Tag: beans

Summer is finally here

Summer is finally here

It finally feels like summer is here. We’ve been harvesting plenty of fruit and veg from the allotment and took our first holiday of the year to Cornwall.

We managed to have our first dinner where all the vegetables on the plate were picked fresh from the allotment just hours before. There’s something satisfying about knowing where the food comes from and the effort it took to grow it.

We had chicken cooked in sweet chilli sauce, accompanied by a medley of freshly harvested potatoes, courgettes, carrots, spring onions, and sugar snap peas. It went down a treat and reminded us why we love our allotment so much.

Chicken with vegetables from the allotment

Onion harvest

A couple of days before heading to Cornwall, I spent some time at the allotment to ensure everything was in order while we were away. One of the jobs involved harvesting some of the onions. I pulled up half my onions and left them to dry in the greenhouse. There’s something so wholesome about the smell of freshly pulled onions; it’s one of my favourite times of the year. The remaining half was pulled up when we returned from our trip, and they are currently drying out in the greenhouse, waiting to be stored.

Harvested onions

Our Cornish Adventure

Cornwall was a breath of fresh air. We stayed just outside Lizard and spent a lot of time exploring the local area and Cornwall itself. I’ll let the pictures do the talking here:

Mullion Cove
Sunset at Lands End
Fishing Boat at Lizard Point
Lizard Point
Kennack Sands

Back to the Allotment

When we arrived back from Cornwall, I popped down to the plot for an hour; first to feed the chickens and second to see if there was anything to harvest. To my pleasant surprise, the allotment had thrived while we were away. I harvested runner beans, more peas, beetroot (one of my favourite vegetables), raspberries, tomatoes, cooking apples, and some of the onions that had completely dried out.

Another allotment harvest

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time, so I had to head back home, leaving quite a bit still to harvest. This week, I plan to spend more time at the allotment to gather the remaining crops.

 

Allotment Tour May 2024

Allotment Tour May 2024 – Grow Harvest Eat

May started out with hot sunny weather and you could tell summer was on the way. However, the last couple of weeks, the weather has turned and we’ve had a lot of rain. Most plants (and weeds) have loved the rain and putting on a load of growth. Join me in this months allotment tour.

Mid-April Musings Spring is on the way

Mid-April Musings: Spring is on the way

April has brought a flurry of activity to my plot; I’ve started to sow my seeds, and they’ve started to poke their heads through the soil. My fruit trees are in blossom, and the weeds have started to grow. Spring is around the corner. However, it’s taking its time, we have a couple of days of warm sunny weather, followed by rain and cooler temperatures. I’ve felt like it’s been a long autumn and winter, and I really can’t wait for summer.

What I’ve been sowing

I planted my first batch of broad beans into their final positions, and they are looking really well. I sowed a second batch in pots in the greenhouse a few weeks ago, and they’ve started to come through.

I sowed my tomatoes in mid-March. Until the beginning of the week, there was no activity, and I thought none of them had germinated. Because of this, I bought three plants from the local garden center as a backup last week. Oh well, at least I’ve got some spare.

I had sown some peas directly and covered them with glass to aid germination; unfortunately, the slugs have eaten them. I sowed a second batch in the greenhouse using some old drainpipe guttering. Once these are big enough, I can simply slide them into the beds without disturbing the roots.

I normally plant my potatoes Easter weekend; however, we were away in Wales on a short break. So last weekend, I planted them in the beds. I had some left over, so I planted them in large containers. I like growing potatoes in containers; it makes them easier to harvest, and you never miss any. The only downside I find is that they require a lot of watering. This year I’m only growing two varieties; Swift and Acoustic, both early varieties.

I’ve yet to sow some runner beans, courgettes, or sweetcorn. I’m seeing a lot of people on Facebook sowing these, but I always wait until May before I sow them. They germinate and grow quickly, especially in the greenhouse. The last thing I want to do is plant them into their final positions and be caught out by a late frost.

Until next time…

Seeds I'm sowing in February

Seeds I’m sowing in February

It’s nearly the end of February and I’ve got an itch that I simply need to scratch. Seed sowing.

I see a lot of people sowing their seeds as early as January. While some plants take a long time to grow, such as chillies and peppers and need to be sown early, I personally think January is too early for most veg plants.

Sowing seeds early can lead to spindly or leggy growth, poor germination rates and generally, in my opinion, a weaker plant. That said, you can use growing lights and heat mats to combat this. But once the plants get to a certain size, you need to move them on and if you haven’t got the space indoors, means moving them into the garden or greenhouse. The weather might be a little too cold for them and shock the plants.

I prefer to start sowing my seeds from mid-February.

Seeds I’m sowing now

I started some broad beans in little pots a couple of weeks ago and these have just started poking through the soil. I’m growing my broad beans in two beds and will get around 8 plants per bed. So far, I’ve sown 12 plants in total and will sow another 12 in a couple of week’s time. This will give me some extra plants in case some fail to germinate, or they don’t survive.

I’ve also sown some spring onions into seed trays. These will go out into the salad bed when they are large enough and I’ll harvest these in clumps.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll start sowing most of my seeds in the greenhouse. The less hardy plants such as sweetcorn and runner beans will be sown Mid-April. My tomatoes will be started indoors around Mid-March and once big enough, will be moved into the greenhouse.

Looking back at 2022

I realise we’re at the end of January, but I thought I would take the time and reflect back at 2022, and look at our successes and failures.

After moving plots in autumn 2021, 2022 was the first year growing on the new plot. We managed to clear a large bed in time for spring (in fact it covered almost half the plot) and gave enough growing space for what we needed. We kept to our core veg; potatoes, beans, onions, sweetcorn, pumpkins and courgettes.

The potatoes started off well and we managed to harvest all our first and most of our second early potatoes. However, we left the main crop in the ground for too long, and when it come to digging them up in the middle of winter, they had rotted away.

The beans done extremely well, but started to suffer a little during the heatwave. They soon bounced back in late summer.

Our onions were fantastic, in fact probably the best crop we’ve ever had and we’ve still got some left in the cupboard.

Sweetcorn started really well, but we had a few succumb to smut, a fungal disease which affects sweetcorn. Smut thrives on hot dry summers, so it’s no surprise we had it considering the temperatures we had.

There’s one major issue that cropped up in late autumn and that’s rats. Rats have moved in underneath the chicken coop and while we are keeping them at bay with traps, they are still a problem. Fortunately, they seem to be leaving the chickens alone and more interested in digging holes everywhere.

Here’s some pictures from last year.