted in amongst the Borlotti Beans and up the wigwam to grow in amongst the Squash.

That's it !

All of the Summer season sowings and plantings have been done, so we only need to pick and maintain until October when the Shallots and Garlic gets planted.

The Plot Thickens !

We were offered, and have accepted, an additional 3 metres on the end of our existing plot. This has been rotovated, but we have no intentions of digging it over this season.

A row of Swede 'Virtue' has been sown, which will help suppress weeds and the crop can stand in the ground throughout the Winter.

Our Dahlias have been planted out in the 'extension' to provide us with cut flowers from late-Summer onwards. Alongside these we have sown a row of Sunflowers and a row of Helichrysum.

The remaining land was raked over and Red Clover seeds sown to provide a green manure which will be dug-in in Autumn prior to our preparing the fruit bush beds.

Some Savoy Cabbage 'Winter King' plants had been left out for anyone who wanted them and we decided to plant a row of these at the end of the plot where the Red Clover had been sown.

Red Cabbage

Some more of the plot has been dug over, couch grass removed and lime applied in readiness for planting. The soil has been firmed down, but may still prove a bit too 'loose' for the brassicase we intend to plant, but we will see what happens !

Two rows of 'Red Drumhead' have been planted and each plant has had a collar applied to, hopefully, prevent Cabbage Root Fly infestation. The collars were cut from plastic dpc into 4" squares and two collars were applied to each plant to ensure that no gaps were left for the little critters to crawl down.

The Patch at Compton

Welcome to The Patch !

This blog chronicles the establishment and development of our allotment plot at Compton, Surrey.

Heather & I took possession of the plot in April this year and have been gradually digging it over to remove couch grass and other nasties.

We have already managed to plant a good selection of vegetables and I will be posting updates to provide some detail of how they have fared.

The first to be planted was two rows of Onion sets : 'Stuttgart Giant' and 'Red Baron' and these have taken very nicely.

We then sowed a row of Peas, using some of the old seeds from previous years... half a row of 'Onward' and half a row of 'Early Onward'. These have not been sowed in succession as we intend to freeze them as soon as they are ready.

Next was half a double row of Broad Beans and we have tried the 'Masterpiece Imperial Longpod' variety this year. Beetroot 'Cylindra' was sown at the other end of this double row.

Spuds next ! There was a minor disaster with the seeds as they were blown over whilst chitting and became all mixed-up. I sorted them back into some semblance of order based upon their visual appearance, but it should prove an interesting crop ! There are two rows of the maincrop 'Sante', not quite two full rows of 'Cara' and almost a full row of the salad Potato 'Charlotte'. Ten tubers of the first-early 'Orla' have been planted at the end of the two short rows.

We debated whether or not it was too late to sow Parsnip, but I read somewhere that it should not be a problem sowing in May because it provides a better chance of germination... although the roots may not be exhibition size. Two rows of 'Cobham Improved Marrow' have been sown and we will make another decision should no germination occur.

Another half row of Beetroot was planned and we sowed half a row of the 'Bulls Blood' variety. However, we have only just realised that this is actually Leaf Beet and so an additional half row of 'Cylindra' was added.

By now our couch grass root removal technique had become refined and I was actually sieving the soil back into the dug beds. This light soil seems perfect for Carrots and we used up most of our old seed stock in three half rows : 'Autumn King', 'Maestro' and 'Royal Chantenay 2'. We then sowed half a row of the Fennel 'Monte Bianco'.

There was a significant gap between the Potatoes and the Broad Beans, so we decided to fill this space with the Borlotti Beans 'Lingua di Fuoca' plants that Heather had been raising. A frame was constructed using hazel poles and twine and the seedlings were planted out. Some of the seedlings looked a bit wilted in the hot sun and did not really recover after being watered in... so some more healthy plants were added alonside the wilted ones and these will be thinned out when we see which ones survive.

I now have to prepare the final beds for the brassicas. Our little plot will then be full.