Autumn review of our allotment

The allotment is beginning to look rather bare now but if you look closely there is still rather a lot going on as I realised whilst I was filming the video below.

The video is about 12 minutes long. If you choose to view in full screen please make sure you choose the highest resolution that your equipment can manage.

I know not everyone is able or even wants to spend time watching a video so here are a few photos. As it began to rain whilst I was filming some of the photos are grabbed from the video so please excuse the quality.

Just a quick glance across the allotment and you could easily assume that there is not much growing on at this point in the year.

If you take the time to look closely, however you may be surprised.

Martyn has sown various types of green manure in a few beds. It could look as though we have let the weeds move in but the growth on the beds shown below is mainly planned (there are a few opportunist weeds). One bed is sown with grazing rye, another with mustard and a third with a mixture of varieties. 

The onion sets and garlic that I planted on 14 September are growing well. 

We haven't grown garlic for a while as it never seemed to do very well for us, however we decided to try again this year and so far it is off to a good start.

The variety of garlic is Casablanca, chosen as it was the only one available at the garden centre. I have conflicting information about whether it's a soft or hard neck variety. I'm hoping it's soft neck as  that is supposed to store better than the hard neck types. Casablanca is supposed be a good variety to grow in colder climates so I'm hoping it survives the winter. I guess that could depend on how wet it gets.

Although the winter onions haven't grown as much, they are shooting. The onions are Radar and Senshyu. I've deliberately avoided the flatter varieties as I don't find these as easy to use in the kitchen. 

We once bought a couple of cyclamen hederifolia, one pink and one white. These were planted in the garden and whilst I can understand that, with the help of the multitudes of ants that seem to be about these days, seeds would have spread around the garden, it was surprising to find them popping up all over the allotment.

We've been pleased with the brassicas this year. We made a conscious effort to do better with the winter brassicas as often these are a failure, This year we got them in the ground earlier and most are doing well. We had to buy some Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants as the ones that were grown from seed were devastated by caterpillars whilst growing on in the garden greenhouse.

The new plants were planted in two different beds which, as it turns out, was fortunate. One lot has, despite being grown under environmesh, suffered  a similar fate as the original plants. The difference was that the original plants were eaten by the caterpillars of the small white butterfly whereas these have fallen prey to large white butterfly caterpillars. The caterpillars have been removed. Whether these plants will recover is anyone's guess but at least the plants in the other bed are doing well. 

We still have some chard, giant spinach, beetroot and swede to harvest. As in previous years I don't think that the swedes have managed to produce the globe shaped roots that I was hoping for. I just don't know where we are going wrong!

The leeks are doing well and just about ready for harvesting.

Most of the hardy annual seedlings that I sowed in September are managing to survive the attentions of slugs. I'm not sure how long they will be able to hold out once the ground becomes wetter. At the moment I am still having to water seedlings.

The parsnips did exceptionally well this year. Germination was quick and it seemed like every seed germinated. The plants have grown vigorously above the ground but until we dig some we will not know how well they have formed  good roots.

After last year's carrot disaster we've been really pleased with this year's carrots. We sowed three varieties, Autumn King, Early Market and Flakee.

So far we have only harvested Early Market which have produced a good crop. The roots are variable as we don't thin them out. The roots are just left to jostle one another aside. The result is that some roots are 'interesting' shapes but we don't mind that. I wonder whether the other two varieties will be as good?

The carrots, parsnips and leeks will be left in the ground and dug as we need them. It does mean that we have some slug damage but we have found that this works for us better than trying any other suggested storage method. We just have to hope that the ground doesn't freeze too hard over winter and prevent us from harvesting.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett