Easy like Sunday morning...

It was a lovely Autumn morning down at the patch.

Having constructed a compost bin out of three pallets during the week, I transferred a large pile of compostable material into it and generally tidied-up the surrounding area.

We removed all of the weeds from the mounds where the squash and sweetcorn were grown and gave it a good raking over. The weeds were fed to the pigs who enjoyed them immensely. In this area we will be laying down some flattened cardboard cartons covered with soil to keep the weeds down and will plant our potatoes there next Spring.

Inter Alium

We planted three rows of garlic and two rows of onions yesterday.

The pack of 50 Radar onion sets was produced by Taylors and bought at Secretts Garden Centre for £1.49

These sets produce "excellent yields of mild tasting summer onions from late May. Particularly resistant to bolting. Superb when eaten fresh. Stores well into the autumn."

The Solent Wight garlic bulbs were purchased from Edwin Tucker.

This variety is a "superb softneck garlic, producing large, top quality bulbs. If the cloves are planted early, mature bulbs will be ready to lift and use from July. This variety produces cloves that have an exceptional bouquet, full of depth and strength. Kept cool and dry, the bulbs will store for months."

We planted the onions and garlic in beds that we had prepared by digging-in compost and giving a dressing of bone meal. It will be necessary to keep an eye on them and replant any that the birds have pulled out of the ground.

Squash

We harvested our squash this morning, including an excellent crop of large trailing butternut squashes Avalon F1 and small round squashes Festival F1.

There was one small Jumbo Pink Banana squash to add to the very large one we picked in the Summer. Added to these were four large round squashes : The two 'turks turban' type are probably Marina di Chioggia and the other two are likely to be Musquee de Provence.

Most of the squashes are being stored in the shed with the remainder placed on top of the kitchen cupboards at home.

Guildford in Bloom 2009

We were very surprised when we were awarded Silver in the Best Allotment category, Guildford in Bloom 2008. This year we were a bit more confident of receiving an award and were delighted to be promoted to Silver-Gilt.

Our friends at Compton featured in the prizes : Mick & Sue and Beth & Mark gained Gold whilst Sue & David, Heather and Nicola were awarded Silver.

The incentive now is to go for gold in 2010 !

Mr.Mole

This pesky varmint (or one of his close relations) is currently creating a little bit of upheaval in our vegetable plots.

On the positive side, the soil is being broken up into a really fine tilth !

Compost Corner

We shifted eight large bags of compost this afternoon !

The compost was cleared from the bin in our garden and taken down to the patch where some of it was spread and dug into the areas we have cleared for our Autumn sown broad beans, peas and shallots. The remainder was dug into the area we have allocated for sowing onion seeds in the Spring and then covered with black plastic sheeting to keep the weeds down.

The last of the celery has been cleared away and left for the pigs to feed on. We have decided against growing this again next year as the returns are not commensurate with the amount of effort needed to produce a crop.

By contrast, our celeriac crop is looking really good and we will be harvesting this before the first frosts and then storing them for use over the Winter months.

Also looking good are the late-sown broad beans. The courgettes are still producing and the late-sown carrots appear to have avoided the dreaded carrot root fly. Cabbage, kale, leeks, winter radish and parsnips will remain in the ground to be harvested through until early Spring.

As Summer drifts slowly towards Autumn...

The crops on our patch at Compton are coming along quite nicely.

We have already picked Sweetcorn from the Three Sisters plot, the Cherokee Vale of Tears beans have full pods and our Squashes are getting bigger each day.

Butternut squash is the most prolific :

Winter squash Festival F1 is also looking good :

The pumpkin Marina di Chioggia is less prolific, but still producing some large fruits.

Away from the Three Sisters, our borlotti beans are living up to their name Lingua di Fuoco (Tongues of Fire) . We pick them when the pods 'rattle' and dry them for use over the Winter months.

Our experiment with broad beans sown in late-July has proved very successful. We have had no problems with black fly or other pests and are now enjoying tender young beans before the plants are killed by the first frosts of the year.

Lifting potatoes

We spent a late afternoon down at the patch in the September sun.

We checked some of the potatoes we lifted last month and found that quite a few had already gone bad. These were mainly the International Kidney that we left too long and had grown rather too large... the Desiree all looked fine.

I am now lifting the Cara so that I have space for our Autumn sown broad beans and peas.

The Cabbage Patch

We had a bit of tidy-up at the patch this afternoon.

The Choy Sum seedlings are growing on nicely and I sowed some more seeds to complete a full row of this Chinese flowering broccoli. The Spring Cabbage seedlings are also growing strongly in amongst the red clover and these will now need to be thinned out to 9" between plants. They will be thinned out again in March as 'Spring Greens', leaving the remainder to heart up.

The cabbages in the brassica cage have been attacked by the Large White butterfly caterpillars. Heather has been inside to pick most of them off, but we really need to devote another afternoon to tidying-up inside.

The same caterpillars have also attacked the foliage on the Swedes, but this has not affected the roots which are growing to monster proportions !

Most of the potatoes have now been lifted and the ground prepared for our aliums : We have already sown two rows of Onion Senshyu Yellow seed and the seedlings will be thinned out in Spring.

We are clearing out the last of the carrots from the area that was supposed to be protected from carrot root fly. We have some more carrots growing under fleece and another row of Flyaway which have been sown late in the hope that it will avoide the ravages of this little pest !

Jumbo Pink Banana

We were given the seeds for this monster squash by Beth and Mark and we planted the seedlings with other squash varieties in our 'Three Sisters' plot.

This one has arrived a bit earlier than expected as the anticipated harvest date was September.

It's Showtime !

This was the second year running that we have entered our produce in the Farncombe Village Show.

Last year our Cara potatoes won first prize. This year only half a row has been lifted, so there was only a limited amount of spuds to choose from and we were pleased to win Second Prize. We also entered five of the Desiree potatoes, but they didn't win any prizes.

We entered both Red Baron and Setton varieties in the Onions Over 250g Class. As you can see, the Setton's won Second Prize. It was a shame that the Red Baron bulbs weighed in at just over 250g, because they could have won a prize in the lower weight class.

The Galina tomatoes from our garden won Third Prize in the Cherry Tomato Class :

In addition, Heather gained a Second Prize for her scones and a Most Commended for her themed flower arrangement 'Bouquet of Barbed Wire'.

Heather also entered flowers arranged in an enamel watering can. They looked really good, but were dismissed by the judges for not being arranged in a vase !

Psila rosae

That's Carrot Root Fly to you and me pal !

We thought we had taken all possible steps to prevent this little bugger from infecting our crops. Alas, we failed !!

All of the carrots grown behind the enviromesh screen have been infected and we are now dissecting our carrots to find sufficient for the pot.

However, we will not be beaten.

A row of Flyaway F1 has been sown today (yes, I know it maybe too late) and we are hoping that an Indian Summer will provide sufficient warmth to give us a carrot crop in the Autumn.

We are holding our breath.

Our desirable ones...

We had planned to lift the Desiree potatoes in September, but we need space to sow two rows of onions later this month.

So the Desiree were lifted, our compost heap moved and a bed prepared for Senshyu Yellow onion seed to be sown and left to overwinter.

The crop of potatoes was very good. Again we had one or two with rot, quite a few with scab and some that I put my spade through, but we have two bags of good 'uns for storing and another bag to use up as soon as possible.

One potato, two potato

This weekend we cleared one complete row of International Kidney spuds. Some had scab, one or two had rot and a few were speared when digging them up... but the remainder were excellent and the yields were fantastic.

Because they were left in late, the tubers had grown beyond what we expect as typical small 'Jersey Royal' salad potatoes. They looked more like a maincrop. I have placed the potatoes in layers of newspaper to dry them out a bit and will then store them in paper sacks.

The larger spuds are quite floury and, although not usually recommended, should be good roasted or baked. The small ones will be steamed and used in warm salads.

We will next be harvesting the one remaining row of International Kidney and the last row of Anya, which have also performed exceptionally well, producing good quantities of the small, knobbly tubers.

This will leave our maincrops (Desiree and Cara) to harvest in September.

The Caulies flower !

Here's a nice pair missus !

As you can see, the cauliflowers have gone berserk after this week of sun 'n rain... so it looks like we'll be having cauliflower cheese all this week !!!

This is the first time we have ever grown caulies and chose the variety F1 Candid Charm which we grew as seedlings in a nursery bed and transplanted in May.

We now need to figure out how to grow in succession to avoid another glut next year.

Asparagus Beetle

We were down at the patch this afternoon and I was pleased to see the asparagus putting out more spears.

I was less than pleased to see that we had an infestation of Crioceris asparagi... or Asparagus Beetle to you and me !

We will now be taking all necessary steps to control these little critters.

Watch this space !

This is what it's all about...

We're just back from the patch before the rain resumes.

Guy is here for dinner tonight and there are friends and family coming to lunch tomorrow and on Monday, so we have been busy pickin' pullin' and liftin'.

On show is our harvest of celery, carrots, a lovely cauliflower, fennel, courgettes, onions, raspberries, potatoes, calabrese and bunching onions.

July Review

It's July and the patch is really showing some growth.

Here's a brief summary of the crops we are growing and how they are performing :

• Potatoes : We are growing Cara, Desiree, International Kidney and Anya. We are currently lifting some of the International Kidney and Anya for the table and the plants have produced good yields of tasty potatoes. A few Desiree were lifted and shown to have good yields, but a few of the tubers were found to have 'hollow heart' and we will have to watch the crop carefully. The Cara have produced good top foliage and I expect them to produce some very good yields when lifted in late Summer.

• Three Sisters : This bed is coming along nicely with the beans growing up the corn and the squash starting to cover the bare earth.

• Brassicas : The cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower, kale, savoy and purple sprouting broccoli plants are growing strongly in the pigeon and butterfly proof cage. The calabrese produced good quality heads a lot earlier than expected. These have been harvested and frozen and the plants are now producing a secondary growth. We have had to bring on some more calabrese plants and these are now ready to be transplanted into the bed inside the cage.

• Leeks : The seedlings of the two varieties were transplanted to their final positions and are looking strong and healthy.

• Peas and Broad Beans : The October sown plants were removed and this area will be used to grow Spring cabbage and Choi Sum. We have sown another row this month that we hope will take us through to the first frosts.

• Celery : We have some strong healthy looking plants, although the sticks are rather thin.

• Onions, Shallots and Garlic : All bulbs from Autumn planted sets have been harvested and the area used to sow late peas and broad beans. The bulbs from Spring sown sets and seeds are developing nicely, although the changeable weather is likely to induce bolting.

• Asparagus : All ten crowns have produced a number of healthy spears which are now showing ferns which we will leave until the foliage browns and starts to die back.

• Fennel : We are currently harvesting bulbs from the spring sown crops and have also made another sowing of a late developing variety.

• Carrots : Both varieties (Autumn King & Purple Haze) are showing signs of attack from Carrot Root Fly despite all of the preventative measures we have taken. We will now lift all of them and see what we can salvage for freezing. Another row of Autumn King has been sown and we will try to protect this crop as best we can.

• Parsnip, Celeriac & Swede: We have strong plants that should produce some good yields.

• Beetroot : We have already lifted (and pickled) two successive rows and have seedlings growing in a third sown row.

In addition to these main crops, we have catch-crops like radish, spring onion, spinach and also some plantings in odd corners... lettuce, borlotti beans, outdoor cucumber, and tomatoes.

Ahh, but the strawberries...

... that's where I had them.

We too, have had a bit of trouble with the strawberries this year.

Whilst all of our neighbours have been harvesting bucket loads, our plants produced a miserable yield.

So, I decided to bring in reinforcements. A dozen plants were ordered from Ken Muir and these arrived today. We drove straight down to the patch to pull up 12 of the existing plants and replace these with the new ones.

The new plants are Flamenco, a 'perpetual' variety which should crop from mid-August to mid-October... so we may even get some fruit this year.

... keep the vampires from your door !

Here's news of this years crop of garlic.

We grew some Cristo and Moraluz varieties, but the bulbs were small and they are being used up first because they do not keep so well.

We make garlic puree by zapping the cloves to a pulp, placing this in a jar and then covering the pulp with olive oil to exclude the air.



A small teaspoonful of the puree is added to any recipe where garlic is an ingredient. In addition, the remaining oil makes a fantastic salad dressing when mixed with lemon juice or white wine vinegar.

The varieties shown below are Solent Wight (right side) and Early Purple Wight (left side).

Solent Wight is a softneck variety which should last us through to next year. Purple Wight is a semi-hardneck variety which does not last as long and we will start on this once the Cristo and Moraluz have been used up.

I have already ordered my bulbs for planting in October and will only be growing Solent Wight this time because they have proved the most reliable and gave the best yields.

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In a bit of a pickle !

Heather has pickled the beetroot that was pulled on Sunday in a spiced vinegar.

Cinnamon bark, cloves, mustard seed, black peppercorns, chili flakes and ginger were put into a muslin bag and the bag placed in a pan of distilled white vinegar.

The vinegar was brought to the boil and then left to cool for 3 hours allowing the bag of spices to steep in it.

When cool, the spiced vinegar was poured over the sliced beetroot which had been placed into clean jars.

Give it a few weeks to mature, and the beetroot should be ready for eating.

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Another lazy Sunday morning

We have had another long morning down at the patch.

The remaining peas were picked, the plants cut down, cut up and put on the compost heap. The bed was weeded and given a good helping of poultry manure before we sow more brassicas (Spring cabbage, choi sum and purple sprouting broccoli) in August.

The beetroot was lifted, the row weeded and given a dressing of Growmore before Heather sowed a row of carrots (Autumn King).

We had previously sown another row of beetroot and these are just starting to show.

The netting was removed from our strawberries, because a) they had stopped fruiting and b) the net was needed for the raspberries. The strawberries have been very disappointing this season with lots of foliage but very little fruit. I am planning to replace 12 of them with new plants of known quality early in the new year.

Some of the potato hulms were showing signs of wilt and browning, so I lifted the tubers to check on the possible problems. The International Kidney have failed to flower, but there was a nice crop of tubers under the two plants I lifted. The Anya flowered profusely but did not produce much top foliage... once again there was no problems with tubers that I lifted. I then lifted one of the Desiree plants that was looking particularly poorly and found that two of the tubers had rot. This could be the start of blight, so I will have to keep a close eye on the situation and lift them early if the problem continues.

Easy like Sunday morning

We got down to the patch around 8:00 am this morning to get some work in before the heat of the day.

Heather staked the Galina tomatoes, then gave them a good feed and water. She then picked all of the remaining broad beans before cutting back all of the plants to ground level, leaving the roots to put some nitrogen back into the soil.


I pulled out all of the remaining garlic, Solent Wight. This was badly affected by rust (see below), but fortunately the rust doesn't affect the bulbs and we had an excellent harvest.... unfortunately the rust is likely to affect the onions and leeks we are growing nearby.

Next to get pulled were our shallots, Griselle. In quantity, the harvest was very good, but many of the bulbs were too small for the kitchen.

Having removed all the weeds from the area where the shallots and garlic had been growing, I applied a dressing of poultry manure and scattered some handfuls of growmore. This feed was hoed-in, two shallow trenches were created and given a good watering. In these trenches Heather first sowed broad beans (Aquadulce) and then peas (Kelvedon Wonder) which should provide us with crops up until the first frosts.

We had three Chrysanthemum plants which were planted between the fruit bushes to give us cut flowers later in the Summer. The varieties are Misty Cream, Allouise Orange and Regal Mist Red.

The fennel has been coming along nicely, but we are worried that it will bolt. So we lifted a couple of bulbs to see how it had been developing. They were a bit on the small size, but will taste fantastic when cooked with chicken for dinner tonight. On the advice of Gardeners' World, Heather sowed another row of fennel (Romanesco) which should produce good bulbs later in the Summer with a much lower risk of bolting.

To round off a very long morning we prepared another small row alongside the potatoes and Heather then sowed one more row of beetroot (Moneta)... and we should get another row sown before the end of the Summer.

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Kingdom of Rust

My Autumn planted garlic has been badly infected by garlic rust and some of the hardnecks have bolted... with even the individual cloves in each bulb starting to sprout.

The two varieties affected are Moraluz and Cristo. The Solent Wight crop has some rust, but has not bolted to the same extent.

I have lifted the Moraluz and Cristo crop and am very disappointed in the yield. Still, never mind, these bulbs should keep us going over the Summer.

Fixing the leeks !

It was a pleasant morning down at the patch and the threatened showers failed to materialise.

I lifted the Senshyu Yellow onions that were sown as sets last Autumn and hung them in the shed to dry off. This was done because leaving them in the ground meant that there was a risk of bolting... and bolted onions have a tendency to rot.

The sets purchased from Dobies produced a fine crop of large bulbs, but those purchased from Homebase produced much smaller bulbs and far lower yields. Next time round I will try to grow most of my onions from seed sown in August and September. These will be backed-up with a January planting of ABS101 sets from Thompson & Morgan. Apparently, these will mature quicker than any sets sown in Autumn.

In the space left vacant by the onions we transplanted the leeks grown from seed in trays at home and those grown in our nursery bed. As mentioned before, we sowed two varieties of leeks : Blue Solaise and Oarsman. Both varieties were grown indoors in trays from a January sowing and both varieties were also sown outdoors in a seed bed at the allotment in March... the plan being to see which method proved the most efficient. Unfortunately, the writing on the labels in the seed trays and at the allotment washed off. We now had four sets of plants but are unable to identify the leeks according to their variety !

So here's what we did :

I lifted one set of plants from the nursery bed where the largest had the slightest hint of blue in it's foliage (Blue Solaise, obviously !) and these were transplanted into a prepared bed with a gap of 12" between each one. We were five plants short of a complete row, so I took five from the ones that had been grown in trays.

Next, I lifted the remaining set of plants (Oarsman ?) and transplanted these into a row 12" apart from the ones planted previously. We then found that we had sufficient to plant another row alongside.

So we now have 3 rows of leeks : Two complete rows which will either be Blue Solaise or Oarsman and one row which will be whatever is not in the other two rows... apart from 5 plants which could be either !!!

In addition, there were some plants left-over which we are growing on in the tray as mini-leeks.

On a more thoughtful note, the plants grown from seeds sown outdoors in the nursery bed proved to be stronger and more vigorous than those started indoors in trays.

Lettuce with a gladsome mind

Heather's lettuces glistening after the morning rain :

We were dodging the showers down at the patch this morning.

Heather picked a good supply of broad beans and peas, then thinned the carrots... so we will be having some fresh picked veggies with grilled pork chops for dinner tonight.

I planted Cherokee Trail of Tears beans next to the sweetcorn in the Three Sisters bed. I have given them some sticks as additional support until the corn is high enough for the beans to climb up. The squashes will then snake around them to provide a cover that should reduce the amount of weeds.

The strawberries are producing some nice fruit, but the yields are not very good. Many of the plants have been taken from runners over a couple years, so I intend to plant some new stock in the Autumn.

We had been removing the flowers from the currants and gooseberries, but must have missed some of the gooseberry flowers. They fruited and, because they were not netted, pigeons caused damage to the lower branches and these will now have to be trimmed off.

The blueberry bush has some fruit which we hope to be able to pick and the raspberries are producing some new canes which should yield some good fruit next year.

The year-old Sturmer Pippin whip has produced some apples and we have thinned these out to leave just a couple to develop. The Egremont Russet whips were badly damaged by caterpillars earlier in the year, but now seem to have recovered and we are now thinking about training the three whips into a cordon.

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Golden Onion Rings

I used just over 3lbs of our new crop Senshui onions to make a sweet pickle.

Working to American measures, I made a pickling syrup using :

• 4 cups of cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

These ingredients were put in a stainless steel saucepan, brought to the boil and then simmered for two minutes.

The onions were sliced into 1/4" slices and placed into sterilised jars with a few whole cloves, mustard seeds and black peppercorns.

The hot syrup was poured over the onion rings, a skewer used to ensure that all trapped air was released and the jars sealed. They will keep for a year if stored in a cool, dark cupboard.

When the onion rings have been eaten, the syrup can be used for glazing hams.

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Sunday best

We spent a full day down at The Patch... and a very hot day it was too !

A full row of beetroot was lifted and the celeriac plants put in to grow on until Autumn.

The net covering the brassicas was lifted so that the weeds could be hoed, a few feeble looking plants were replaced with some of the seedlings remaining in the nursery bed, a good watering, a sprinkling of slug pellets and the net replaced for a few more weeks.

The onions and shallots that are being grown from seed were thinned for the first time and the thinning were used to fill some gaps where the seed had not germinated.

The spinach stalks were pulled up and the row was planted with tomatoes. This year we are growing Brown Berry, Galina and Rutgers. This last variety being developed at Rutgers University in USA for Campbells, who were looking for a robust, full flavoured tomato that could be grown for use in their soup production.


Squash plants were planted in the Three Sisters bed. We only managed to plant 14 of the 16 available spaces because of the slow germination of the seeds. However, we have sown some more seed in pots and these will be ready to plant out in a few weeks time.

We then picked some more of our peas and broad beans before heading home.

Peas in our time !

Down on the patch early this morning to see how tall the weeds had grown in our absence and was pleased to find very little unwanted vegetation.

The peas and broad bean pods are starting to fill and we picked a few to go with tonight's lamb chops.

There should be plenty more peas and beans to pick up until late July when we will clear the ground for a sowing of spring cabbage. More peas and broads will then be sown in the ground where the onions, garlic and shallots have been cleared.

Our first strawberry has been picked and will be eaten with great ceremony as desert !

May Review

We were down at the patch early this morning just to see what had grown since Friday !

In between the showers Heather sowed some more lettuce and I took the opportunity to earth up the potatoes as the soil was damp and easy to manage.

May is a month full of anticipation and promise, so here is a review of what is happening :

• Potatoes : Cara, Desiree, International Kidney and Anya are producing plenty of top growth and have been earthed-up. There are one or two gaps where the seed has failed, but so far looking good.

• Three Sisters : The sweetcorn plants are not looking very happy... maybe planted out too early ? We will sow some more seeds and use these if the plants do not show any great improvement.

• Brassicas : Cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower, calabrese, kale, savoy and purple sprouting broccoli plants have all taken after being transplanted. There has been some evidence of slug damage and we have taken the necessary steps to address this !

• Leeks : Seedlings of the two varieties are coming along well and these will be transplanted to their final positions when they reach the thickness of a pencil.

• Peas and Broad Beans : These are now producing pods from October sown plants and will be ready to pick by next weekend... we can then utilise the crops from the Spring sown plants.

• Celery : Healthy looking plants are putting on strong growth inside their protective tubes.
  

• Onions (Autumn planted) : Senshyu Yellow sets have developed into nice bulbs which should be ready to harvest next month. Those bought from Dobies have performed better in terms of germination and growth than those bought from Homebase.

• Shallots : Griselle sets from Dobies have developed really well, but even those grown from our own kitchen stock have produced good, albeit smaller, clumps.

• Garlic : All 4 types are developing nicely, with Solent Wight from Dobies outperforming the others.

• Fruit : I will write a review all how our fruit stock is performing later in the month.

• Asparagus : All ten crowns have produced spears which we will leave until the foliage dies back.

• Fennel : Only about a 70% germination rate on the seeds sown in April, but these were sown in a spare strip near the path so we will take whatever comes up !

• Carrots : Both varieties (Autumn King & Purple Haze) have germinated well and are putting on growth inside the protective mesh.

• Onions & Shallots (Spring sown) There are some gaps in the rows, but we have enough seedlings which we will transplant to fill those gaps.
  

• Parsnip : Some erratic germination, but transplanting has given us a full row of well-spaced seedlings that should develop into strong plants that will not require any thinning.

• Swede : A late sowing has produced a good row of small seedlings,.
  

• Celeriac : The plants have taken well and we have some more at home which we will transplant when the first row of beetroot has been cropped.

• Beetroot : The first early sowing has produced strong healthy plants. The monogerm seed means that we do not need to thin them out. Another row has been sown and the first seedlings are now poking through.

In addition to these main crops, we have catch-crops (radish, spring onion, spinach) and also some plantings in odd corners... lettuce, borlotti beans, outdoor cucumber, and tomatoes.

Espinacas con garbanzos

Spinach with chickpeas

We cooked this dish for dinner tonight with the first of the spinach from our patch.

The recipe is very simple, but the result is a very tasty dish that can be part of a mixed tapas or as a side dish for any meal.

• 20ml/1fl oz extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• 500g/1lb young spinach leaves, washed well in several changes of cold water
• 10oz cooked chickpeas
• 3 tsp sherry vinegar
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• A good pinch of sea salt
• 100ml/2fl oz extra-virgin olive oil to finish

Place the oil in a medium pan over a low heat, add the garlic and sauté for a minute or two, being careful not to let the garlic burn, as the bitter taste will permeate the whole of the dish.

Now add the spinach in several batches; as each batch wilts, add another. It should wilt down to about a third of its original volume.

Increase the heat slightly and add the chickpeas. Cook for five minutes, then add the sherry vinegar, paprika, cumin and a good pinch of salt.

Reduce the heat to low and add the 100ml of olive oil. Stir well and cook for another 5-10 minutes. Give it one last stir and serve.

One sister

Today we resumed work on our 'Three Sisters' bed.

The black plastic sheeting was rolled back and we found the ground below to be remarkably free from weeds.

Four sweetcorn plants were planted in seven of the fifteen mounds, in a block 6" apart.

The variety we have planted is Ashworth, a traditional open-pollinated sweetcorn. With good flavour and dependability, it bears one or two fat, sweet yellow cobs (12 rows of 30 seed) on short 4' plants, and the tight husks stop insects getting in.

Ideal for the home gardener - not only do many plants make more than one stem (giving you more ears from less seed!) but it also keeps producing cobs over a long period, thus avoiding a glut.

Originally created by Fred Ashworth of New York from a mix of heirloom sweetcorns, it was released commercially in the 1970's.

The seed can be purchase from The Real Seed Catalogue.

The next stage is to put climbing beans alongside each of the sweetcorn plants

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... of Cabbages and things !

The plan was simple : In March, we sowed brassica seeds indoors in trays and outdoors in seed beds and would then decide which method was more effective... but the best laid plans etc. etc. !

The 'permanent' marker we used on the labels was rather temporary and the writing washed off after the first rainfall.

We now had seven varieties of brassica which we could only identify by the last one or two letters. Red cabbage was easily identified by the colour of the foliage and the label showing 'ge'. Purple sprouting broccoli was similarly identified. The others proved more difficult.

In the end we decided to pick the eleven healthiest plants from the seed beds and plant these in separate rows in the bed set aside for growing the brassicas on. We will eventually be able to identify what is being grown when the plants develop.

For future reference, the plants grown in the seed bed were stronger and healthier than those grown in trays... and growing in a seed bed frees-up space for growing other seeds indoors.

So, our plan for next year is :

• In March sow brassica seeds in a prepared seed bed.
• Ensure that they are labelled with a truly permanent marker pen.
• Cover with fleece cloches
• Protect against slug damage.
• Re-plant in May into final positions.
  

I'm looking over...

We put in a decent shift down at the patch today, arriving around 09:00 and heading back home at 15:30.

I have sown red clover along six strips, each strip 24" apart. This is where we will be planting our brassicas. There is some evidence to suggest that brassicas grown within this surrounding foliage will become sufficiently camouflaged to confuse Cabbage Root Fly. This method is often used in organic agriculture. I am just trying it on a smaller scale.

Heather has planted a row of celeriac plants and sown a row of swede in our 'roots' beds.

We have also decided to sow borlotti beans again. After last years crop we decided that the effort was not really worth the returns, but the dried beans have been proving to be really nice in soups and casseroles, so we are growing some up a 'wigwam' and are going to grow some more up and over our mini-pergola.

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big butt....

We spent all day down at the patch. I finally completed fixing the guttering to the shed and connecting it up to the water butt that we acquired. You just know that there's now going to be a long, dry Summer !

Heather has mulched the Strawberry bed with a mixture of straw and leaves and this has been covered over with a net to keep the birds at bay.

Heather sowed another row of beetroot, sowed borlotti beans under a 'wigwam' of hazel poles and planted a row of spinach seedlings.

The autumn onions are developing bulbs, the peas and broad beans are starting to set pods, the first tips of asparagus are emerging and the potatoes are coming along nicely.

It's now starting to get really interesting.


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Allotment Working Party

Here are some pictures from the Working Party held last Saturday.