Tag: potatoes

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.

 

Spring to Autumn We've missed a season

Spring to Autumn: We’ve missed a season

I woke up yesterday, and it felt like autumn. In fact, I had to turn the heating on in the house. It feels like summer passed us by completely and autumn arrived abruptly.

Plot-wise, things are growing slowly. The cooler weather certainly isn’t helping. My potatoes look okay, but my first early potatoes are a hit-and-miss. Only four plants are growing in the bed, although I planted eight. The second early potatoes are fine though, and all of these are growing. The potatoes in my containers seem to be doing okay, and I harvested some last week for dinner.

potatoes grown in containers

Unfortunately, pigeons have battered my second batch of peas, and most of the leaves have been eaten. I’ve covered them with netting and gave them a feed; hopefully, they will recover and produce a crop. However, my second sowing of peas looks amazing and has been planted out. I start my peas off in some old guttering, and once they are 4-6 inches high, I slide them off the guttering into the bed. It makes planting out a lot quicker and avoids disturbing the roots.

The peas eaten by pigeons
Peas grown in guttering

Elsewhere, I’m glad to report that my onions are starting to bulk up and look really healthy. These were sown in the autumn and put on a lot of growth before winter set in. It’s only in the last few weeks that they’ve started to perk up.

My onions in June

The strawberries I planted in late winter are doing really well. I bought 10 plants off eBay to create a new small strawberry bed. When they arrived, I honestly didn’t think they would do much, but they’ve put on a lot of growth and have started to produce fruit. I really need to net them before the birds and other animals eat them before I do.

I had a little win last week—I spotted the first fruit on my tomato plants. They are tiny, but they are producing fruit. Hopefully, the plants won’t get hit by bacterial wilt like they did last year.

Until next time….

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…

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.

A weird start to summer

June has come and gone, and I have to say it’s been a weird one. Everything was growing so well in May and all of a sudden everything just stopped. For instance, my garlic was doing really well at the beginning of June, and I went down one day, to find they had gone yellow. I pulled them up the following day and left them to dry in the greenhouse

My garlic drying in the greenhouse

Last weekend marked the start of my potato harvest. I started to dig up my first early potatoes, just to see if they were ready yet. I was quite surprised by them actually, no slug damage and also a reasonable size. I dug a couple of more plants up this morning.

I’ve also started to harvest all my soft fruit. My raspberries and gooseberries have done extremely well this year. Most of them will be used to make a summer fruit jam. Yum.

Until next time….

Onion bed

Things are in motion

I finished work early today to try and get down the plot for an hour. It felt nice to get down after work to be honest. My aim for today was to plant out my first early potatoes which I bought back in January from a local garden center, and like every single year, I cannot remember the variety. D’oh!!!!!

Planting potatoes

Most of the seed potatoes were either shrivelled up or really small. To be honest, I think I left them too long on the window sill and I should have really planted them a couple of weeks ago. Oh well.

I’ve still got my main crop of potatoes to plant out, which again, I can’t remember the variety (I do it all the time). These will go in within the next couple of weeks after I’ve finished preparing the bed.

 

While I was at it, I also planted out half my onion plants. I’ll give it a week before planting out the rest, the birds have a habit of pecking off the tops of the plants, so I don’t want to lose the entire crop. These were a bargain, 80 onion sets for £1 from a local DIY store back in January. I wish I picked up a couple of more bags to be honest. Oh well….

Onions