At last it seems the asparagus bed may be taking off. Another large top dressing of seaweed from West Wittering seems to have really helped and new shoots are arriving almost every day now. Perhaps next year there may be enough to safely harvest…
The cosmos has been wonderful, even a bit over-exuberant. Sweet peas & zinnias too.
How poignant that on the 100 year anniversary of the calamitous inception of the Battle of the Somme, this reprieved self-seeded poppy should finally reveal its sanguineous colour.
The allotment judges will be doing their rounds soon so I assuaged my post-referendum bleakness with a weekend of tidying. It’s not so much a desire to ‘win’ – more a sense of wanting my beloved huerto to be looking her best.
Above we have: lettuces ( Flashy Butter Oak Bicolour Oakleaf Lettuce & Red Iceberg, both from the Real Seed Company), courgettes (Romanesco, Bianca, Soleil), Mara des Bois strawberries along with cheery french marigolds and tomatoes (Crimson Crush & Sweet Aperitif), broad beans (crimson flowered & Red Epicure) and asparagus.
The peas and beans are finally taking off and I trimmed the box hedging so it looks nice again, despite what I had feared was blight but now appears to be regrowing. And the flowers are also starting to smile bravely, in between showers (sometimes hail).
The standard gooseberry seems well recovered from the trauma of an overloaded branch breaking, while the quince tree needed a severe pruning to stop it taking too much space – only a few fruit on it this year, due I think to the flowers being badly frosted.
This gallery contains 12 photos.
If you click on an image you can see the detail better. Particularly pleased with the gooseberries this year. And the red sweetcorn is starting to grow…
After such a good start and me feeling all pleased with the peas and pretty birch structures, Nature has struck back in the form of pigeons who have pretty well demolished all the healthy young plants. Windmills are clearly not enough to deter them. So I have put temporary netting over the whole lot and hope this will keep the beaky raiders off while the various peas get properly established. Oddly, they have shown no interest in the adjacent and equally young lettuces which remain intact & growing well.
More happily, the double red sweetcorn seed that I sourced from the remarkable Dr Alan Kapuler has just started to germinate, so I dare to hope that it will succeed healthily in making the leap from Oregon USA to a roundabout in the UK home counties. Treasured marigold seeds also from Kapuler’s Peace Seeds are also germinating well; a variety named Frances’s Choice. I was seduced by its story (from Alan Kapuler’s “Mushroom’s Blog”):
Towards the end of Frances Hoffman’s life, I would wander the garden and pick her a bouquet. She was a lifetime seed saver, horticulturist and plant genius so my eyes were open to the unusual and unique. By the time I had picked several dozen kinds of flowers, I walked down a 40’ row of China Cat MG and saw a heretofore unseen flower, single petaled ie 8 petals, dark red-purple with a gold rim around each petal. I cut the flower and put it in her bouquet and tagged the plant. A few days later, on the phone, she expressed her appreciation for the flowers. Her only specific comment was ‘that’s a right beautiful single marigold’. So having tagged the plant and collected several mature, fertile, seeding flowers. I planted them the following year and got a 40’ row, all with the same flower as I sent Frances. Of particular relevance here is that the seeds from the one plant, now called Frances’s Choice bred true in spite of the layout wherein the one plant was in a direct seeded row of about 300 plants of a marigold mix that upon close inspection can be seen to have virtually every plant different from one another. So we found that most of the T. patula’s breed true rather quickly. This is not true of Tagetes erecta which outcrosses very easily. Frances’s Choice is 3-5’ tall and has 8-9” long stems, ideal for picking for small, distinctive and outstanding bouquets.
With a bit of
warmth things are progressing well, and some nice leeks and psb for supper. More seeds planted today: beetroot Chioggia / Cheltenham Green Top and yellow cylindrical as well as a white variety; two Turkish chillis Urfa Biber & Aci Sivri and Purple Jalapeneo; purple basil (which was wonderful last year); flat leaved parsley and some dwarf yellow french beans, variety Rocquencourt.
The broad beans and various peas are all looking healthy and salad leaves/radishes also taking off. The only pestilential activity I’ve found was a mass of aphids on the roses – my green thumb and finger a clue to their fate…
A dry May Day allowed me to paint the shed; much needed new livery to match its recently waterproofed roof. I’m not sure that the colour is as bonny as the previous blue, but it’s certainly better than the rather tatty algae finish that the winter months had generated. Note also the quince tree, recovered from its frosting and greening up again, as is the espalier apple tree on the other side.
And it’s comforting to see that the pea and broad bean seedlings planted out over recent days are all looking happy and healthy in situ. I’ve also continued with the no-dig method and added a good layer of home made compost to what will be this year’s courgette bed.
Twisting twiggy birch brooms (sound like the start of an old fashioned tongue twister) turns out to be not only immensely absorbing but also rather therapeutic. Hours passed unnoticed as I transformed piles of branches into woven supports for the various peas I currently have germinating – Golden Sweet (yellow) and Shiraz (purple) mangetout, tall heritage pea Lord Leicester and dwarf petit pois Charmette.
The shed roof has been leaking gently all winter and somehow there was never time to fix it properly – until this weekend. Luckily it was perfect weather to let it all dry out before giving it a smart new hat. I had to do some rather alarming acrobatics to apply the gloopy bituminous glue, but got it all done just as the rain was starting. (By the way, the hubcap scarecrow in the background is my neighbour’s take on Jeremy Clarkson; it certainly gave me a fright, if not the pigeons!)
It’s frustrating still not being able to do much, even when the sun shines. The conditions remain such that even walking on the paths leaves my wellies weighed down by clods of clay mud… I did however clear the brassica bed, balanced precariously on a plank; and added another good layer of compost. With plenty of worms. I’m not digging it and intend to grow brassicas there again this year. Radical stuff.
Inspired by Charles Dowding’s no-dig philosophy, and in defiance of my somewhat calvinist nature, I am going to try this method on some of the beds this year. To add to the likelihood of success, I placed an order for 14 bags of organic composted stable manure, to be delivered directly to “my” roundabout. Then the rain came, and more rain and more. So there I stood by the gate at the appointed hour, a dripping Worzel Gummage, waiting for my date with a lorry…
No gentleman, the driver dumped the load without ceremony and left me to my muddy and lonely pursuits. More happily, here’s supper from what I was then able to harvest:
Turning the compost, forking it from one side over the compartment wall to the other is Hard Work, ideal for a chilly day. It was gratifying how many red worms there were, and how effective the results of their activity. I always check before starting that there is no sign of life that I may disturb so was surprised when vigorously forking away to suddenly come upon a perfect little mouse. We looked anxiously at each other for a bit, then I started to remove the slats to clear a gangplank for him to exit by; when I looked back, he had disappeared! Where to was a mystery. So I then had to continue my excavations with a hand trowel to avoid the danger of pronging my little friend. I never did find out where he went.
It’s now too late to complete the extension to the asparagus bed and I had optimistically bought 10 additional bare roots which were clearly not going to survive unless I did something. So I planted them into large containers and put them on top of the newly turned compost where they will be protected until the spring and I can transplant them. Not the recommended method, but we’ll see.
Also cut back the chilli plants in the cold frame and put the glass tops on. I’m happy to have raised from seed (bought in Austria on a skiing trip) three ‘Glockenpaprika’ plants. Now I hope they may survive the winter along with the black Hungarian chilli plant bought at a local community garden sale. Meanwhile, here’s what I brought home – a handful of overlooked Ratte potatoes, a few chillis and the last of the roses (Margaret Merrill?).
Rich autumnal harvest now. Mostly tomatoes (variety Crimson Blush which is indeed – praise be! – blight resistant) and kilos and kilos of quince. Last year the little tree produced just a few treasured fruit; this year, its fourth since planting, too many to count.
The tomatoes make wonderful soup; sometimes with basil, sometimes with chilli. And the quince have provided deep red fragrant delight poached with vanilla, plus a large Kilner jar of quince gin and a good amount of excellent membrillo (see here for the recipe).
The heavy old mower my friend Rob kindly gave to me is becoming temperamental. Today, after 3 wet weeks, the abundant grass paths nearly finished us both off. But the cucumbers have enjoyed the weather and I even managed to harvest the first of the little yellow variety ‘lemon apple’.
The quince tree is completely laden. Amazing to think it’s been there such a short time and last year provided a crop of just 4 precious fruit. I’m looking forward to the fragrant harvest and making membrillo and quince gin (thanks to Beulah for the recipe!). And the apple tree, despite its less than ideal situation, also looks pretty good. Hope the sun continues.
The pink theme prevails despite torrential rain – in the shape of Rose de Roscoff (aka Keravel) onions brought inside just in time and the indomitable James Galway roses putting up a brave show.
By popular demand (well, two kind souls asked) here’s a picture of the whole arch; if I’d been a bit more assiduous in training them, I probably could have got the sweet peas joined over the top instead of growing wildly upwards, ever further out of my reach. The zinnias in the foreground were from seed and just keep on growing in a smiley sort of way.
Meanwhile, after a night and day of rain when I wasn’t paying attention, the beautiful healthy cavolo nero plug plants (variety Black Magic) were reduced to skeletal ruins by the slugs back home… I planted them out anyway and hope they may regenerate. Grrrrrrrrrrrr
The sweet pea arch has now grown to such a height that I can barely reach the newest flowers. It’s hard to believe the fuss I had to get them going, just a few weeks ago. I think it was the ton of compost that eventually helped them take off. Courgettes too.
Huerto 
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