An interlude

With gardening activities being somewhat curtailed at the moment I thought that I would post a short interlude between my gardening summary posts.

There is  a tenuous link with gardening in that relatives of the star of this post often appear in our garden but the particular star in question, which also featured on Martyn's blog on Sunday was on location at a nearby (well fairly nearby) National Trust property - Clumber Park.

The reason we ended up at Clumber Park was a story in itself. We had been in Lincolnshire and after lunch out I found myself in possession of half a bread bun that was surplus to requirements and so we decided to go and feed it to the swans and ducks as we would pass Clumber Park on our way home.

This done we decided to take advantage of the remaining light and have a bit of a wander. The area by the lake seemed to have more than its fair share of squirrels and as we came across one particular individual we decided to try our luck at a bit of photography (me) and filming (Martyn). 

We anticipated that as we started up our respective cameras that the squirrel would make a hasty retreat but as you will see from the photos below this wasn't the case. The squirrel was as interested in us as we were of it and came closer and closer. It seemed especially interested in Martyn's video camera and at one point almost climbed on top of it. Just in case you are wondering we weren't feeding iy but it seemed to be finding some sort of seeds on the path and for some reason found those nearest to us and the video camera to be the choicest ones.

The photos below are just a few of the ones that I took.

Martyn did have a little trouble filming due to the fact that the squirrel decided to come up just too close to the camera. I'm sure it was convinced that we had food for it. It eventually took to the bushes as some rather more rowdy visitors approached.

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

Now for the fruit

Now for the fruit that cropped as expected again I have made some allowance for the weather as to be honest we were really pessimistic about our chance of having a decent fruit harvest.

After the pears failed to produce we weren't expecting much from the apples. Although the fruits were on the small size with quite a few developing rot we managed to gather a reasonable harvest. We are still using apples that are being stored in an old fridge. As is usually the case the trees in the garden produced better fruits than the ones on the plot but then again the ones on the plots are either old and cankerous or quite young. A summary of how each variety cropped is here. The prickly blackberry fedge that has been a feature on our plot for as long as we have had the plot provided us with it's usual bounty and made perfect partners for the apples.

The tayberries produced a mass of fruit but unfortunately much of this was spoiled by the rain which pelted down on it a just the point when the berries were ripening. The fruits seemed more susceptible to rain damage than either the raspberries or the blackberries. This is surprising as the berries seem to be made of sturdier stuff than the other similar fruits.

The blackcurrants provided us with plenty of fruit although there was variability in the amounts being produced by each bush - even those of the same variety. One variety, the earlier ripening, Ben Connan, did out perform the other two varieties. Ebony had a non productive year which I blame on an aphid infestation.

The gooseberries too didn't really produce as many fruits as usual and in general the berries seemed a bit smaller and the red ones out performed the green ones. On reflection I think my assessment of them as cropped as expected is on the generous side.

The last of the fruits in this category are the strawberries. The alpines maybe didn't produce as much fruit as usual but kept up a steady supply. Over all we harvested about 3.5kg. Harvesting started at the end of June and continued into mid October.

Then there were the 'ordinary' strawberries although home grown strawberries can never really be described as ordinary. In many ways the strawberry harvest was disappointing in that much fruit was either spoiled by the rain or didn't ripen. There was also an issue with effective pollination. The perpetual variety Flamenco (with just over 5.5kg) as expected cropped over the longest period, Marshmello (just under 10kg) out performed all the other varieties. Marshmarvel (almost 2.5kg) the early variety didn't produce fruits any earlier than Marshmello and Amelia the late season variety (at less than 0.5kg) fared the worst. Taking into consideration the weather that the strawberries had to contend with, they really performed beyond expectations and maybe deserve to have been placed in the next category up but in the end they have ended up as top of this class!

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

Cropped as expected

Now for the crops that I am awarding a C for Cropped as Expected. 

I had a bit of a dilemma with this category as I had to decide whether I took into account the weather conditions. Did I assess according to what I would expect in a 'normal' year or what I had expected after experiencing the conditions this year? In the end I decided to sort of use a bit of both sets of criteria.

Then I made my list and it was quite long so in order not to bore you with an extremely long post I'm dividing into two posts - one for vegetables and one for fruit.

I'll start with the vegetables - and those fruits that we always consider to be a vegetable like courgettes.

Courgettes actually surprised us as we didn't expect them to do very well in the prevailing conditions especially after some of the plants didn't respond well to being planted out. As it turned out all three varieties planted produced a good crop. Maybe they weren't quite as prolific as in a 'normal' year but that was no bad thing. Can you spot the odd one out in the photo? Well two odd ones out actually. A summary of how the varieties fared is here.

The other fruit come vegetable crop in this category are tomatoes. The varieties varied in performance. A comparison summary is here. I have made a bit of an allowance for the weather and the tomatoes were very slow to ripen but in the end things weren't too bad and we had enough to freeze some and make some chutney and pasta sauces.

Although the first lot of broad beans didn't really thrive - the conditions were poor when they were planted - subsequent planting made up for this with the later planted purple flowered variety cropping well and providing plenty of beans for freezing.

We didn't really expect the French beans to 'like' the conditions that they had to tolerate but in the end they too did as well as could be expected and produced a steady supply of beans with enough to freeze some too. We grew green, yellow and purple varieties which all seemed to crop at a similar level.

Fortunately for us although the spring planted onions were disappointing, those planted to over winter produced a good crop and lasted well. A summary of how much we cropped is here.

The garlic that was planted directly in the ground and that planted in tubs in the greenhouse and moved out later in early spring out-performed that started off in pots and produced more than enough to meet out needs - far more than enough. A summary can be found here. We won't be growing any in pots next year. To rely on that planted direct though could be a mistake with such wet, soggy conditions and so we are also growing garlic in tubs. 

Beetroot has also provided us with a good crop. This year we sowed all of this directly into the ground and didn't thin the seedlings at all. This produced a good supply of small to medium roots which were just right.

Radishes have grown as radishes do with little help from us - we just have to remember to pull them rather than letting them grow to turnip size.

As for lettuces it depended when they were in the ground - the weather spoiled some - probably more than usual but on the whole they performed as expected.

I'm being a bit presumptive as far as the last two vegetables in this category go.

We've only just started to harvest the parsnips but so far so good.

As for the sprouts we haven't picked any yet but the main thing is sprouts have developed which is more than could be said in the past before we started to grow Crispus, a club root resistant variety. I hope that these prove to deserve their entry into this category. As we haven't picked any yet I'm including a photo of the sprouts harvested in January as they deserve a mention having carried over into 2012.

We were also harvesting more sprouts and some of the overwintering leeks and parsnips last year in February.

Let's hope we are harvesting this year's lot into 2013. 

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