Monday, March 22

A busy week

An improvement in the weather meant that the gardening activity moved up a pace last week.

We managed to spend a couple of afternoons in the garden and the same on the allotment.

First in the garden or more precisely the garden greenhouse.

We planted three crates each with two tubers of Casablanca potatoes. The tubers were planted deeply and will not be earthed up. All we will need to do is give them a drink and when the time is right bring them out of the greenhouse. All very low maintenance. This method produced a good crop last year, although we planted them up in the plot greenhouse and brought them home during the first lockdown.
We sowed some  Sweet Candle carrot seeds into a few containers in an attempt to grow some early carrots.
To give us an early start, each year, we order a collection of early brassicas from DT Brown. Our collection arrived this week and so the young plants have been potted up to grow on in the greenhouse for a while.  In the collection were two lots of cabbages - Mozart and Regency, cauliflower - Seoul and calabrese - Aquiles.

Martyn also sowed  some sweet pea and broad bean seeds.
Martyn, potted up the new dahlias that we bought earlier. The pots have been kept in the garden greenhouse. The older dahlias have been uncovered and placed in boxes of compost and are being stored in the allotment greenhouse.

The garlic that I planted a week or so ago is growing well although we needed to place covers over the trays as mice were digging up the cloves.

Outside in the garden I cut back the ferns in our fern bed.

In the garden, the final task of the week was to sort out the bed in front of the newly erected trellis. The perennials had become worn out and untidy and so we dug them all out and dug over the bed. We then split the perennials and replanted some along with some lupins that we grew from seed last year and a jasmine that was growing in the greenhouse. The remaining plants will be transferred to the allotment where some will be added to the mixed border.
At the allotment it was mainly a case of continuing to clear and tidy up beds.
I weeded and generally tidied the mixed border which is along one edge of our plot. This was to prepare clear areas where we can plant up any perennials that are no longer required in the garden.
Whilst I was concentrating on that, Martyn dug over an old strawberry bed which as you can see from the photo is rough and will need more work to break down the large lumps.

Martyn also uncovered some beds that had been covered over winter with weed control fabric. This will help them to dry out a little quicker before we need to plant them up.

The pace of growth on the allotment seems to have speeded up.
The garlic and over wintering onions are now beginning to grow away ...

... as are the clumps of Timperley Early rhubarb

The Rudolph broccoli is now cropping and providing us with a small harvest.

Last week, at the end of each allotment visit we brought home a very small harvest.
16 March
Our second harvest of the week included the remaining leeks. We needed to dig them up before they started to grow. Most were cleaned, chopped and frozen. Interestingly, the later planted leeks were not spoiled by the brown streaks evident on the earlier ones.
20 March

I slipped up last week and haven't any photos of a couple of the meals where I used our vegetables.

Monday was a vegetable casserole that used leeks, carrot and parsnip along with some green lentils and some leftover swede.

On Wednesday I made a chicken and vegetable casserole in the slow cooker. To the chicken thighs, I added onion, carrot, leeks and some of the very small potatoes that were left in our potato sack. I also added some shop bought celery.
Friday we had a stir fry. I just tend to throw in whatever vegetables I want to use up. In this instance, I had some red pepper and mushrooms in the fridge which were added to strips of carrot and onion. Our frozen French beans, peas and sweetcorn also went into the pan. I added a sweet chilli sauce 'dressing' as we don't use soy sauce. The stir fry was served on top of noodles.

Sunday, I made a turkey pasta bake which used some of the leeks gathered the previous day. I wasn't quick enough to take a photo before it was on the plate.


As always stay safe and well - let's hope all the mass protests and demonstrations haven't affected our battle to get the Covid infection rate down.

This week I'm joining Harvest Monday on Dave's Our Happy Acres blog so I have linked to him this week.

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

22 comments:

  1. I have now got seed sowing envy! I hope to sow some seed this week, but with no greenhouse and losing my one suitable, but too small to share, space to becoming a disinfecting point for groceries and post, I am well behind as usual.

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    1. I'm sure that things will catch up, Deborah

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  2. It's coming to the busy time for allotmenteers and gardeners now, it's good that we've had some nice weather to get some jobs done, and the forecast looks fine this week too.

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    1. It's certainly helped us get on with essential tasks, Jo

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  3. Yes, a particularly nasty demonstration in Bristol. My elephant garlic is looking good and I'm hoping it doesn't get rust. We shall see. I haven't grown traditional garlic this year. My tomato plants are sat on the patio in the sun at the moment, then into the mini greenhouse overnight. Hope I haven't gone too soon! I had to take the aeoniums and sweet peas out to make room, so they are fending for themselves. I bought a new dahlia this year (creme de cassis) and that's gone into a pot. I'm hoping my Penhill Watermelon survived the winter in the ground - it did the previous year. The Bishop of Llandaff usually manages okay in his pot as well.

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    1. I'm guessing Creme de Cassis is purple CJ. I hope all your plants survive OK. We haven't sown tomatoes yet but we are alwats on the late side,

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  4. It's good to see your way of growing the potatoes in crates. I will think about giving that a try here. It's so hard for me to get potatoes in the ground at the right time in spring since the soil is so wet. There's no way I could be forking over a bed at the moment. I'm content with greenhouse chores for the time being.

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    1. We just plant a few like this Dave so we can get an early crop. Some even grow them in sacks or unused dustbins ( is that trash cans in the US)

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  5. Potatoes in bins. What a good idea. Nice harvests for early in the season. I always admire the UK PSB.

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  6. It's always so satisfying, getting into the garden for some clean up at this time of year. I actually have to stop myself from doing too much - I'm dying to prune the roses but am holding off as they may still be subject to cold damage if I prune them too soon. I love the idea of growing potatoes in bins - wish that was a successful method for me.

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    1. I've pruned our roses, Margaret, tradition here reckons Valentines day is rose pruning time but I usually delay a little.

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  7. Lovely to see your onions growing away, it's wonderful seeing things going in the ground. Love that stir fry. Mice are such a pain! xxx

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    1. It is good to see evidence that the season is beginning, Dina

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  8. It's getting busy on the allotment and in the garden now, I've still got some clearing up to do in the garden. My purple broccoli hasn't sprouted yet, I'm wondering if it ever will.

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    1. We still have some clearing to do too, Margaret. As with you I think some areas may not be fully cleared this year. There's always something to do isn't there?

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  9. Ooh, I have such PSB envy. I really hope we manage to grow it well this year! Isn’t it great that things are moving on 😀

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  10. You have been busy Sue - so good to be outdoors for a good part of the day now that the weather is improving 😂 I make a very similar chicken and veg casserole in a pan on top of the hob. So delicious.

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  11. Loving the lifting and dividing of plants in border revamps Sue! Do that quite a lot here :-0 Sometimes I pot up part, or all, divided pieces and store them in my mini garden centre around my potting shed and greenhouse. Then... the next time I'm on a border revamp I go to my garden centre to see if anything there catches my eye!

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    1. Love the fact that you have your own garden centre, Shirley. It’s even safe to visit during a pandemic!

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