Organic Allotment

Keeping Up With The Neighbours

It's all starting to get busy now with loads of seedlings on the go and all the beds nearly ready to be filled with plants. It still feels a bit cold to plant seeds directly into the soil though so everything is being started off in the greenhouse or on window ledges at home. These beetroots were planted a week or two ago and they're coming on brilliantly. I've planted them up in paper pots which they'll be left in until they're a bit bigger and ready to go in the ground - this is perfect because beets hate having their roots disturbed.

When it comes to growing stuff one thing I learnt last year is that my allotment neighbour Brian knows alot more than me, so if he's planting something it probably means it's the right time to do it! This means I'll be keeping an eye on what he's upto on his plot and what he's planting - it's one of the facts of allotments that the old hands on any site are likely to be able to give you more relevant knowledge than any book that you can read. They're not always right but if they've had a plot for 15 years they tend to be on the right lines and asking  advice is a great way to get the know other people on your site - which comes into its own in the summer when you can swap produce with you new found friends!

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb

The rhubarb bed is coming on a pace now that the weather is warming up. I'm not a great fan of it myself but I've got enough family and friends who love eating it to warrant keeping it on the plot. It offers good cover next to the pond that the frogs, toads and newts really appreciate but the plants can get a little unruly towards the end of the season and need to be kept in check to stop them spilling out and blocking the paths.

The leaves of rhubarbs are supposed to be good for making an organic insecticide though I haven't actually tried this myself. Joy Larkcom has also got some suggestions about doing this in her book, Grow Your Own Vegetables, which is the essential day to day reference book on my allotment. Be careful though because the leaves contain oxalic acid which can also poison friendly visitors like bees.

A Bit of Colour

All the spring flowers are in full force on the allotment at the moment. These are in the big flowerbed that is at the front of my plot and is presently dotted with primulas, like these, crocuses and daffodils, and the tulips won't be far behind.

Aside from this bed I grow flowers all over the plot partly because I love colour but also because companion planting is crucial in any organic garden. If you want to have a go you won't go far wrong by having a look at Bob Flowerdew's book which is a veritable companion planting bible. It's also brilliant to be able to pick fresh flowers for the house and, if your planning is good, you can have some available for most of the year. Sarah Raven is an expert on growing flowers for cutting and her website has loads of tips and ideas to get you started.

Worth the Wait?

Just as I'm thinking about planting some purple sprouting broccoli for next spring this year's batch is finally ready. Of all the veg you can grow this is one of the ones that involves a significant investment of time being a year in the growing. It is also a big plant and needs quite a bit of space on the plot but having said that, once it's in the ground it can be left pretty much to its own devices so isn't at all demanding in that respect.

Last year I started mine off in pots in April on the kitchen windowsill then moved them into the cold frame where they stayed until the peas were finished at the end of summer and a space could be made for them. This seemed to work so I'll be doing pretty much the same again this time.

I also grew calabrese which is the plant that most people would be more familiar with as broccoli. It was pretty easy to grow and is very quick from planting to plate but the problem I had was that I got loads of little spears but no big heads of broccoli. My allotment neighbour, who is a font of all veg growing knowledge, told me this was due inconsistent watering during the hot dry weather so I'm going to have to be much stricter with my regime next time round.

The question is, is it worth all the effort? Well, both calabrese and broccoli taste so much better when you've grown them yourself so I'll be trying both again this year.

Uninvited Guests

Now that the weather is warming up there are loads more snails and slugs appearing on the plot and for an organic gardener they can be a real pain to deal with. The ice and snow in winter normally kills a lot of the eggs that will have been brought to the surface by digging in autumn, but I'm a bit worried this year because it just doesn't seem to have been cold enough. I've got a terrible feeling that as it gets warmer I'm going to be absolutely swamped.

Both snails and slugs can be terribly destructive but I've got a real soft spot for snails and can't stand to kill them even if I find them munching through some prize produce. So what's my answer? My plot backs onto some woods so I just collect them all in a bucket as I find them and put them over the fence to fend for themselves. I have to admit that I'm not so fond of slugs but even they just get evicted rather than exterminated and, as they make a juicy snack for the toads and newts who inhabit my plot, I've got to leave a few hanging around to keep them happy.

I've come to accept that slugs and snails mean that there are some things that I just can't grow at the allotment. They love salad leaves so they've been shifted to the back garden where I can keep a closer eye on them - they're better closer to the kitchen anyway so that we can pick them when we want them and they're fresh as possible. Spinach is a no go as well and I tend not to plant anything straight into the ground but I've found that if plants are big enough and strong enough when they're put outside they can usually put up with a certain amount of nibbling.

A Hop, Skip and a Jump

I was browsing through a book by Lawrence Hills and came across a little section about spent hops and how useful it can be for the organic gardener, especially as a mulch or activator for compost. So, imagine my glee when I spoke to a friend on the phone who had claimed a couple sacks of the stuff for me from her local pub, who also happen to have their own micro brewery.

Hops are like legumes in that they fix nitrogen so they give a really good feed to a plant when they are used as a mulch. I researched a little further and found that they are perfect for currants, fruit trees and other berries so all of my blackcurrant bushes have been given a hefty portion to set them up for the year ahead. I also put a pile into each of my composters to get things moving along a bit more quickly in there. From a practical point of view it's really user friendly because it's nice and clean so you can just dive into the sack with your bare hands and it smells beautiful. Another added extra is that the little birds really like pecking around in it for a feed as it dries out and more birds can only be a good thing.

For me hops is a really attractive plant when it's growing but I've been wary about giving it a try because the plants can be very unruly need up to 5 metres to climb up, but I've managed to find a dwarf variety which will be better suited to a small garden or allotment.

Signs of Life

It's great to finally have some signs of life on the allotment again after the winter months. Of course the brassicas are all still standing but once the weather gets cold they don't make any real progress so these garlic are the first real sign of spring's arrival. My boyfriend planted them before Christmas so they've been in the ground over three months now, but it's been in the last couple of weeks when they've really started putting on any real growth.

Last year I didn't get round to planting them until well into April and they weren't a great success. There was alot of foilage but the bulbs were pretty disappointing when I picked them - small and just one big bulb with no separate cloves. It's supposed to be the cold weather in winter that causes the garlic to form cloves so we're hoping that the extra time in the ground will have helped them along in this respect. That said, the weather has been so mild this winter, with no more than a couple of frosts, I'm not convinced that it will have made too much difference. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed until it's time to pick them at the end of summer when the leaves start to go yellow and dry out.

We've planted Casablanca and Germidour which are the normal style garlic and are supposed to be reliable to grow in all parts of the UK, with Casablanca having a slightly stronger flavour. We've also had a go a planting Elephant garlic which is the really huge garlic bulbs that you often see in the shops- strictly speaking it's a member of the leek family and not actually a garlic at all but from my perspective as a grower it's just treated in exactly the same way as the other two varieties we've planted. I really love garlic so I'm hoping to have a little more success than last year, and it's such a great crop as properly dried out there's no reason that it can't be stored for use throughout the winter months.