16th March

Potatoes

Starting to plant potatoes – experimental as not sure what is or is not a good variety.
So today its 1st early (already ‘chitted’ (see separate post on chitting!)- the variety is Swift – a high yielding crop.
They will be planted approx 12″ apart with each row about 24″ apart.

August is often the summer month with a great deal of heat, so watering is essential, although there are exceptions, as we all know how much water has come from the skies in Britain for the last few weeks.

Harvest

The harvest should still be producing, with vegetables and fruit for overwinter store. Cauliflowers, cucumbers, runner beans, carrots, celery, French and runner beans, peas, lettuce, spring onions, early potatoes, Spinach, turnips, radish, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, cabbage,courgettes.
When its the joyous time to harvest your potatoes take care to remove all the tubers.If you leave any in the ground, next year you will find that they have sprouted and become a weed which could then bring disease and blight. Fork over a few days after harvesting potatoes because more seem to miraculously appear.

If in the unfortunate circumstance, you find your potatoes struck by blight, remove the haulm, and get rid. If you then leave the potatoes in the soil for about a fortnight to prevent spores attacking the tubers.

Try harvesting early in the day, rinse the potatoes, and if you are lucky enough to get any sunshine whatsoever, let them sunbathe for about 24 hrs to dry and harden the skins.
Place potatoes into Hessian or paper sacks, and store in a cool ( don’t let any frost get to them during storage) If you find any damaged ones use these first, to prevent any rotting spreading to the rest of the crop.

If you get time, empty the potatoes out on a regular basis, probably every 2 weeks to make sure there are no gremlins lurking in the sack. Put a few slug pellets into the sack, as these little critters love to attack potatoes.
Spinach, Turnips, Radishes Spring Cabbage, Lettuce,(you can buy a winter hardy variety)

Green Manure

Once your potatoes are harvested, sow a green manure crop. Mustard is fast growing and is supposed to confuse the potato eel worm into breeding at the wrong time. But do not use if you suffer from club root.

Another fast growing crop you can use as a green manure is French beans.this plant produces a fair amount of leaf and stem plus the roots, as with all legumes, have nodules containing bacteria that fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Free fertiliser as well as organic matter.

About green manure

Ideally your land needs to be free of crops for 6 weeks, or more, and they are particularly useful to vegetable gardeners and allotment holders. They are ideal when sown in the autumn to overwinter, when vegetable plots are generally empty.
The benefits are many. As they grow they form a green carpet that prevents weeds from growing and some have the ability to absorb nitrogen from the air, which is transferred to the roots and released when dug into the soil, giving a boost to the vegetables that follow. Growing a green manure in winter prevents soil from having nutrients washed away by rain or snow, and some varieties have a fibrous root system that helps to give the soil structure. Clover is a green manure that can be left to grow for a year – when it flowers it attracts bees and other pollinating insects.

What to do

• Remove all weeds, and dig over.
• Scatter seeds over the surface of the soil using around 50g of seed per square metre or following suppliers recommendations.
• Gently tap over the surface with the back of a spade. Water in well.
• Leave the green manure to decompose in the soil for up to four weeks before growing vegetables.

August planting includes, Spinach, Turnips, Radishes Spring Cabbage, Lettuce,(you can buy a winter hardy variety) Savoy Cabbages and Cauliflowers

Cultivating

Pinch out growing tips of Runner beans that have reached the top of their supports.

Sorry to keep reminding you of my most hated job, KEEP ON TOP OF THE WEEDS. Even if you can not see any weeds, hoeing actually kills tiny seedlings you have not noticed and helps to reduce moisture loss

Always pinch of sideshoots these take away the nutrients from your tomatoes. My tomato plants look like something from day of the triffids, with only the tomato bearing leaves left on. Water regularly (don’t laugh!!)and feed regularly.

Fruit

Fruits should be ready, once again sorry to repeat myself, but ensure they stay well watered.

Prune fruit trees, after harvesting.

Plant new strawberry plants and pot up runners from established plants.
Pests are always a problem, either in your garden or allotment It is important to remember that if you are tempted to spray something to kill an insect or bacteria, it may be doing some damage to your crop. If you use a poison that kills on contact, you are killing hundreds of thousands of beneficial insects. Aphids and Blackfly are a particular problem. You can control them with pesticides or just wash them off many plants with a strong jet of water. My father swore that using a wash with soft soap will do no harm to the plants,particularly good for greenfly, and will reduce numbers.

Turn your compost to beak down. Water if dry as the microbes need some water but don’t make it absolutely sodden.

Keep an eye on your brassicas for butterfly eggs and caterpillars,usually to be found feeding from your dinners to come under the leaves, if you do not have many pests it may be easier just to pick them off.

What is a Brassica?

The term “brassica” covers a large group of plants that include radishes, turnips, rutabagas, cabbages, cauliflower, canola, rape and kale.

As i have mentioned , this is the first year of trying to grow our own vegetables in the garden. as such we have to research everything, as well as seeking advice form the other allotment owners.
The cauliflowers we have are growing quite nicely so thought we would see how to ‘look after them, as such we produced the article below – hope its of benefit.

If you want to grow your own cauliflower then preparation of the soil is of prime importance.Dig the soil thoroughly, months (rather than weeks) before planting. This is because Cauliflowers grow well in a consolidated soil. Dig some manure into your soil.
Dig deeply into the soil, and make sure the PH is slightly alkaline, or neutral, adding Lime where necessary.

Sow cauliflower seed around 1/2 cm deep in individual seedling pots / trays. After germination place the seedlings in a well lit spot at around 60 deg F.

Seedlings take round about 6 weeks, then should be ready for hardening off before planting out. To harden the seedlings off,gradually increasing the amount of time the plants are left outside and the amount of sun the plants receive.This will take about a week.

Plant out your seedlings 60cm apart and if sowing in rows then space your rows 100cm apart.Apply fertiliser at this stage.To prevent any damage by cabbage flies, place Cabbage Root discs around their bases

Cauliflowers are a cool weather crop. Hot summer temperatures can reduce head development.Ideally cover the head with the plants leaves.Do not let soil dry out, this will produce small heads, you can apply a mulch to help water retention. It is best to harvest Cauliflowers before they reach full size, this gives a staggered crop.

On harvesting, cut them , and leave some leaves around it for protection. If left too long you will see that the florets will have started to open, or even discolour. It is best to harvest them 1st thing in the morning when it is coolest, they are at their best and are very succulent.

To store hang upside down and spray with a fine mist

As we are all aware it has been an usually dry year so far, so i, like so many other people have been waiting for the rain. The gardens all need it. However, because i am overjoyed with the rain in our area (county durham) i am also in trouble with my better half. one of her favorite passtimes is to sit in the garden with a glass of wine and enjoy the sun. Of course it is now my fault because i have been wishing for the rain.

However it is much needed for the allotment and , all joking aside , every gardener is pleased that we are getting some.

Planting – continued:

i have now planted some onions and leeks and more lettuce. as i have said before this year is very experimental , we are planting , digging etc etc all without any experience. We do get advice from the other allotment holders and even free plants. All is taken on board and i am keeping a manual diary (soon to be transferred here) with dates and results – next year this will be the basis of our planning for the allotment .

Thanks for reading

May the first 2011 – where have the last 4 months gone ?
Never mind , i have compiled a list of things that you need to be thinking about for the Allotment during May.
Keep in mind that i am new to this game so , to be fair, my list is compiled from google search, other allotment owners and of course reading the seed packets

It seems that this month gives scope for sowing so many of the vegetables. On my list for the first few weeks i have

• French Beans
• Beetroot
• Peas
• Runner Beans
• Turnips
• More lettuce
• Radishes

The various drills, depth etc are all on the seed packets and a useful tip is that , if the weather is dry, which certainley is in our area  (county Durham) then its best to soak the drill before putting in the seeds.

It is also time for planting the plants that you have , again for me i have

• Leeks
• Onions
• Red Onions

The same principle applies as above ie water the hole that its going into and this will help the plant get a good start.
It seems ridiculous to consider, but , the ‘old timers’ from my allotments are warning that there still could be a frost – so take the necessary precautions.

This is our allotment in West Pelton, County Durham. The our is peter & jackie elliott, I had forgotten to take pictures of the allotment before i started working on it so this is really stage 2. As the image shows it has been tidied up and we have actually started digging and planting. I had hired a rotovator from our allotment society (tremendous value at £7 for the day) and managed to get the plot looking reasonable before the hard spade work starts.

As you can see we have started by working on the 3 (small) raised beds. One has salad produce, lettuce , leaf beet and rocket. The second has peas and the third has a combination of cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower and sprouts.There are also 3 rows of potatoes planted.

Now its a case of more digging, weeding and planting.

I have found, and i am sure its the same with most allotment sites, that everyone is so helpful. I have been offered plants, potatoes even a bag of horse manure and all of this comes wrapped up with heaps of advice. this is my first real year of the allotment and when you are talking to some of the owners who have 30 years + of experience you quickly realise that there is lot to learn.

This will be the controlling website for future websites related to various allotment societies/organisations in the North East of England.
Each society will then have there own sub website associated with this and the purpose of all of these sites is to be a site to visit for hints and tips and general information regarding your own allotment area. The subsites can be used as a notice board showing details of anything from when the subs are due to the next open show. It can also be used when people have spare plants and they can then share this information.

Anyone can subscribe – its free – and after subscribing you can have access to the whole of the websites.
Through time it is hoped that we can link in to the big names of the seeds, plant and garden accessory  companies and hopefully arrange good discounts for all subscribed members.