Forking Carrots!!

Well this is a poor show – I've not written a jot since for nearly two months!! I have been quite busy working (on Saturdays which is my primary allotment day), holidaying, going to watch motor racing and sometimes gardening.

Most of the carrot crop

Mutant carrots

Earwig nest

With most vegetables harvested now I have started reviewing the year, how to improve things and what to grow next year. It may not come as a surprise that I am quite disheartened with things down on the allotment this year. I have been endlessly weeding but it is utterly pointless. When I go back a week later it is just as bad as before. Added to that the crops have been pretty poor, with the exception of the strawberries and runner beans. Many others are celebrating a glorious summer and gathering bumper harvests. I have forked carrots and potatoes the size of grapes! My two big problems were lack of mulch and irrigation. What I need to do is cover the allotment with about four inches of - concrete - no I mean organic matter!! I have looked on line and it would cost upwards of £50 to get sufficient compost to do half the allotment. (I am thinking of the actual worked area bearing in mind that a substantial chunk is taken up by the soft fruit and the shed area.) However there is then the problem of delivery because the truck can only deliver to an area of hard standing not onto allotments and narrow lanes may be a problem! That means that I'd have to find somewhere suitable for the delivery and then ferry the whole lot by wheelbarrow onto the allotment! Maybe I'll just buy bags of compost from a local garden centre as I can afford (I think its 3 80L bags for a tenner) them and take them down in the car. 

Whatever I decide to do I need to do something to try and combat those pesky weeds first. Do I throw my organic principles to the wind and get some high powered weed killer? It sounds tempting but the whole plot was done the first autumn we had it and the weeds came back with vengeance the following spring. Many of the allotment holders smother the weeds with areas of old carpet, although it does the trick it looks unsightly and is disapproved of by the organic community. I need to use something like cardboard or newspaper to cover the ground then put clean compost on top of that (and maybe cover that to stop even more weeds getting in!). What I can't get away from is the need to dig out the tough weeds like dock and mallow before I do any covering because they will just grow through bigger and stronger. What joy. Some new allotment holders have built raised beds and filled them with clean soil/compost which is a good but pretty costly way of combating the weeds.

'Main Crop'

One of the worst crops have been the potatoes; very undersized and full of wireworm. This has meant some very serious thinking about the cost effectiveness and need to actually grow potatoes, especially maincrop, when I can buy large bags of potatoes locally for a reasonable price all year round. At the moment I am thinking of growing only salad potatoes and they will be in bags at home. This will free up a lot of space down on the allotment for other crops. I currently plan to grow a lot of different beans, try again with peas, different squashes, black kale, Romanesco broccoli, onions, leeks, carrots and parsnips as well as asparagus and a large area for soft fruit.

Saved for seeds

You'd better book a taxi Cinders!

Caged Brassicas

It is not all doom and gloom though, up in the greenhouse the tomatoes and cucumbers have done well with steady cropping rather than a glut. However the tumblers in a hanging basket did not tumble and did not produce well. I may try different varieties next year and maybe find room for peppers and aubergines. I plan to put some of the strawberries in there hoping to get an early crop. Hopefully the greenhouse will get a makeover soon as himself has brought home some twin wall glazing from a dismantled structure. Two sheets are quite big so they will replace half the roof and back end then smaller pieces will do the other part of roof (with the vent in) and sides. All we have to do is work out how to attach the sheets to the frame. It will make a real difference to the warmth in there when it is done.

I'm off!!

 
The small greenhouse nearly blew away a few weeks ago – both zips ripped apart and the whole thing filled with wind so I had to remove the cover from the frame, it nearly took my youngest flying off to Denmark as a gust caught it just as I released the last tie. Fortunately the zips were easily repaired and torn ties reattached. The edges are now weighted down with bricks to prevent the wind getting underneath so much.


Soon it will be time to clear the tomato and cucumber plants out of the greenhouse and put the pots in for the winter and start buying and sowing seeds for the next season. Circle of life!