Is Spring here at last?

Unbelievably this is the allotment only 4 days ago!!

Today it is sunny - the first sun we've seen for ages - albeit still very cold - little more than 3 degrees centigrade still. But at least I have been motivated to venture outside and sow a few seeds - the first of the year I confess! I've found it so difficult to get going this year in the garden - it has been so wet, then so cold!

What have I sown? Well to start with I've sown two different varieties of Broad Bean into 3" pots of seed compost, watered them and covered them with panes of glass on the staging in the cold greenhouse. I hope the ever present mice out there will not be able to climb up to the staging - and anyway the glass covering will defeat them at the moment. Mice love digging up broad beans - all through the process of germination! Last year I sowed the seeds directly into the soil at the allotment - and lost the lot to mice!! The heater in the greenhouse is set to prevent the temperature going below freezing - that is all. I have given beetroot seed and asparagus peas the same treatment except that I have put individual seeds into 2" square modules in seed trays - and will transplant them out on the allotment in due course when it is warmer up there and they are well hardened off. I also thought it was time I sowed the tomatoes. These I have treated like the beetroot, sowing them into modules in seed trays. But I have brought them indoors and they are on a warm window ledge above a radiator, covered with cling film to keep them moist until they germinate.

autumn tidy up at the allotment

Today I spent several hours at the allotment, mostly in fine misty rain or mizzle as someone called it in the local community stores this morning when I went in for my paper.

I wanted to have a really good tidy up and harvesting of crops before I go away for a few more days - as otherwise I would surely return to a wilderness of weeds. The late summer rain on warm soil has made everything spring to life, weeds included.

Most importantly the grass between the plots has suddenly grown apace, and needed its first cut since the beginning of this dry summer. So this I did. I leave the blades quite high, as this maintains a green sward of grass even in drought. Others cut their grass very short, and all through the summer their grass paths have been brown and unattractive. The cuttings went on my compost heap. Too much lawn cuttings can make for slimy compost but it is fine to add them to the heap along with plenty of other material from the weeding

The beetroot is mostly mature and ready to harvest and store, but the leaves have all developed a rusty coloured mould on them. I am sure it is not harmful - the leaves are beyond the stage of eating in salads anyway - but clearly the leaves are so affected that there will be no further root growth. When i get back I shall pull them all up and hopefully store in a box of sand. It is not good to leave them in the ground for too long - they go woody.

I have found a website (Very edible gardens) that gives lots of information on the beetroot - including growing, storing, cooking - it is excellent - worth following the link for.

Harvest

The plot is probably at its most productive at this time of year. The runner beans are offering their first picking, there is plenty of lettuce, perfect beetroot, courgettes and marrows, the butternut squash are swelling nicely, the broad beans were splendid and the surplus frozen, new potatoes are in full swing and the main crop ones look good. In addition we are eating cauliflower and asparagus peas, and the rhubarb is still going strong.

Not everything has been successful. My carrots have been a disaster this year and I'm not sure why. Perhaps I shall do a pH test and see if that throws any light on their stunted growth. Could I have over limed for the brassicas last year?

But just look at these shallots.

I've never grown them before and this could be beginner's luck! Hard to believe that one tiny "seed" shallot planted only 3 months ago could produce 10 more! Not a bad investment return.
As soon as we have the prospect of a few dry warm days I shall lift them all and leave them for those few days on the soil surface to dry before taking them home to finish off and to store like onions for the winter. I could pickle some. Apparently if the summer has been wet (which this one hasn't!!) then shallots do not overwinter well and have to be pickled to preserve them for any length of time.