Virtual home for Cliff Jenkins
At last the beans are thriving and the tomatoes look good.
All the spare flowers are also making the allotment look good.
So now we start next year.
We have ordered the overwintering onions and shallots. We have been given some local heritage strawberries.
Also we are trailing “Strulch” for keeping slugs at bay.
11 May 2024 on the Allotment
As with the farmers and all other allotmenteers, we suffered a pretty appalling winter, too wet, too cold, no warmth. Just picture s field of mud.
We have resown all the failures and so start the spring with new hopes.
The prime performers so far are beetroot and celeriac, but none of the Mediterranean stuff.
Our polytunel we hope will be our saviour for the tomatoes and peppers are doing well as are cucumbers. Outdoors our beans may be OK.
Colleagues are experimenting with small Growhouses in their greenhouses so we will soon be trying one.
T‘was a cold and bitter spring
April 20th 2024.
We hope we’ve survived and that will all be due to the polytunnel.
We had to plant broad beans there because it has been so wet and cold.
Now we have sown runner beans in trays but then will move them to a cold frame in due course.
Meanwhile the tomatoes seem to be doing well.
To give us more space in the polytunnel the potato bags have been moved out.
We planted outdoors, a bed of leeks and onions and a bed of courgettes, plus six squash (3 Cha Cha, 3 Hokkido.
Next we need to plant out all the companion plants like marigolds and snapdragons, plus flowers such as s zinnias, cosmos, sweet williams. (Dahlias and Gladioli are already done and the first of the snapdragons are clumped in their pots.
Seed SOWING Diary/ Rolling Calendar
For the first time ever I decided to keep a document on my computer which would control what to buy (when) what to sow (when) an (where). This a copy of the document today, 23 Mar 2024.
Some of these are just for fun and many are trials and U am amazed at how many there are.
WS WWindow Sill. CF Cold Frame, PT Polytunnel, O2 Polytunnel
I over stretched myself – again
It all started so easily:
It’s raining again so I’ll have a cup of coffee.
AND there are still some paths to be sorted out!
But then again, the sun’s come out and
Great.
Eight years since I updated this. I suppose it was due to learning how to cope with sight loss and then there was Covid, but we are still here, nearly twenty years on!
Recently we started a U3a Group called “Grow your own, for flavour” So the objective is flavour. The easy way is minimising the time from cropping to eating. Ergo anything picked and eaten at the allotment is a priority:-
Then there’s the challenge of trying to get two crops a year that is growing through the winter eg Aguadulce broad beans, garlics, chard, some brassicas, some onions and shallots, winter leeks.
After that we need crops that will store easily winter squashes, some onions, parsnips , carrots, celeriac, butter beans,
And the cream of the crop, the main summer crops Dwarf French Beans, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, summer leeks, beetroot, courgettes,
Naturally we have on-going battles with foxes, squirrels, mice, birds, slugs, snails, cabbage white butterflies, black fly and green fly.
So what would we have done differently:
All that’s left is to select the right varieties to get the best flavour. I
The first ones on that list are from www.realseeds.co.uk:
“Pink Dreams NEW
Our fantastic new tomato, sent by Cliff Jenkins from seed he got in Bulgaria. Huge – really huge ( over half a kg)- glowing pink fruit with a truly excellent flavour. A perfect balance of acid and sweet, with a subtle smoky undertone; just perfect – this is the one we all rush to take home to cook with after deseeding.
It makes very few seeds, so just a few packets for you to try. Keep your own seed for future years!
‘Cupidon’ Filet Bush Bean
A filet-type, with long slender pods. An exquisite variety that produces a huge number of tender thin green pods all summer, starting early, and continuing cropping well after the others have finished. It has a particularly good flavour used raw in salads. The beans also stay stringless as they get to full size and it makes a good normal french bean, with a particularly good flavour raw.
Sadly, it does not make many seeds and this is unfortunately reflected in the price/packet size – but if you can afford it, it is a fantastic bean.
A special, gourmet early/maincrop filet variety.”
We’ve had our allotment for more than ten years. During the last few years we have added two pear trees and a Victoria plum and a Greengage, our first tree had been a Damson.
Since then we also put in two apple trees and a Yellow Egg plum (for jam making.).
This means that with the raspberries and the strawberries we have reduced our vegetable area to about half of the plot Then you take out the runner bean and butter bean beds and the fuchsia bed not to mention the three flower beds and you’re left with a manageable chink.
Over the last couple of years we have renovated the raised beds with pressure treated boards and fixed posts at the corners so that any of them can have a covering fitted,
It was a poor, cold and wet start to the year and many things had to be re-sown. Hey ho! Harvested everything we wanted to and there was lots of fruit and we were particularly pleased with the Cupidon.
Currently (October 2016) we have leeks, celeriac, courgettes, beetroot, beans, tomatoes, parsley, potatoes, cauliflowers, broccoli and squashes planted.
061111 Rebuilt one of the raised beds; planted onion sets; cropped last lot of potatoes; planted Broad Beans; repaired greenhouse door;. Next job cannibalise two small beds to make a square 12′ x 112′ for three espalier fruit trees.
231011 A few months have swept passed. We’ve given up both of the two ‘five rod’ plots on the new allotment and are just keeping the old – various reasons eg too much watering to do; two different locations; too many weeds!
So we’re running this one down. We’ve cleared all the crops except brassicas, some swede and next years onion sets (already going well), rows of raspberries, apple trees, lavender bed,
One early job is to move the composters (one down, one to go,) and that required tidying up the backside of the ‘old plot’, so one thing led to another…. as it always does, well at least I’ve more or less repaired the greenhouse!. AND as a sure sign of the next year, we have various types of beans drying on the windowsill, plus cucumbers, peppers and chilies.
270711 Well I had a week off, visiting an old friend, and whilst I was away Angie found it hard to keep the two plots going. Now that our son and daughter-in-law are really working their garden, they don’t need any vegetables or fruits from us. We’ve therefore decided to relinquish our new plot.
Obvious;y it’s full of crops at the moment but we can re-organise and release one of the two ‘five rod’ plots earlier. It does mean that we will need to buy and plant three new apple trees at the old plot.
We can release the first area after we have cropped the pole beans, the squashes, potatoes, beetroot and swedes, plus we mneed to re-plant the onions and garlics. This in turn means that we will release the remainder after the onions, garlics and brassicas have finished.
hey Ho!
19th September 2010. Three beds planted with over-wintering onion sets and broad beans. Seeds sown in trays in the greenhouse are germinating, winter cabbage, carrots and leeks, plus maybe some winter lettuce and spring cabbage.
The seeds have all been ordered as well as the potatoes. I think we have a choice of about seven different squashes.
3rd October. Cropped raspberries, first pink banana jumbo squash, plus four Rouges D’Estampes squash, potatoes, cabbage, spring onions, green tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, beetroot, last beans,
20th September. It was a slow start to the year and we’ve had a poor crop of beans. The rest has come good particularly brassicas, courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers,
8 th August. Well it’s been a battle this year. Cold wet soil when we wanted to sow and plant; very poor germination; then down in the south we went into a drought. It hasn’t rained for two or more months, Yes we had a odd spots or two but nothing to write home about.
However … we are regularly eating courgettes, cucumbers, potatoes, beans, beetroot, onions, spring onions, lettuce and the brassicas, leeks, swede and squash are coming along nicely providing we water every day.
We’ve had lots of strawberries, a few blueberries, and lots of raspberries.
Just reporting not complaining as the vegetables we do have are magnificent.
14th June, everything is planted, I think. So the good news is that we’ve started cropping, broad beans, everlasting spring onions, strawberries, garlic, so now it’s just a question of keeping the weeds at bay. And watering when the weather goes dry.
18th March, all the potatoes are in, as are the onions and some sweet peas, almost all paths weeded and extra chippings put down.
4th March The first of the potatoes are in; the spare broad beans sown in the greenhouse have been planted out; the Cupidon dwraf french beans have been sown and the spinach planted out. Ten trays of vegetable seeds have been sown.
20 January. All the trees have been planted and wind protection set up and the spinach is progressing well.
14 January 2010. What a start to the year. It’s almost bad enough to throw in the towel. But the New Year HAS started – I’ve finally ordered the potatoes and onions sets; the new fruit trees have arrived; and we seem to have enough seeds. We ‘re particularly looking forward to trying the Pink Banana and the Pink Ballet squashes.
So we’ve started.