Digging & Dreaming

Glorious Garlic

There is something inherently comforting about the process of planting, growing, picking and eating garlic. As a grower it is a relationship you can be sure of. One where you know exactly where you stand. Getting to the end of the harvest that was picked in 2012, this year's harvest is drying off nicely and the bulbs that will become next year's are in a bag waiting to be taken to the allotment and be planted. It's a cycle that is straightforward and reliable, serving as a robust and reliable foundation to the growing year.

Amidst the complexity of growing many different things with wildly varying needs, garlic is a constant. It simmers awy in the background requiring minimal attention, then rewards you with a cupboard full of delicious bulbs to flavour your food through the winter, and beyond into the hopeful, exhaling days of spring and the long luxury of summer. And planting it now in autumn is a clear indication of the end of the growing season, but an end marker with confident anticipation of the following summer when fresh young garlic will be picked as the allotment's abundance reaches its pinnacle.

If you want to have a go at growing garlic it prefers a position in full sun with a well drained, light soil. The bulbs will not tolerate water logging so dig in plenty of organic matter like compost or well rotted manure before planting. This will also keep your garlic fed as they are quite nutrient hungry!

Carefully split your bulbs into individual cloves and plant each clove 2.5cm below the surface of the soil with the pointed end facing up (so the bulb sits just below the soil surface). Plant each clove 10cm apart and in rows 30cm apart. You may find birds are tempted to pull your garlic out of the ground when it is freshly planted so it can be a good idea to cover the area with netting after planting.

If you live in a particularly cold area or your soil is heavy then plant the cloves into module trays during the winter. Fill the tray with multi-purpose compost and place one clove 2.5cm deep in each module; covering the cloves with more compost afterwards. Garlic needs a cold period to grow successfully so place the module tray in a sheltered position outdoors. Garlic grown in this way can be planted out to its final position in the spring when the cloves have sprouted.

How Many Chilli Peppers Is Too Many Chilli Peppers?

Chillies are a great crop to grow and certanily one of our favourites here at Organic Allotment. The thing that we really like about them is that, if you plan things and preserve things correctly, there's no reason that you can't be self sufficient in them. Imagine that... never having to buy a bland and disappointing chilli from a supermarket ever again? Pictured above are some fiendishly hot Venezuelan peppers we grew last year and dried at the end of the season that should keep us going until summer when this year's crop will be ready. The other good thing about drying chilli is that, unlike some crops, the drying process can actually improve the flavour of the pepper meaning there is no sacrifice of taste in eating them dried rather than fresh.

These factors combined probably explain why I've gone a little crazy planting chillies this year. The seeds were planted a few weeks ago as you really need a good long season to get them to fruit and ripen in time in summer. The seedlings should be ready to be potted up in a couple of weeks then moved on to the greenhouse in early summer when the last chance of frost has passed - you could probably get away with moving them eariler if you have a heated greenhouse though. Here's a list of the different chillies we're growing:

• Sunnybrook, Dulce Italiano and Marconi Rossa are all sweet peppers. I have had less success growing these in the past as the weather had tended not to be warm enough to ripen them to a sweet red. However, the results are so good when they do ripen that I always make space for a couple of sweet pepper plants every year.
• The Cayenne pepper seeds I'm planting were given to me as part of a seed swap last year. They are famously hot and pungent peppers taking their name from a river in Guyana. They are well known as a high-yielding variety and are perfect for drying.
• Purple Venezuelan grow on a plant that is almost entirely purple (including the leaves that have a lovely purple tinge). The final chilli is medium in heat but also has a pepper taste not disimilar from the Szechuan Pepper that is common in North Chinese cookery.
• Bartletts' Bonnet is an unusually shaped pepper that looks almost like a squashed bell. It is also very unusual and I have only seen it available on the brilliant Real Seeds website.
• Nigel's Outdoor is from Real Seeds as well and is unusual in being one of the only chillies that will tolerate growing outside in the UK.
• Early Jalapeno are a classic chilli that produces medium green bullet shaped fruits. The seeds are easy to get hold of and the peppers are the kind that are typically used in Mexican cookery.
• Bialka Shipka is a rare Eastern European hot pepper that tends to be light green in colour before it ripens and that is fiendishly hot.
• Ring o' Fire is one of the most popular hot peppers for home growing. It is no dissimilar to Cayenne and can be bought from the Organic Gardening Catalogue.
• Padrón peppers are one of my absolute favourites as they remind me of many happy visits to Spain. There these small green peppers are served fried with olive oil and sea salt. Most taste sweet and mild, though some are particularly hot and spicy, so eating them is a kind of culinary Russian Roulette.

So that's an idea of all the peppers we're growing this year. I'd love to know what fellow growers have currently got in their propagators and greenhouses. And if you haven't planted your own peppers yet don't despair. It's a bit to late in the year to plant any now but there are plenty of great nurseries selling chilli plants so it's still possible to spice up your growing season.

 

Day 11 - Saturday 19th November 2011, INIFAT

Another great Cuban day. Hot again but with a wind that made the heat much easier to deal with. The day started at INIFAT with a great session on saving seed from Maria Benitez. The session was particularly good as the majority of the practice I was learning about was transferable directly to the UK. Hurrah!

María began her seminar with the statement:

“La semilla es el principio y el fin.” – “The seed is the beginning and the end.”

Seeds - the beginning and the end

She carried on with the fact that vegetables grown from seed represent one of the most important food sources in the world. With a seed being defined as a concentration of life and a method of reproduction, multiplication and diversification of species, that conserve genetic information and maintain species and varieties for the future.

We discussed the way that if you control seed supplies you are able to also control a great deal of global agricultural practice – which is what has been done by companies like Monsanto and other large multi-nationals. It is for this reason that INIFAT have done a lot of work around seeds as if people are able to control their own seed supply and production they are also able to take a much more meaningful supply of their own food chains. They have also done a great deal of work developing seed stock that is specifically suited to tropical conditions, whilst also paying respect to the work of local campesinos who have played a crucial part in the maintenance of local species that are essential to long term food security.

Cuban National Seed Lab

The final part of the seminar was a visit to the seed lab within the main INIFAT building that is a national resource in the development of seed stocks in Cuba. This visit was fascinating on a number of levels. Firstly it was amazing to see how dilapidated the INIFAT building was. The building itself was a beautiful colonial structure that was originally a hospital and that was built around a central courtyard that is now full of palm trees. As María pointed out, the building was now almost impossible for them to maintain as they do not have access to the necessary financial or physical resources that would be necessary to do so.

The seed lab itself was something quite amazing. Obviously it was a functional lab, with world-class work being developed there, but the room itself looked like it could have been lifted straight out of the 1950s. And that is a predicament that is kind of reflective of lots of aspects of contemporary Cuban life. Beautiful 1950s furniture is held together by Cuban care and inventiveness, hard work and good fortune. Furniture that would have been discarded in any other part of the world and replaced with something newer, that would now not have the historical value that many of these 50s pieces would have in any other part of the world.

Take the Cuban National Seedbank that is also hosted at INIFAT and that is another great example of the Cuban determination to get things done despite the challenges that they face. Typical to seed banks anywhere in the world this is a temperature controlled facility. In Cuba this means refrigeration in order to maintain a temperature between 2*C and 5*C – in reality this means a big walk in fridge like you’d get in the storage area of a supermarket. Obviously electric is essential to do this, but the supply at INIFAT is not reliable enough to maintain a consistent and guaranteed supply. The rise in temperature that a loss of electricity would cause would be disasterous for the seed collection so, in order to minimize the risk of this happening, the facility is joined to the electricity supply at the international airport 3km away. There may be days when INIFAT and Santiago de las Vegas will have no power but it would have to be a pretty dire situation for the airport to have none.

And on the subject of energy, once again talk returned to the theme of the Special Period and how much it had changed the life for people in Cuba. Now life was so much more difficult for many people as a direct result of the changes that had taken place as a result of this period in history. The unreliable and fluctuating energy supply was a perfect example of these changes. Frustratingly Cuba would be an ideal country for all sorts of solar energy but lack of resource internally and support internationally make any kind of investment in this kind of development virtually impossible.

After the seminar a group of us went to visit the house of María to have a look around her beautiful roof garden. Like Marisol, María lived very close to INIFAT but her 1950s, Florida style flat in a gorgeous two storey buliding was a very different experience to the flat that Marisol and her family were living in on the outskirts of town. To get into María’s house, which she shared with her father, eldest son and daughter-in-law you climbed graceful stairs to a plant filled, first floor terrace. From there you went through the front door into an airy and spacious flat. The space was snug for the number of adults living there, and would certainly be very tight if María’s son decided to have children, but it was well designed and well maintained and certainly looked like a pleasant enough place to live.

To get to María’s roof garden we had to got out to a further terrace where there was an outdoor sink and area for washing and drying clothes, and cooking that was typical in Cuban houses. From there we took fairly death defying steps, that would have been thoroughly unsuitable to anyone with vertigo, up onto the  beautiful roof terrace.

Gorgeous and productive roof garden

On the flat roof of the building María had used scaffolding poles to build a surrounding structure which is covered by netting to stop birds getting at the plants and to take some of the strength out of the rays of the sun. She had even covered the central area with sheets of cardboard to ensure that the table and chairs up there were suitably shaded from the heat of the day. In this relatively small space María had an aviary for birds, a number of cages for to keep rabbits for meat and animal manure and beds and beds of plants including edibles like lettuce and cabbage and a whole variety of ornamentals. Alongside this there was an area to collect water and to make compost. María also explained that the only time she had to move things off the roof was when there was a possibility of hurricanes – then every single thing apart from the heavy metal frame was dismantled and moved to the safety of the downstairs terrace. The garden had survived more than a couple of hurricanes so this was clearly a system that worked. It was a gorgeous little garden so it was no penance to have time to sit up there, relax and enjoy the space.

As we sat up there the group started talking about our planned trip to Varadero the next day – in case you don’t know Varadero is one of the most famous beach resorts in Cuba and is the place that many visitors experience when they spend time on the island. When María was asked if she had ever been to the resort she said yes, but only with a group of visitors to INIFAT as part of her job and never with her family. She explained that the problem for Cubans with this and many other things is transport, which is either very expensive or non-existent. Our group would, of course, travel to the beach in a fancy air-conditioned coach but this was not the type of experience afforded to the average Cuban who would have to attempt to get at least three different buses in order to travel from Santiago de las Vegas to Vardero up on the Northern coast and well over 100km from INIFAT.

Then conversation moved to Tropicana that is in Havana and is thought to be one of the oldest night clubs in the world. Kind of like a Latin American Moulin Rouge. Some of the group really wanted to visit and started asking María questions about this and if she had ever been there. However, a single entry to Tropicana cost around 70CUC – three months wages for an average Cuba. Unsurprisingly, on this basis, most Cubans, including María, had never been there. Another example of the division of access between Cubans and foreign visitors.

After about an hour on the rook we went down to the living room where we learned that it was María’s birthday. She shared an amazing birthday cake with us – the type of big cream cake I had often seen people carrying through the street – and soft drinks. Refrescos as Cubans call them. Then it was time to say goodbye to María and head back to INIFAT for our evening meal.

Unusually that evening there was also a party in our hotel for one of the departments from INIFAT who had just won an award for their work. This meant lots of salsa and a taste of what Cuban nightlife really looks like – not the kind of experience that you got in the fancy bars in clubs in Havana and other tourist resorts, that’s for sure.

Growing Food in Small Spaces

As Spring is now just around the corner lots of people's minds turn to the possibility of growing their own food. Drawn to the ever appealing notion of allotments and smallholdings, and fired onwards by the programmes that are now all over the television and radio about growing your own, people dream of getting out there, getting their hands dirty and having the pleasure of eating delicious food that they have grown themselves. The problem for lots of people, a number of whom have contacted me on this blog, is that they don't actually have a great deal of space to grow in. They aren't lucky enough to have an allotment to call their own so may be grappling with the teeniest of spaces within which to grow.

Does this sound familiar to you? Are you an aspiring smallholder but only have access to a miniscule fourth floor window box? Well don't despair because I am a great believer that it is possible to grow a decent amount of food even in a seemingly impossible spaces. So, on that basis, this is the first of my guides to Growing Food in Small Spaces. I'll start by giving you some tips on how to plan your space, no matter how humble, and in the coming weeks will follow with specific tips about crops you may be able to grow successfully and fun planting styles you can use to get the best out of your space.

With regards planning how you want to use your space, this is even more important when you don't have so much to play around with. On a big allotment you may be able to throw in a bad of this or that willy nilly but if you've only got a small back yard to deal with you need to make sure you're making the most productive use of every inch as is possible. Bearing that in mind here are some hints to get you started with making a plan for your own mini-farm.

• Start by thinking of what wants and needs you have from your space. These aspirations and necessities should form the basis of the design that you go on to create. For example, you may want to produce salad crops and also to have an area to sit outdoors and eat, but alongside that you may need an area to store your bike. At this point think big about what you want to achieve - your space may not be able to deliver all of these wishes but it is important to give even the wildest fantasy some consideration in your thought process!
• Next think about the features of the site that you are working with. Which direction does it face, what already exists there, how does it work in relation to your neighbours...? Try and think of every detail that you can at this stage and add it.
• Then take some time to think about all the potential yields from your site. Some of them will be physical things like edible crops, herbs, flowers...etc... But some may also be more abstract ideas such as relaxation, tranquility, privacy...
• It is also worth considereing the potential risks on your site as these could be a hinderance in getting what you want out of it. For example the soil fertility may be low, or noise from a busy road nearby could be audible in your green haven. If you list these things and acknowledge their existence it makes it easier to consider how you may deal with them in your design.
• Finally, make a list of plants that are already in the space that you would like to stay in your new design. Alongside this create a list of the plants that you are intending to grow.

There you have it. You should now have five different lists encompassing - wants / needs, site features, potential yields, potential risks, and plants. The next stage is to draw up a plan of your space using this information as the starting point.  And I'll tell you more about how you can start to do that next time.

Getting In A Pickle

I love eating capers and, despite trying on a number of occasions, I have never managed to grow them here in the UK. However, several different people have told me that it's possible to make an alternative to capers by pickling the seeds from our own nasturtium. As I have nasturtiums growing all over my plot that normally seed like crazy I decided that I could afford to sacrifice a few of their seeds to an experiment in pickling.

First stage of the process is picking the seeds. You need to take these off the plants when they are fresh and green. Try to take the ones that are as young as possible. Certainly avoid any that have already fallen from the plant as the likelihood is that they are already too old and tough to be pickled.

Once they have been thoroughly cleaned your seeds need to be soaked in brine for 24 hours. To make the brine you need to add 50g of salt per pint of water - you will need to make enough brine to cover all the seeds that you have cleaned.

After this your seeds need to be rinsed and packed into sterilised jars and covered with boiling spiced vinegar. I spiced my vinegar using garlic gloves, pepper corns and bay leaves but there are plenty of other options out there - take your pick based upon your taste preference. As soon as the seeds are covered the lids of the pots need to be sealed. Then all that you need to do is leave the jars for three weeks to mature then they're ready to eat. It really is as simple as that!

My first batch are just about ready so I'll let you know what they're like as soon as I've tasted them.

The Power of Polyculture

Monoculture is bad news and that's a fact. Take nature as a perfect example... You don't tend to see plants growing on their own in natural settings. Instead you're more likely to find mixtures of plants growing together in groupings that benefit each other, thus providing the best environment for each different species to flourish. However, when you look at agriculture and growing on all scales there rarely seems to be space for this kind of diversity. Plants are grown together in large, single species blocks that leave them more prone to disease and attacks from pests and can also leave the soil prone to depletion in specific nutrients depending on the crop that has been planted there. Even in organic gardening where companion planting is used the focus is placed upon single crops intermingled with beneficial crops rather than the kind of happy and healthy poly-culture that is more common in nature.

This is style of cultivation is key to Permaculture and is perfectly exemplified in the traditional kitchen garden with mixed beds where every plant plays a specific part in maintaining the health and well-being of the garden. I've always been interested in growing in this way but it's only been in this season that I've really been brave enough to experiment with poly-cultures on my plot. As much as anything because my allotment is on a pretty old school site and I didn't want to rock the boat too soon after taking my plot on.

The bed in the picture is one of my favourites on the plot at the moment and is a great example of poly-culture in action. Leeks are dotted around surrounded by carrots, with the oniony scent of the leek acting as a deterrent to carrot root fly. These two crops are intermingled with lettuce, mizuna and beets all of which were planted through casual broadcast of seed meaning they have come up where they feel most comfortable themselves. There are also a couple of Swede which were intended to keep the rabbits occupied and prevent them eating more valuable crops (they LOVE swedes you see) However, much to my surprise, the swedes even seem to have been protected by this way of planting with the bunnies taking a nibble of the odd leaf but not decimating the whole crop like their did last year.

The whole bed is topped with three tomatillo plants that offer light shade with their glorious, arching branches and that seem to appreciate the soft, well cultivated soil that the other crops are also enjoying. So far the signs seem to be good with high yields and healthy plants. And the other added benefit? The bed looks absolutely gorgeous to look at which can never be a bad thing in any garden as far as I'm concerned. It'll be poly-culture all the way on Plat 45 next year, I can tell you!

To Water Or Not To Water?

On days like the one pictured above where I was imprisoned in the greenhouse by torrential rain it's hard to imagine that anything ever needs watering at the allotment. Of course, this isn't true and it only takes a day or two of sunshine for plants to need a drink. I have to say that on the whole I take a tough love approach on our plot and only water when absolutely necessary in the the belief that most plants do better if they're allowed to find water for themselves. And if your soil is high in organic matter and you mulch whenever you can you'll be amazed how much moisture the soil will retain even in the hottest weather.

Despite this there are some things that definitely need an extra drink from time to time. For example, all the plants in the greenhouse need watering at least once a day. Twice on a really hot day. In addition to this all seedlings need to be well watered when they're planted out until they're well established. Don't be tempted to leave them to fend for themselves too early as any weakness at that stage in their development will leave them more vulnerable to attack from slugs and other pests. You may also find that if the weather is particularly dry potato, onion and garlic plants won't reach their full potential so it's worth giving them a good drink if this situation arises. If you do need to water any crop outdoors you're always better to give them a really good soaking once or twice a week rather than a cursory dribble of water everyday.

One thing that can cause some degree of controversy on our plot is what time to water. I'm of the argument that on the whole you're better to water in the morning so that the water warms up as the morning sun warms the plant. I also always try to use harvested rainwater as it will have warmed up where it has been stored and be much kinder to the plants. My partner in gardening crime however is of the opinion that watering in the evening is the better bet as the plants will have the chance to absorb more of the water before it is evaporated by the strong morning sun. What we both agree on is not to water at the warmest part of the day and to always water the roots, trying to avoid wetting the leaves if possible.

So there you go... My simple, or not so simple, guide to the practice and politics of allotment watering! To water or not to water? Morning, evening or not at all? I guess that is the question...

Plenty Left To Plant

Even though the growing season is now in full swing don't despair if you haven't planted everything you'd hoped to - there are still plenty of seeds that are more than happy to get going at this time of year. The Mizuna seedlings in the picture above are just one example. These mustardy oriental greens can be eaten raw in salads or steamed and are amongst the crops that will run to seed if planted earlier in the year. Now's the perfect time to plant them and if you plant some to grow indoors later in the summer, or protected in a sheltered outdoor spot, there's no reason that you shouldn't be eating fresh greens right through the winter. The same is also true of Pak Choi that actually relish the chance to get going at this time of year.

Another crop that's raring to be planted right now is Florence Fennel. I'll be getting my seeds going in small pots this week with the aim to plant them out by the end of July. They need a fertile, moisture retentive soil and plenty of space between the plants. Planted earlier they're pretty much guaranteed to go to seed but at this time of year they'll grow as quickly as anything and will make nice aniseedy bulbs ready to be picked just before the weather starts to get really cool again in October.

And if this isn't enough for you to get going with, you can still plant beetroots this month and next, it's perfect timing to get winter cabbages and cauliflowers going, swedes and turnips are more than happy to go in until the end of July and you've got at least until the end of August to plant lettuces and radishes. So, what are you waiting for? Here's to another couple of months of productive seed raising ahead!

And The Award for Best Named Veg Goes To...

Last Christmas I was involved in a seed swap organised by Emma over at The Alternative Kitchen Garden. Basically this involved sending five different seeds to five different people, who all reciprocated by sending five different seeds back to you. This meant that when you opened your presents on Christmas day you ended up with twenty five different seeds. Good idea huh?

The great thing about this was that some of the seeds that I ended up with were really unusual and certainly not things I would necessarily have bought myself. One of these was the beautiful little plant you can see growing in the picture above - the wonderfully named Achocha Fat Baby. This is a vegetable that is originally from South America but is surprisingly suited to our variable summers here in the UK. It is supposed to taste like cucumbers when it is used raw in salads but when it is fried it takes on a flavour much more similar to green pepper. One of the main benefits of it is that is much easier to cultivate successfully in the UK than pepper plants and also generally more productive.

I started these off in the greenhouse about four weeks ago and now that the weather's warming up I'm planning to move them outside in the next couple of days. Especially after the warning that when grown inside they can be real bullies and take over everything! I'll let you know how they get on as the season progresses. And if you want to have a go of growing some yourself next year you can buy seeds from here.

A Splash of Colour

Although vegetable plots and allotments are essentially functional spaces I am a great believer that they should also look beautiful. Of course, beautiful can, in turn, also be functional but I'll come to that later...In my search for the perfect horticultural aesthetic I've developed a few different strategies over the years to try and make my plot as gorgeous to look at as the produce is to eat!

The first thing I do is try to plant in a way that is as relaxed and informal as possible. In practice this means mixing different crops together in a patchwork of colour and texture and avoiding planting large blocks of one crop on its own. For example, I love planting things of different heights together to give a real interest in levels, meaning you'll frequently see lettuces growing at the bottom on bean poles on our plot. On a practical level this way of planting also helps protect crops against pests and diseases as plants that are not planted in large, mono-cultivar beds seem to be much less prone to attack. If you want to know more about tried and tested planting combinations that will help keep your plants happy and healthy I suggest you take a look at Bob Flowerdew's Complete Book of Companion Gardening which is an absolute mine of information on this subject.

My pursuit of all things beautiful also means that you're always going to find lots of flowers growing all over the plot. Some of these are purely for show like the tulips that are in full bloom at the moment, a number of which may also end up as cut flowers in the house. Others are also great companion plants that play an essential role in attracting beneficial insects to the plot and having a key part in protecting our crops from attack - again Bob gives bags of advice on what to plant where and when.

Some of these companion flowers are perennial plants that come back year after year, but the vast majority are annuals that need to be planted each season. If you haven't planted any already, now's a perfect time to do it. And here's a selection of some of my personal favourites.

Cosmos is an absolute beauty that will flower for weeks on end, with large flowers that bees love.They vary in colour from pure white to bright pink and their loose, relaxed flowers look wonderful as a cut flower.

French Marigolds are one of the easiest flowers to grow. Their leaves have a delicious, distinctive smell. They are known to repel soil nematodes and whitefly from tomatoes.

Nigella Love in a Mist has both flowers and seed heads that make excellent cut flowers. Sowing them near or in carrot seeds is believed to keep the crop free of carrot fly.

Pot Marigolds are the queens of companion planting. They attract bees, butterflies and hoverflies. If you let them go to seed each year they are also happy to spread themselves all over, popping up as the weather warms up in Spring.

So, there's a couple of my favourites. Any I've missed out that are absolute essentials on your plot?