Monday, January 28

Stocking up and another tick

We somehow managed a couple of afternoons on the allotment last week. What with appointments and the weather that was rather amazing.

We managed to get another two winter jobs ticked off. I managed to tie in the kiwi and finish tidying the gooseberry that had previous been smothered under a thicket of kiwi leaves.
Martyn managed to reduce the size of a laurel hedge. It's needed doing for a while but we have wanted to avoid when birds are starting to nest and usually they beat us to it. The blackbirds and robin weren't impressed but there is still lots of nesting opportunities in the much reduced hedge. The problem is that we now have a huge pile of tough laurel branches, which won't compost very well.

I did a bit of weeding before the small weeds, that had taken a foothold in our wood chipping mulch, sent roots down through the weed control fabric. 

Despite being in the middle of winter goosegrass/cleavers, or whatever you want to call it, was already trying to colonise one of our rhubarb patches  so I cleared that out too. It is certainly one weed that is persistent.

I also cleared and dug a weedy patch at the end of our brassica bed. To say it is the end of January, it dug surprisingly well. 
The same could definitely not be said for another area of the plot. For a couple of years now we have wanted to sort out a particularly overgrown patch. 
A year or two ago, Martyn started on it but had to abandon work when firstly the weather called a halt and then other more important tasks took precedence. Last week he started to tackle the job again and has made a start.
As you can see it is heavy going, we just hope this year the weather doesn't stop us getting the job done.

Whilst we were at the plot we harvested a few vegetables to replenish our stocks at home.
We tend to go through carrots quite quickly so we always come away with more carrots. This time the variety was Flakee. We also cut another Kilaton cabbage. That will mainly be used for coleslaw. These are really solid little cabbages. I peel off leaves as I need them rather than cutting into the cabbage and this way they last for ages in the fridge.

We also harvested what I think is our first ever properly round swede.
It's our one and only round specimen this year too, all the others have cylindrical roots. We've tried different varieties, this one is Tweed which is said to be a vigorous, club root resistant variety so should have grown well. I'm not sure where we are going wrong. Anyone any tips?

At least we can grow round beetroots, the variety of these is Wodan.
We've been busy away from the allotment too. A local garden centre held it's potato day at the weekend, so we went along to stock up on seed potatoes. We can buy the normal sized bags of seed potatoes at any time, but each year we like to buy small numbers of a few varieties of potato to trial.
We bought full bags of, Casablanca, Cara, Kestrel, Nadine, Osprey, Winston, Sarpo Mira and Vivaldi. In the brown paper bags are 4 tubers each of Apache, Jazzy, Rudolph, Premiere, British Queen and Elfe. We had decided to grow the same potatoes as last year, as we felt that last years seed potatoes hardly had a chance to perform to the best of their abilities, however not all those varieties were on offer. Maybe the growers had some crop failures as we did.

As if these weren't enough potatoes, we had already bought some Athlete tubers from another garden centre. These were recommended by one of the YouTube channels that we subscribe to.
We bought a couple of varietes of onions sets - Centurion and Hercules - and a bulb of Solent White garlic from the same place. I'm not sure whether the garlic will need planting now or will last until later in the year. It was bought on a whim as I hadn't been able to find a soft neck variety in our local garden centres earlier. So what do you think, plant now maybe in a tub, or hold off until later?

On top of all that our main seed order arrived.

We've just a few odds and ends to add, Martyn has posted our full list if seeds  to date here . We are going to be very busy once March is upon us.



This week I am linking to Harvest Monday which this month is being hosted on 


Michelles's blog From Seed to Table 


20 comments:

  1. Like kids in a sweetie shop! No room for Rooster then? The Garlic Farm are pretty good for advice https://www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk/growing/calendar Myself, I would get your garlic in just as soon as you get a nice day for planting. (They need exposure to the cold so that they split into individual cloves rather than one big bulb)

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    1. They didn’t have any Rooster seed potatoes in any of our local garden centres, They were on our list.

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  2. Wow - those are a lot of seed potatoes! Do you manage to use the entire harvest yourselves or are they shared with others?

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    1. We share the potato crop with my sister and do usually manage to eat them all, Margaret.

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  3. This is my first year growing swede (rutabaga here) and mine aren't round either, they've been ugly and pointed but they taste great so I don't care. You have managed to get through some onerous tasks, I don't envy you. Not all gardening is fun.

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    1. To be honest we quite enjoy being able to get a bit of exercise gardening during winter, Michelle. We have yet to taste the swede so I hope we are not disappointed. It’s fascinating how we have different names for things - it can even vary in different parts of the UK

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  4. A lot of the swede I grow don't turn out round. I don't know why. I missed planting garlic in the autumn because it had all sold out in the garden centre. I managed to get some weeks ago which is intended for planting in the winter. I have started it off in modules and when it has got green shoots and a root system I will plant it out in the ground. It is outside on the garden bench where it will get the cold it likes.

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    1. I’ll have to hurry and get that garlic in, Margaret. I have some hard necked garlic growing on the plot already but I wanted some soft necked ones.

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  5. I'd been wondering about garlic too. I usually put it in in autumn, but I realise I haven't this year. I had a seed delivery this week as well, hurray. I like to be able to buy small quantities of things to try. There's an old-fashioned garden shop on the high street (definitely not a garden centre) which sells onion sets and all sorts of peas and beans loose, so you can have as few as you like, which is brilliant. They do some potatoes loose as well, and a roaring trade on all sorts of varieties which you can order in advance. It's about as far removed from a garden centre as you can get. Except for the pet food, everything is garden-related!

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    1. Small quantities of potato seeds are very useful if someone wants to grow a few in pots, CJ. The local garden centre sells loose beans and peas too,

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  6. I haven't come across many places which sell small quantities of potatoes. Potato days are good for this and I know Crimple Hall Garden Centre which we pass when we're on the way to Harlow Carr sell them in this way, and I noticed that Wilkos had started selling them loose last year too.

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    1. We have a family run garden centre near us in Middlestown, Jo which is more like a traditional garden centre - think Swillington with a cafe - rather than a department store.

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  7. I would get the garlic in sooner than later Sue so it can get the necessary period of cold. The arrival of all those seed packets must have made you smile. Does your allotment society have a bulk order discount from Kings?

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    1. We don’t have an association, Anna but a group of us joined what was the NSALG and get a discount on our seed orders. We saved quite a bit on our lot.

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  8. Every time I see carrots and beets I mourn the loss this year. I planted late when germination was poor and then the moles so disturbed the ground that I lost all the seedlings. Enjoy your harvests!

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    1. Sorry you lost your seedlings eg52. I hope that you have better luck next year. Last year we lost all our carrots to slugs so I empathise.

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  9. That's a fine collection of spuds. I always look for a potato day locally but have yet to find one. A very March by the looks of it!

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    1. Our local garden centre has just a small one, Dicky. They cook some to try too but the real interest for is is being able to buy tubers loose.

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  10. Love your harvest, especially the swede! I bought my potatoes, onions and garlic this week along with some seeds. I tried to plant the garlic but the ground has been frozed solid all week. Love all your choices of plants to grow.xxx

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    1. The swede was especially welcome, Dina. I'm going to plant the garlic in a tub.

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